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“Just the thought of what he may have told you makes me panic.” I was on the road to dismissal here, I knew, because nobody wanted the crazy freak working with paying customers, especially after what had happened at my last job.
“Hugo, you’re a great human being, and I mean that. A reliable employee. You turn up. You do the job. Your customer excellence scores are sky high. I’ve had zero complaints. You hear me? Zero.”
“Apart from the litter on the floor,” I piped up.
“Which is fine. We agreed. You can throw as much crap on the floor as you need to, as long as you push it underneath the desk once an hour. Is that an agreement that still works for you?”
I wasn’t five years old, but yes. That little rule was easy to follow. It made sense and kept Finn happy.
“You have OCD,” Finn said calmly. “Doesn’t make you an axe murderer.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. I hated this. At the same time, I’d forgotten how much I’d needed it. To be seen.
I wasn’t going to burst into tears. I wasn’t. Even though my chest was heaving. I was a grown-up.
“Want a cup of tea?” Finn asked because, despite being a decent bloke, he was still on edge dealing with my shit. If I continued to sit here, he would phone Mark or Mabel or Rafaela or Eddie or whoever was on duty out there, and there would be tea and concerned looks, and then that French chef would bring me cheesecake or some other weird concoction. My life was already off the rails. I didn’t need it to get worse.
“I’m good,” I managed to squeak out. My voice wasn’t working properly. I was swallowing too loudly, and the furry taste in my mouth was making me feel sick.
“Hugo, there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing that would upset me more than finding out there was something wrong that I could’ve helped you put right, but you wouldn’t let me. I’m your boss, yeah, but I’m also human. You can tell me things. If you need anything, you speak up.”
“A pay rise?” I grinned.
He actually laughed. “Good try.”
“Did Thomas tell you why I…had to leave?”
I had to ask, but what did it matter? My face was already flaming.
“That is all in the past. Nothing to do with the present.”
Finn knew. I hated that he did.
“Can I just ask you one question, though?”
I was barely breathing. One minute, I was calm, the next, my heart was beating out of my chest. I could do with that cup of tea. I needed some sugar.
“Yeah,” I said. I wanted out. Now.
“Are you still with him?”
Wrong question, Finn. Wrong question.
I fled with my hands over my face. Locked myself in the toilets and hyperventilated.
I couldn’t stand it when people knew. I hated that my parents did. They’d once seen a bruise, and I’d tried to brush it off, but they knew. My sister knew, and she’d more than once yelled at me, been right there in my face begging me not to go back to Lewis, offering to go pick up all my things and beat the shit out of him while she was at it. She’d have housed me and fed me and given me anything I wanted as long as I was away from him. Lewis’s parents knew too, because my mum had phoned them and used some incredibly harsh language to tell them that their son had beaten me to a pulp. I’d never heard my mother use language like that. Then his mother had called him.
I’d collected some more bruises that evening. I’d been more careful ever since. Hid things better. Wondered how to make everything stop.
Finn left me alone after our little chat, and the rest of the day was fine. He passed my desk later in the evening and just squeezed my arm. He knew. I did too.
I was breaking rules, and I couldn’t stop. My head was a mess, and by the time the clock hit eleven, I was standing in a knee-high pile of scrunched-up papers still trying to sort out transport for a party of fifteen and organise an emergency dentist for a guest missing half a front tooth, and Ahmed needed my list of commission and…and…
I’d eaten a pastry. Because it had been there. Because some guest had bought us freaking pastries and one had been left on my desk, and I’d not been able to stop myself, hiding behind a pillar and shoving the entire thing in my mouth. I’d chewed like a man possessed, and then I’d run to the guest toilets and vomited into the sink.
I was losing control faster than I could reclaim it. It was like I was on a steep, downward slope and my shoes couldn’t get traction. I was sliding, and now Finn knew stuff he shouldn’t and my step count was dangerously low, to the point that I’d have to walk back to Canary Wharf to stand any chance of reaching my required count. My stress ball was taking a beating in my pocket and my palms were drenched in sweat.
I hadn’t drunk enough water.
