Natasha checks her Cartier watch. “Hopefully any minute—”
“Hi, everyone, god, I am so sorry for being late on my first day. I feel like an absolute ass, but truly the traffic here is no freaking joke.”
Everyone but me spins in their chair, attention swiveling to the doorway.
But I can’t move.
Because I know that voice.
My finally-calmed-down stomach suddenly starts bouncing like it’s in some nineties mosh pit. Voices swirl around me, but I’m in a foggy haze of a nightmare and I can’t make out any actual words.
When I work up the courage to turn around, something like terror floods my veins; somehow I know my absolute worst fears are about to materialize.
Because there he is. Right in the doorway. Of the conference room ofmyoffice. A halo of golden light from the hallway surrounds him like he’s freaking Captain America.
As if in slow motion, I push myself out of my chair. If only this were a scene in a movie, my hair flowing behind me as I gracefully turn. No longer dressed in leggings and an old shirt without a stitch of makeup on my face, I’m glamorousand gorgeous and completely poised and backed by a wind machine—as one should be when confronted with their ex for the first time in years.
Seth Carson.
The one who got away. Twice.
The movie in my head abruptly cuts to black as the real me stands, stumbles, and falls to my knees. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I manage to choke out before a trash can lands in front of my face. Just in time, as seconds later, I’m heaving up the entire contents of my stomach.
3
Is there anything worse than running into your ex when you least expect it?
—Lana Parker, “How to Rebound from a Broken Heart”
I come back to myself slowly, hazily, like an old-school radio tuning through static. A cool hand is rubbing slow and soothing circles on my back. There’s a cloud of voices around me but I can’t tell who’s actually speaking. As I give a final heave, the clarity arrives.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.” Tessa’s comforting whispers sync up with her hand, which is tracing loops over my back.
I breathe in a steadying gulp of air, sitting back on my heels. “I’m okay.”
Tessa, it appears, is the only one brave enough to be in the general vicinity of me right now. Everyone else has retreated to the far side of the room. I’m assuming that “everyone” also includes my vomit-inducing ex, but I’m too scared to turn my head and see.
Once it’s clear I’m done flinging the contents of my stomach into the trash can, Natasha marches over, taking my elbow in her hand and practically yanking me to my feet. “Everyone, go do something productive,” she commands. No one needs to be told twice.
My colleagues—my so-called friends—scurry for the door, along with the man responsible for my nausea.
Natasha pins him with a pointed look. “Seth. Meet me in my office in five minutes.”
I refuse to glance at him, keeping my eyes glued to the floor.
Natasha continues guiding-slash-manhandling me down the hall and into the office’s restroom, where luckily, a tray of amenities waits for occasions not unlike this one, though I’m guessing this is a unique set of circumstances.
I swish mouthwash around four separate times before I finally feel like the stench and the dry mouth have abated. After splashing cold water on my face, I run a makeup-remover wipe over my clammy skin, just in case. Tossing the wipe in the trash, my eyes catch on the bud vase sitting on the white marble. It holds a single sunflower, and my hand automatically travels to my ribs, pressing against the thin skin like I’m stanching a bleed.
Seth always brought me sunflowers.
I’ll never forget the proud smile on his face the night of our first “date.” He showed up at my front door with a single bright-yellow bloom, making sure I knew he grew it himself. We stuck it in a water glass because I didn’t know where to find a vase and my mom was out of town. Not once infour years together did he ever gift me any other kind of flower.
For a long time, even well after we broke up, whenever I spotted a sunflower, it brought a wistful smile to my face. The sight of the bright-yellow petals stirred only happy memories of my high school sweetheart. The first boy I ever loved.
But now it feels like a cosmic joke. After an unfortunate run-in at our class reunion two years ago, now every time I see one of the godforsaken buds, my stomach sours. I’m tempted to yank the offending flower from its vase and rip the petals out one by one, but I think I’ve humiliated myself enough for one day.
I fix my messy bun as best I can and appraise my sorry self in the mirror, attempting to recover some small sliver of professionalism, all the while trying to puzzle out how this can actually be happening.
