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“I hear you loud and clear, Andrew. Except friends don’t betray friends.”
I couldn’t let that stand. “For the last time, Margo!” I burst out. “I didn’t betray you. Of course you think I did.” I shook my head. “You’ve never been able to look past your own assumptions about me. Over the course of seven years, I thought you could change. I thought maybe you would grow up. I don’t even know why I bother. You’re running, like you always do. And I’m done.”
“Wait, Andrew.” She looked stricken. She reached out her hand but I recoiled.
“We can’t.” I shook my head forcefully, as if it would convince me. “I think we both need to recognize that this has run its course. You don’t want me enough to fight for this.”
Her hand dropped and I felt like I had been punched. I was right. She didn’t want this enough to fight.
“Can we at least talk?”
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted a clean break and to get the hell out of here and lick my wounds.
“There’s nothing to say.”This was the right thing to do. She would never love me. She deserved this.“Stay the hell away from me, Margo. I mean it.” I bit the words out and watched her eyes widen. “I don’t want to see you in the shared office. I don’t want to see you in the elevator.” She inhaled sharply and I felt sick.
“Please.” She begged. I sneered, feeling more like my father than I ever had. “Do you need me to use smaller words? We. Are. Through. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can both move on.”
Tears filled her eyes and I stumbled back a step, before wrenching the door open. The image of her devastated face followed me all the way back to my apartment.
40
Margo
Idragged myself into my office the next day. My face was puffy from crying and lack of sleep and my office plants looked as droopy as I felt. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, already addicted to the feel of Andrew’s strong arms around me and then remembering I would never have that again. Magoo must have sensed my turmoil because he’d curled up against me and hadn’t left my side.
I approached the office warily, practically sagging with relief when I saw his empty chair. Flakes of snow kicked up by the wind swirled outside my window. I shivered and grabbed my wrap from the wardrobe before dropping into my own chair with a thud. When Andrew finally arrived, I wasn’t entirely sure how I would survive. Because I wasn’t going to cede the office to him, no matter what he said.
Stay away from me. We are through.Pain squeezed my chest. He’d been so cold, so remote. He had looked at me like he looked at opposing counsel when they pissed him off. Just like the last time he had ended things.
I was going to do this stupid deal, and then I would get the fuck out. I pulled up my personal email and started tapping one out to Melanie. There were other firms out there and I would do anything to get away from Andrew.
That done, I listlessly scrolled through my emails, only half paying attention, waiting for the moment Andrew appeared. Spam, meeting request for a pitch meeting, comments to a document for a slow-moving deal, Gerald sending pictures of his dogs in their latest outfits. questions from a junior. I yawned and clicked into the next one. My heart sank. An email from Andrew about the draft agreement. My vision blurred and clicked past it. I’d deal with that later.
My dad’s favorite movie was about an exiled girl who stalked the villagers of her town after they shunned her. Her emotions took the shape of poisonous snakes and burst out of her when she killed. Despite my best attempts to give myself a pep talk this morning in the shower, I felt brittle, like I might crack open at any moment and all my fears, stress, and anger might come slithering out.
Before I lost my mind, I needed to know just how much he had done. Had he trashed me in writing? Had they already decided to elevate him? I was painfully desperate for any crumb of information that indicated he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was.I didn’t betray you.I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I shook the thought away and went to Cynthia’s office. I hadn’t told her about how I was falling for Andrew, and now I felt like the world’s biggest fool. She had counseled me to be careful and I had ignored her.
She greeted me with a smile, but her face fell when she saw my expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“Andrew.” I sank into her chair and buried my face in my hands. “I think he fucked me over, but I’m not sure.”
I told her about the meeting, her face getting darker with every word.
“And now, I don’t know what to think. He claims he didn’t do anything, but I don’t know. I thought I could trust him, but I guess I don’t,” I said miserably. This is exactly what Andrew had been talking about. I couldn’t trust him. Maybe I was fundamentally broken where he was concerned.
“Can you help me run a search for his emails?”
“Oh babe.” Her face fell. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You need to forget about him.” Her voice was gentle and I wanted to cry.
“I just need to know.” My throat clogged. “I just need to know if he’s as awful as he seems.” I suspected he was, but something in me kept pushing me to examine the hurt, like pressing on a bruise.”
Cynthia sighed. “Alright, let’s see.”
We were required to file our emails and instead of manually dragging and dropping, most senior lawyers had set rules in their inboxes to auto-file messages from certain senders. A wealth of personal information got caught up in that net, and could be pulled if you knew where to look. Cynthia was a genius at finding weird messages.
She sighed and clicked into her computer. She typed and clicked, waiting for the search to run. She scrolled, scanning the messages.
