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"But my mother has met with you already," he said. "I’m sure you must know by now how important my mother is in my life. How do you propose that I explain to her that my 'girlfriend' is suddenly not available to hang out with anymore?"
"Sure, I get that. If you want, I can speak to her on the phone," I countered. "But no more meeting your parents in person and us staying together in your personal space."
"What if she wants to come visit again?" His expression was unreadable at this point.
I couldn't tell if he was insisting because he didn't want to end what we had, or if he really cared that much about keeping up appearances in front of his mom.Or maybe he just wanted to torture me after finding out how I felt for him.
"Then we will tell her I am out of town," I let out an exasperated sigh, running my fingers through my hair. "I don't know, Dylan. All I know is that I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I hope you find someone else to help you out."
With that, I turned and walked out of his office before he even had a chance to reply. My heart pounded loudly in my chest. A part of me felt proud for asserting my boundaries, but another part of me felt scared that I might have just ruined my chances of keeping my job at this company.After all, it wasn't every day that you said no to your boss. I tried to push the thoughts out of my head and walked back to my desk. It was time to focus on work.
A few hours later, I was still typing away at my desk when Caitlyn walked out of Dylan's office. She had a sour expression on her face.
"Are you okay?" I asked, looking up from my computer.
"Don't even ask," she rolled her eyes. "Dylan is back to being the boss from hell. He was so hard on me for no reason. Something must’ve gotten his mood all spoiled."
"Oh," I looked down, fidgeting with my thumbs. "How strange."
But on the inside, I felt a weird sense of triumph. Perhaps he did care enough about what I had to say to evoke an emotional reaction out of him.
"Anyway, whatever. Screw him," she said. "You have a nice day. I have to get back to work before he busts my ass again."
"Sure," I said and looked back at Dylan's office.The door was shut tight.
If he was irritated that I ended our situation-ship, then did that mean hedidfeel something for me? Maybe it was from deep down in his heart, so deep he didn’t even realize it was there.
Emboldened by what I considered to be a small win, I decided to push my luck further. All this time, I had allowed Dylan to take advantage of me, available at his every beck and call. But now it was time to take his advice by putting myself out there.In my late twenties, I was still young and maybe it was not a bad idea that I explored ‘other options’.
During my lunch break, in a rather impulsive move, I downloaded a dating app on my phone and decided to swipe my luck on potential mates. I was joined by Jeff at my desk, who laughed when he saw how inept I was at handling technology.
"Oh Kathy," he laughed when I accidentally swiped left on a cute blonde guy. "It's the twenty first century and you're no better than an eighty-year-old kid with your phone."
"I would appreciate it if you could cut the sass and help me out instead," I replied, annoyed.
"Give me your phone," he said, taking the device from me. "How about you let me do the swiping while you tell me which guy you like or not?"
"Hmm," I said, twirling a strand of hair between my fingers absentmindedly. "I guess I want someone who is tall, older than me, confident, ambitious, close to his mom…"
I had to stop myself mid-description as I realized that I was just describing Dylan. Thankfully, Jeff didn't find anything too suspicious, and he toggled with various filters on my phone.
"Slow down," he said. "You do realize your standards are way too high."
"What else am I supposed to look for then?" I frowned, taking my phone back from him.
"Usually, good looking enough to want to sleep with, for starters," he chuckled as I gasped at his suggestion.
"Maybe I'll do this another time," I said, closing the dating app.
"Good luck," Jeff muttered before walking back to his own workstation.
There were too many guys out there, and swiping on them felt a bit like shopping online. Too impersonal and you couldn't really tell anything about a person just by a few photos and a bio anyway.I almost decided to give up on the whole prospect of finding a date altogether when the thought of Dylan popped up in my head again.
I wondered if he was going to get a 'replacement' for me. Like a brand new pretend girlfriend that he would show off to his parents and then take to his bedroom to sleep with. Even though it was a hypothetical scenario, I found myself growing bitter and enraged with jealousy.
Just then Dylan’s secretary emailed everyone for another team meeting. I took a seat in the farthest corner of the conference room, trying to avoid his gaze even though I could feel him taking glances at me several times during the meeting.
"We need to ramp up our productivity," he said. His voice so low and tone harsh, I could tell that Caitlyn was right. He was in a grumpy mood, alright.
