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He twists the doorknob, his jaw rigid. “I think it’s best if you resign.”
Of course he does.
“I guess I fucked myself in that hotel room, right?”
With a long-suffering sigh that could rival my mom’s, he steps onto the front stoop. “I didn’t want it to come to this. You’re great at your job. You’ll have a new one in no time. I’ll give you a good recommendation.”
I gape at him, floored by his attitude. By noon today all eleven hundred people in Whiskey Flats will hear of my transgression.
They’ll call me a slut.
The pearl clutchers will stone my reputation to a bloody pulp.
But Perry? Well, he’s a man, and everyone knows how men are. They’ll look the other way when it comes to him, but not me. Hell no. Nobody will dare hire me until long after this scandal simmers down.
“Be realistic,” he says, obviously taking my silence for resistance. “My wife won’t have you working for me.”
“Then I guess you have nothing to worry about. Consider this my resignation.” I slam the door in his face, and a few seconds later my ringtone goes off in the bedroom. The chorus of “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” by R.E.M. filters down the hall.
Great. My mother.
I stomp back to the bedroom, most definitely not feeling fine.
In fact, as that song loops its emotional destruction, Mom’s call going unanswered, I feel the walls close in. My chest grows tight with panic, because even though Chris is gone, his presence is inescapable.
In the apartment we shared for three years. In the town where we grew up together. Suddenly, everything takes on new meaning, and I see memories through the acute haze of pain. I won’t be able to glance at the burger joint down the street without remembering all the times we hung out there, chomping away at the biggest fucking burgers you’ll ever find. And the sight of the old theater where we gorged on cheap movies as teens will slice me open to the bone, leaving me exposed and bleeding.
Until Perry, Chris was my first. My one and only.
How did we lose our way? In the midst of arguments, tears, and too many “breaks” to count, we somehow drifted apart.
My cell falls silent, and I stand frozen as a feeling I’ve never experienced before rises inside me. I know I won’t be able to escape that, either.
For the first time in twenty-two years, I want to runaway.
No, I need to.
I pick up my cell and dial Lesley in Seattle.
