“Hi, baby girl.”
I freeze, jolting upward. I almost drop my brown-sugar iced coffee, which cost me nearly ten bucks.
“Dad.”
“How are you?” he asks, his voice soft and calm like usual. A bit patronizing, as if he thinks I’m about to shave my head in front of ten cameras and he’s worried his friends will see it and judge him for it. “How has the visit with your brother been?”
“I’m good. Carter’s good.” I start my walk back to Carter’s condo, but I’m barely paying attention to anything but his tone, trying to decipher if he sounds angry with me.
“Are you ready to talk to me about what happened yet? I’ve been worried.”
I wince, sipping my coffee, wanting to die. I ran from this conversation. I ran to another state. The second I saw that blatant disappointment on him, the way he had to force himself not to say how he truly felt, I decided I never wanted to discuss this with him again. I don’t want to talk to him about work. Ever. Whether it’s going well or it’s going up in flames.
Apparently, waiting for him to forget about it isn’t in the cards.
“Dad.”
“It’s not like you to abandon your work, Ariana,” he says. “I was surprised. You worked your ass off to get where you are. You were thrilled. Then, all of a sudden, you tell me you’ve been fired.”
Abandon my work? How can he say that, and that I’ve been fired in the same sentence? That is literally a contradiction. I wasforcedfrom my work. I didn’t have a choice. Abandoning insinuates that I left out of nowhere, irresponsibly.
“It wasn’t my choice,” I say quietly.
“Well, evidently, sweetie,” he says with a long sigh. “That’s what being fired means.”
I swallow, my grip on my coffee tightening. My shoulders feel heavy. He pushes me down a bit further with each word. I don’t know if he even realizes that he does that sometimes.
“I think you’d feel the same about this no matter what I say.”
“That’s not true,” he counters. “I’m just concerned. You’ve always been a professional. Even when you were a little girl, you were practically the HR department in our household. You don’t behave in a way that results in your getting fired, Ariana. You never have.”
I storm across the crosswalk toward Carter’s building. My safe space. I just need to get there. I need to make it through that doorway, and then I’m free to feel whatever emotions are rumbling in my chest. Just a few more feet. Just one elevator ride.
I let my dad down. He’s disappointed in me. The one thing I was always good at is something I’m clearly not excelling in. What I thought was my purpose has been ripped from me because of who I am. Because I’m a woman. Because I wasn’t tough enough. I didn’t fight back enough. Because I signed that paper.
“I am a professional, and I’m yourdaughter,Dad. If you want to have this conversation, try to act like you’re my father, and not that you had me just to train me to become the miniature version of you,” I bite out, my voice breaking. “Sometimes, I don’t need a boss. I need my dad.I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to whatever idea you had of me.”
“Ariana.”
I hang up.
Walking through the doors of Carter’s building, I smile tightly at the doorman, grateful that my sunglasses are hidingthe tears in my eyes. I storm to the elevator, my grip lethal on these donuts, and suck in big, calming breaths while I wait.
I’m still trembling when I get to Carter’s floor, and when I push into the condo and he and Arden turn to greet me with big smiles, the box of donuts slips from my hands and crashes to the floor, sending pastries everywhere.
I let out a strangled sob, and then I’m crying. Full on, snotty crying.
Carter drops his fork and gets to his feet, rushing toward me. I don’t say a word, and he doesn’t ask a single question, he just sweeps me into his arms and crushes me to his chest. I cling to him, my coffee squished between us, unable to stop the tears from pouring now that they’ve started.
His hand sweeps down my hair, and I focus on the pain from my sunglasses digging into my nose rather than the pain that’s shooting through my heart and shattering my confidence.
Not once did my father ask what happened in a way that insinuated it may not have been my fault. Everything he said confirmed what I’ve always known—if I’m not his protege, and if I’m not doing what he expects of me, he will never be truly happy with me. It’s all he wants from me. It’s the only thing that matters.
The condo is quiet. The only sounds are my sniffles and whimpering breaths as I try to calm myself down. I know I screwed up. Does he have to rub it in so hard? Does he have to remind me that if I was a little tougher, a little kinder, a bit more driven—this wouldn't have happened?
I shouldn’t have signed that damn paper.
“Come and sit.”
