Chad lets out a snort, and Red hides a smile behind her well-manicured hand. “Babe, look, maybe this is a good thing. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while.”
No, no, this isn’t happening. Not tonight. Not right now.
My life cannot completely fall apart.
“Things aren’t really working out,” he continues. “You and I…we’re just not compatible. I’m a VP now, and I’m hoping to make partner next year, and I’m looking for someone more…driven.”
“What?” My grip slackens, and my dress slips down to my belly button before I catch it and drag it back up. “I’ve spent the last three years working my ass off, and—” My gaze lands on Red, her plumped lips pinched to keep from outright laughing. “Excuse me, could you give us some privacy, please?”
Red shrugs a thin shoulder and blinks at me through her eyelash extensions.
“Yeah, but that’s not what I mean,” Chad says, adjusting his arm around Red. “You work hard, but you’re just…”
“I’m what?” I ask, anger burning my cheeks. “I’mwhat, Chad?”
“You’re so desperate and smothering. You can’t take a compliment, and you’re, like, really focused on what you don’t have.” He runs his hand through his hair, and I send up a silent wish that it all falls out. “I’m growing and evolving and shit, and you’re just—”
“Stuck,” Red offers with another shrug. “It’s that scarcity mindset, hon. I see it in my practice all the time.”
I ball my hands into fists in my discarded clothes, tears streaming in hot rivers down my cheeks. “I might not be perfect, but I’m trying,” I choke out around a sob. “And I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by a woman in her underwear.”
“You’re in your underwear too, hon,” Red says, pressing her palms together and resting her chin on her slender fingers. “We’re both just out here, baring it all, searching for that nurturing abundance.”
“Fuck you.” I’m crying now, ugly crying, and tripping over the dress that slipped down once again and is pooling around my ankles. “Fuck both of you.” I sob. “But mostly you,Chad.You—you—youfuck!”
I storm to the elevator and bash the down arrow. The elevator doors open, and I throw myself inside, my back turned to their pitying gazes. The mirrored walls reflect infinite versions of me, all blubbering, racoon-eyed messes.
“I am not desperate!” I shout, albeit desperately.
The doors close, and I swipe the mascara melting down my cheeks and try to wiggle back into the dress I accidentally pulled up backward in the absolute embarrassment that is currently my life.
I finally get one arm through the correct sleeve when the elevator reopens. A man enters, the hood of his jacket covering everything but his strong jaw and full lips. He clears his throat and politely turns his broad shoulders to face the unmirrored button panel.
“Here you go.” His voice is rich and deep and warm as he extends his muscled arm behind his back.
“Thanks.” My fragile whisper breaks apart between us, and I’m not sure he heard me as I take the handkerchief he offers. I get my other arm through its sleeve and blow my nose into the soft monogrammed linen before we reach the lobby.
“Keep it,” he rumbles with a slight lift of his thick shoulders.
The elevator doors open, and I stuff the handkerchief into my handbag and rush past him, yanking my coat on over my unbuttoned dress.
The doorman stands at the double doors, his thin brows lifted, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “Good night, Miss Thomas.”
“Screw you, Stuart!” I shout and hurry out into the cold.
The snow has turned to sleet, and I brace myself against the icy gusts.
“So much for being a house girlfriend,” I mutter, the frozen rain stinging my cheeks. I stare down at the sidewalk and keep my arms out at my sides to steady myself against the layer of ice building on the pavement as I trudge back to the bus stop.
You’re 100 percent going to have to move back to Kankakee, live in your childhood bedroom, date tiny hobbit men, and become another Gen Z statistic.
“I’m a failure. A total failure.”
I really shouldn’t be surprised. Pretty much every one of my relationships has ended in some version of being left for another woman. It’s practically genetic. My dad cheated on my mom and left our family forever to be with a swimsuit model from Orlando.
And isn’t your mom stuck and desperate too?
Shehasbeen working the same job since she dropped out of college and married my dad. Plus, she also still gets a perm and hairsprays her fluffy bangs the exact way she did in her high school yearbook photo.
