AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But something funny happens. For once in his life, he doesn’t gamble. He doesn’t try to call my bluff.
Instead, he slowly sinks back in my chair. “Proceed.”
I do.
Normally I love the adrenaline of pitching a good idea to someone. But today I run through the whole presentation on autopilot. I feel like a corporate clone of myself. One that’s missing a heart.
It’s easier this way.
A half hour later we take the vote.
Between the superior presentation Amelia designed for me, and the board members I convinced to switch over to my side because they thought I’d have a wife joining the board soon, I easily win.
The taste of victory is almost enough to make me myself again. I pull out my cell phone, automatically pulling up Amelia’s number to tell her.
It’s only a half second before I remember, but it’s long enough to rip through the cloud of numbness I’ve buried myself in.
I achieved the goal I spent the last two months working towards. And it’s only now, as board members come over to congratulate me, that I realize the price was too damn high.
24
AMELIA
I’m walking home along Central Park West, furious at Cole. I’ve lost my share of jobs, but this is the worst. He fired me becausehegot me pregnant. Aside from it being illegal to fire someone for getting pregnant, it’s also a pretty shitty reason to break up with his girlfriend.
Or whatever the fuck I was to him.
I can’t believe Lucinda told him.
I can’t believe he acted likethat.
I step off the curb and into a puddle of icy sludge. All that beautiful snow, now scooped to the side and turned gray with the city's pollution.
Did Cole think I did it on purpose? Lied to him about birth control to trap him into marriage? If that’s what he thinks, I can understand him feeling betrayed.
But even that explanation doesn’t make sense, not really. Why would he jump to the worst possible solution? Doesn’t he trust me at all?
I think I’m falling in love with you. That’s what he said at the museum.
What a joke. If this is what he thinks love is, I don’t want any part of it. I’m going home, and...
I stop in my tracks and realize that the home I’m walking to is Cole’s apartment. When I think of someplace safe, that’s what I think of.
I bite back a sob.
“Watch where you’re going, lady,” someone says.
This street runs along the park, and benches dot the sidewalk every few feet alongside the park wall.
I sink down onto one, put my head in my hands, and cry. My tears feel hot on my face, and the cold wind whips my face. I need to go somewhere else, somewhere that isn’t Cole’s apartment. But the thought of going home to my old apartment, alone, feels like too much.
I pull my cell phone out and call my best friend Maddy.
She’s laughing as she answers the phone. “Hey babe, can I call you back in a second? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Sure,” I say. My voice wobbles. “That’s fine.”
Instantly her focus shifts to me. “Amelia, are you crying? Where are you? What happened?”
