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"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do, Joshua!" I snap. "Stop acting this way. Don't pretend like I'm being the crazy, unreasonable one here. It's a real dick move, and it's insulting to my intelligence."
"You think everything is insulting to your intelligence. You seem to have a complex about it. Maybe you should go talk to someone about that."
I think to myself maybe I should go talk to someone about how I could be deranged enough to ever open myself up to him again. I want to be shocked, but part of me just can't muster it up. What did I expect to happen?
"Ashford, if you're freaked out because of what happened between us this weekend, then just tell me so. Use your grown up words and talk to me. Don't lash out at me like a child."
"Oh, that's rich," he says with a bitter laugh. "You want me to talk to you? Because we all know you have such a good reputation for talking to people about your feelings."
"I told you what happened…"
"Look, I gotta get out of here," he announces, marching towards the door. He makes it halfway, then pauses but doesn't turn around. He only turns his chin ever so slightly towards his shoulder, not even enough to look me in the eye. "I'll, uh…I have to…I just have to go."
He leaves me there in his office - alone and at a complete loss for what could be going on with him. My brain is stuck in a scolding loop, reminding me that I should have known this was going to happen. But my heart keeps insisting there's more to this. I know Joshua, and things were different this time. I just know they were. I could feel it, and I could see it in his eyes.
That's when I notice the folder sitting on his desk. I don't know why I do it, but I find my fingertips reaching for the edge of the file. Maybe he got some bad news. Maybe the work we've been doing for the past few months yielded some bad results and he just found out.
Maybe I'm just grasping for straws.
I flip the file open and lean over to see what's inside. My eyes scan the bold black words on crisp white paper.
Attn: Dr. Vanessa Lopez, Head of Research - Bardot Hospital of Beverly Hills: Notice of Termination
My heart drops into my stomach. The blood drains from my head, and my hands are numb.
I don't know how I find the strength to turn and walk out of there, but I do. I race out and look in either direction, searching for any sight of him. But he's long gone. And obviously he's decided to make it impossible for me to reach him on the phone.
Somehow, I keep going. I find the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I make it back into the lab to grab my things.
I don't stop from there until I'm sitting in my car, screaming and pounding my fists on the steering wheel over and over again in pure, uncontrollable rage.
I don't know how long I sit there before I finally back out and exit the Bardot parking lot. I drive around for a long time. And for a long time, I don't think about anything. I don't let myself feel anything.
Then I'm hit with another flood of it all at once. How could he do this to me? No, better question - how could I let him do this to me?
They say when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Joshua showed me who he was a decade ago. But then...over the past few months, especially in recent days, he showed me someone new. How was I supposed to know which one I could believe in?
It hurts so bad that I can't breathe. It's like the weight of the world is on my chest and I'm drowning in my own tears. It feels like I'm losing my sister all over again, and I don't know why.
I've spent so long holding it all in and pretending to be strong. Suddenly, I've lost my capacity to do that.
I just lost my job. Or I'm about to anyway, and all by Joshua's hand. The job I really loved and had worked so hard for. I just watched the man I was learning to love again walk away without any explanation.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone to send Joshua a message. I type a few words, then delete them. I try again and again, with the same results.
I've been here before. This same thing happened when I saw him with Carrie on that horrible day. I wanted to go off on him, but I just couldn't. I was too afraid he'd find some way to sweet talk his way out of the truth of what I saw.
And now here I am all over again. I fell for every one of his tricks, just like I swore I wouldn't.
The sad part is...underneath it all, I keep wanting to believe there's more to this. There's a part of me that keeps clinging to this hope that I really do know him as well that I think I do. And if that man is really in there, this has to be a mistake. Joshua wouldn't do this to me for no reason.
But no matter how badly I want to believe that's true, I know I have to focus on the facts and evidence. Everything in our history points to only one thing. He did it to me all over again. He got scared, and I'm the one who's suffering for it.
23
Vanessa
