“Locked me in a room and screamed in my face for about ten minutes. Shoved me against the wall when I tried to leave. Hard. I refused to respond and refused to cower, and that made him angry.”
Arden goes scarily still.
“When I reported him and they started an investigation, it was very clear that I was making too much of a fuss and it was pissing off the bigwigs. He cried and whined and had already gone out for drinks with the whole roster of them hundreds of times before I was ever employed there. It was more of a ‘take the money and leave’ request than a firing. But I knew if I didn’t,I’d eventually be forced out of the door with no money anyway, so…”
“So, you took the severance.”
“Like a pathetic, spineless coward,” I whisper, ashamed of myself. I was ashamed the moment I signed the paper. I gave up, just like that. They got what they wanted from methateasily. I, Ariana Forkerro, didn’t even fight. “I was just…so tired, Arden. So tired of dealing with Roger every single day, tired of nobody believing me, tired of exhausting myself for a job that didn’t care to keep me.”
And then they started the smear campaign. My coworkers were told that I was making baseless accusations. That I was bullying other staff. That Roger had been a victim of my apparent tyranny.
“You’re not a coward. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
But I am. They’re going to get away with it and potentially do it to someone else because I walked away in exchange for some cash in my bank account that hasn’t been deposited yet.
“I was just…done, Arden. I had no fight left in me.”
“And that’s okay. I don’t think you would walk away from anything if you weren’t prepared to leave it, Ari. You did what was best for you in the moment, and honestly, that doesn’t seem like a place that you want to work at, anyway.”
Every morning, I would wake up saying that I was going to change the optics of that firm. I was going to make them like me, make them see me,valueme, and every night I’d go home and cry myself to sleep, knowing I might never win this particular battle. I might die in the field while I tried to.
“My career is the only thing I’m good at.”
“Wrong. You are exceptional at a lot of things. Work is just one of them,” Arden says, shooting me a look of warning, and I nod because I’m scared she’ll strangle me if I don’t believe her. “And you’ll find another position at another firm—in California,in Colorado, in Pittsburgh,if you want, and you willthrive.The world is yours for the taking. You’re Ariana Forkerro. Nobody says no to you.”
I can’t help the smile that blossoms on my face, but then her words hit me. Really hit me. An idea sprouts in my head and takes root. That’s never a good thing. I don’t tend to let things go once I decide I want them.
What if I did find a job in Pittsburgh? I hate the weather, but my brother is here. I’d endure any weather to see him more often. Plus, I’d get breaks away from my parents. I didn’t miss the way my dad looked at me when I told him I lost my job. He’s never been disappointed in me before. I’ve always been his shining star. I never want to feel the way I did when I realized I wasn’t living up to my potential ever again.
I’d rather formulate my successes in private and present him with the finished product, smiling and proud, without the wounds it took to get there being visible to him. I could do that if I left California.
“Roger said no to me. Multiple times. So did my firm.”
“But they’re sexist, disgusting pigs,” Arden snaps quickly. She flashes me a menacing smile. “They deserve to be lobotomized, not asked for their opinion.”
Except that what they said, and what they thought, had the power to rip my career from me. The only thing I have ever wanted since I was a little girl was to be successful. In all my diaries, in the margins of all my notebooks, I wasn’t drawing hearts or clouds. I wasn’t writing the names of the boys I had crushes on. It was colleges, career paths, and the income levels for each choice. I was planning on being at the top of the food chain while my snacks were still being cut up for me.
Beingsomeonehas been my only dream since childhood because I knew how much it would mean to my dad. He was someone. My mother was only known for being his wife, and hedidn’t want that for me. He didn’t want my worth tied to social circles, designer fashion, or flaunting my status to other women.
And I didn’t want to be that either. I love my mom, but that life is not a healthy one, and it’s not something that gave her any sort of purpose. Plus, she’s entirely dependent on her ex-husband and his money. I don’t ever want to be dependent on a man.
So, I had goals, and they were big. Study hard. Get the best grades. Earn a career the way my father did. Go to an Ivy League, design a career path of my dreams, and smash through every obstacle to get there.
Interior design doesn’t sound super fancy, but my vision board was, and I met every single goal I glued onto that piece of paper. I blew my colleagues out of the water—my classmates before them. With the education I have accumulated across different fields and the time I’ve put into building well-rounded experience, I could start my own firm and hire myself for almost every damn position.
And my father was proud.
But my father has never been fired a day in his life. His pride went out the window alongside my employment.
I failed him. I’mfailing,currently.
“I won’t tell your brother,” Arden reassures me, reaching forward to squeeze my knee. “And we’ll make a plan, alright? We’ll make a list and a vision board, and we’ll dream up an even better career than that firm could ever offer you.”
I smile gently, ignoring the lump in my throat and the burning in my eyes. I willnotcry over this again. I’ve cried enough over mediocre men who use the still-warm bodies of the women they stomp all over to look a little taller.
“Until then, you stay here with me and your brother.” Arden’s dark eyes scan mine, full of concern. She knows how to do the whole ‘older sister’ thing, and she does it well. She’staken care of me like I’m Serena or Anya since the very moment she met me. “We will figure this out. Nobody knocks Ariana Forkerro down and keeps her there.Nobody.”
CHAPTER TEN
