AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mind spun when I got in the car, and I tried to figure out how I was going to do this. At first, I turned toward her apartment, but then I changed my mind and headed into town, towardPlacement.
21
JADE
Therewasaflurryof knocks on my door, and when I opened it, Hannah stood before me.
“Hi,” she said awkwardly. “Can I…can I come in?”
I nodded and stepped aside so she could come into the apartment.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked.
“Oh, a glass of water will be fine,” she said.
She sat on my couch, perching uncomfortably on the edge while I poured her a glass of water from the fridge. I didn’t pour myself one.
I handed her the water and sat down in an armchair, perched on edge just like she was, mirroring her.
We hadn’t spoken since she’d fired me more than a week ago.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” I said, nodding. “Good, actually.”
“I saw your vlogs online.”
“Oh,” I colored. “I guess it’s for everyone to see now.”
“They’re really good,” she said. “You have a way with words that draw people in, and being so open about your mistakes…the people love it.”
“I hope so,” I said, feeling silly that Hannah had seen it.
“It’s really good, Jade,” Hannah said. “I’m serious. You could turn this into a thing.”
“I am,” I said. “I think I’ve figured out what I want to do. It’s not this crazy big business that I thought I could do, and I doubt it will ever be likePlacement…but people do love it, don’t they? And a lot of people are like me, stuck in a world they don’t understand, making mistakes…”
Hannah nodded. “I think you’ll go places with this. You’ll see, it will get bigger and bigger in ways you never guessed because you’re putting yourself out there. You took the chance. You closed your eyes and jumped. You did well.”
I smiled. “It’s not what I expected to hear from you when you got here,” I admitted. “I thought we were going to go through another tongue-lashing.”
Hannah shook her head and sipped her water. “I’m not here to shout at you again. That’s all done. I just felt bad for firing you.Reallybad.”
“Please, don’t,” I said. “I know why you had to fire me. I messed up badly. It wasn’t working out, and I have no hard feelings about that.”
“I’m glad,” Hannah said, looking relieved. “I felt terrible doing that to you. You’re like a sister to me, and doing that…God, working together was horrible. I couldn’t just be myself with you.”
“I felt the same,” I said with a giggle. “It was a bad idea.”
“Very bad.”
“But I learned a lot from it,” I said. “And I grew. You gave me an opportunity when I was stuck, and I appreciate that much more than you know.”
“A lot of good came from it, right?” Hannah said.
I nodded and grinned at her. “More than you know.” My smile faded a little. I thought about Aaron. If it hadn’t been for my job atPlacement, I would never have met him. I would never have met Ben and had such a wonderful time with him. I would never have known what real love could feel like, only the fake shit I’d felt from Mike.
If it hadn’t been for Hannah and her job, I would also not have experienced true heartbreak, but all of it was good. Like she and everyone else kept saying, I’d learned, and I’d grown, and I was a different person now. I was better for it.
