“All but a couple from me.” She laid the phone on my leg, but the tremor of my body made it slide off immediately. “What do we do to stop the shaking?” she asked, holding my hand loosely in hers. “Let’s do that right now.”
“I haven’t taken my medication. It’s in the pill case by the sink.” I barely got the words out, and my eye added its tic to the equation.
She disappeared into the kitchen while I laid my head back. Had he really called and texted me that many times? I blew out a breath and closed my eyes against the pain in my head. He probably did, but for one reason and one reason only. His business.
Damn it, Mathias, why did it have to be this way?
Charity reappeared with my pill case in hand, and I dumped out two pills, swallowing them back with the water I managed to hold for myself this time. She had gone back to the kitchen and was making noise, so I stood and went to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and stepped in. Lightning be damned, I was going to rinse the sweat off my skin and put on some clothes. I didn’t linger, but I waited under the stream of cold water until I felt human again, then dried off and pulled on clothes from the rack against the wall. When I took stock of myself in the mirror, it wasn’t a pretty sight. There wasn’t a lot I could do about that right now. When I joined Charity in the kitchen, she was busy heating up food from the to-go containers Kevin had brought me earlier.
Was that only this morning?
I sat in the chair Charity pointed at, and she slid a plate in front of me filled with bacon and eggs, along with a second plate holding pancakes covered with syrup. “Eat. I’ll text Mathias that you’re alive.”
I picked up the fork, pleased to see the shaking had mostly subsided. My right hand was almost back to its normal resting position, and all was right in my world. Well, not all, but at least my body was done torturing me too. While I could use my hand for most activities, my fingers were twisted and pressed against my palm at rest. That was just another thing my parents never noticed happening to me while they were busy doing drugs. “Whatever. He’s only worried about his business. It’s not like he cares.”
I didn’t wait for her response, just shoveled in some food, ignoring her raised eyebrow as she typed. Considering my stomach was empty and I had just dumped a bunch of medication into it, I decided food was smart. I ate even though I wasn’t hungry. I washed the eggs down with some milk and pushed the plate away, my stomach now painfully full. The ridiculous number of whooshes and dings going on between the two of them made my eyes roll.
I walked back into the living room and sat, so I could stare out at the lake. Charity joined me after her lovefest with Mathias. “Thanks for checking on me and for the food, Charity, but my head hurts and I want to be alone.”
Her butt didn’t leave the couch at my request. Instead, she tapped her phone on her hand. “He knows he was a jerk.”
I let my head fall back against the couch. “Wow, shocker. Mathias Jørgensen being a jerk.”
“He wasn’t trying to be a jerk.”
“Well, then he’s advanced in his practice now. He doesn’t even have to try.” My laughter was sarcastic when it filled the room.
“Honey,” she whispered, “it’s okay to be hurt by what he said.”
“Well, thanks for the permission, Charity,” I hissed. When she didn’t say anything, I sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“It’s okay. I can’t imagine how badly it hurt you to hear your best friend say something so rude and discouraging about such a huge accomplishment in your life. I don’t have a college degree, but I still understand how difficult it must have been. Especially when you were working full-time holding up his business while he was out playing. I’m proud of you, Honey. I want you to know that.”
She hugged me and I smiled, patting her back a few times until she released me. “Thanks, Charity. You’re the first person to congratulate me. It means everything.”
She kept hold of my hand when she spoke. “I should have been the second and Mathias knows it. He told us you quit. Did you quit, or were you just upset?”
I leaned forward and rubbed my hands up each side of my nose. “I quit because I was upset.”
“Did Gulliver or I do something to upset you? We thought you were happy with the new office and the new title.”
I shrugged one shoulder without sitting back. “A new office and a new title mean nothing, Charity. I was still nothing more than an assistant to someone who doesn’t appreciate the fact that I’ve always been his assistant.”
She rubbed my back slowly as if she understood the turmoil churning in my soul. “What happened this morning that made you keep walking instead of coming into the office?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, my voice cracking. “I stood in front of the door and noticed my reflection. I asked myself how much longer I was going to torture myself. How many more years of my life I was going to waste being in love with a man I couldn’t have. The weight of that broke me today. I couldn’t do it. Hindsight tells me it was prodrome to the headache, but I guess it was inevitable anyway.”
“I agree,” she said, patting my back before she dropped her hand.
“You agree?” I shifted on the couch so I could see her. “With what part?”
“All of it. I told Gulliver a year ago I didn’t know how long you’d stay. You’ve stayed longer than I expected, to be honest.”
“Why do you say that?” I was suddenly uncomfortable with the direction our discussion was going, but in for a penny and all that.
“I’m a woman, and I understand that it’s the most brutal kind of torture to work with the person you love every day when that love isn’t returned.”
I nodded, my teeth holding my bottom lip for a moment before I spoke. “It is,” I agreed quietly. “You can pretend you’re happy for those hours you’re with them, and even though you know they don’t love you back, you can convince yourself they do. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s the only reason I’ve lasted this long. Knowing that he needed me to stay on schedule and get him to the places he had to be made me feel important. Like I mattered in his life.”
