I yank my purse out from under my desk and weave blindly through the bullpen to the stairs. No way am I going to stand there and wait for the elevator. Everyone overheard what just happened, and if they somehow missed it, it won’t be long before they know. Carl wasn’t trying to be quiet about the fact that he was making fun of me before, and he’s not going to be quiet about the fact that I’ve been fired and why. I’m sure Brad, his lecherous little yes-man, will help him spread the word all over the paper.
At least I have confirmation that Brad definitely saw me kissing the guys goodbye in the parking lot the first time they dropped me off. Yet another way men can ruin my life. I’ll just add it to the list.
Now I have to embarrass myself even more, sitting here waiting for the next bus, trying not to cry in front of strangers on the street. Even worse, though, is that being fired means no more internship, and likely no work-study credit. Even if it doesn’t end up as a failing grade, I’ve planned out the credit hours I need each semester to graduate, and if I don’t get these hours I’ll have to cram them in somewhere else down the road.
I’d sent Carl that article because my professor thought it was good, that it was worth it, and it just cost me my future. Now I’ll have a ruined GPA, have to find another internship and maybe take an extra semester to do it, and that recommendation letter I was hoping to have from a Pulitzer Prize winner is clearly out the window. How am I going to land another internship? Even if this doesn’t get shared around the newspaper community right away, any paper I apply to will want to call Carl for a reference, and pretty soon every editor in Boston will think I slept with my sources to get an inside scoop.
By the time I make it back to my dorm, I feel even more mentally drained than I have in the past two weeks since blocking the guys’ numbers. I just want to crash out on my bed and pretend I never took the risk.
As soon as I open the door though, I scream and my hand flies up to cover my eyes. I was not prepared to walk in to the sight of my roommate splayed out naked on her bed with a toy between her thighs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Oh god!” Ronnie and I both shout. She follows it with, “I thought you were at your internship!” as I take a step backward into the door, which snicks closed against my back. I spin around and fumble at the handle with my eyes squeezed shut, but when I manage to get the door open again she shrieks, “No! Close it!”
I do as she says, pressing my forehead against the wood and cursing every single thing that has ever happened in my life to bring me to this moment.
Behind me, I hear Ronnie say, I assume into her phone, “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
“Is it safe to open my eyes now?” I ask tentatively after a few more moments.
“Yes, yes, oh, god. Sorry about that.” When I open one eye and look over my shoulder, Ronnie is standing in the middle of the room wearing an oversized T-shirt and stuffing her legs into a pair of sweatpants. “I was, um, on the phone with Trevor.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out.” I know most people in a dorm probably masturbate when they have the room to themselves, but I never thought Ronnie would be one of them when she sees Trevor almost every weekend.
I vow to always knock on our door when I’m coming home unexpectedly from now on. And maybe just generally, to be on the safe side.
Now that the adrenaline is beginning to ebb, something else is prickling at the back of my mind. It’s … envy. I’m jealous that Ronnie has someone to be so open with about her sexuality, and I once again have no one. And I hate being jealous of my best friend, because she deserves love and good sex and a solid partner. And anyway, I made the choice to not have those things, so I have no right to be envious.
Dropping my purse on the floor, I flop onto my bed and crawl up to my pillow. Maybe I can just sleep the whole rest of the semester and then I don’t have to deal with any of this ever again. Or I can give up on everything, move back home, find a job walking dogs or painting crosswalks or something else that will ensure I don’t have to interact with other humans. That sounds like a nice plan right now.
“Oh, honey, is my coochie that terrible to see?” Ronnie brushes my hair back from my face.
“Please wash your hands first?” I say, batting her hand away. I know she was making a joke, but I don’t want her vagina-hands touching my hair and face.
“I was using a toy, not my hands.” She rolls her eyes, but puts on hand sanitizer. “And we’d barely gotten started.”
“I’m sorry that I interrupted.” Now I feel even worse. I remember what it was like when the guys would get me worked up and all I wanted to do was come, and now I’ve made it so Ronnie can’t finish.
“If you’re home early from work with your eyes all swollen from crying, I’m guessing there’s a reason for it. Never be sorry for needing a friend. You know I’m always here to support you.” This time when Ronnie brushes back my hair, I don’t flinch away. “Now tell me what happened.”
“I got fired,” I say into my pillow. I’ve always been the best, the hardest worker. Never in a million years could I have imagined that I’d get fired from anything.
Briefly, I explain everything that happened at work tonight. It’s embarrassing, and I start crying again as soon as I start talking, but at least having Ronnie next to me is comforting.
Except that she’s not who I really want to be comforting me. I love Ronnie so much, and I’m grateful that she’s here, but hers isn’t the shoulder I’m aching to cry on.
Which makes me cry even more.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to call the HR department there and complain,” says Ronnie.
“There’s no point. I knew the rules, and I broke them anyway.” If I hadn’t sent Carl the article and asked for the paper to consider running it, I would have been fine. But I got overconfident, and never expected anyone to know about my relationship with the guys. Although I still stand by the fact that I wrote an amazing article and the community should read it.
“Maybe a little, but what Carl and Brad did was worse. He had absolutely no right to treat you like that, especially in front of that other asshole.”
“I’ll never get a job as a reporter.” I gave up the guys so I could focus on my career, and then I ruined that and now I’m left with absolutely nothing. “Carl knows too many people, and he’ll give me a shit reference. No one will want to hire me.”
“You don’t know that,” says Ronnie, but I can tell she knows I’m probably right.
