By admin TESSA
My head is pounding. Like, heartbeat–in–my–skull kind of pounding.
Hours spent hunched over a computer will do that to you. When the first set of migraines. hit, I grabbed some Tylenol, swallowed it dry, and threw on my reading glasses like a grandma with a grudge.
–
Ana from Legal? Probably curled up in bed, dreaming of spa days and balanced schedules
AKA she’s my polar opposite and has a life to live, probably tucked in bed, asleep by 12:58
AM- so she has no time to respond to my emails.
Meanwhile, I’m still here.
Alone.
Again.
Whatever.
I stretch and let out a yawn. My desk is a disaster–coffee cups, highlighters, Post–its with
half–written thoughts and tomorrow’s to–do list.
- Make amends with Emilia.
- Contact her family’s lawyers.
- Get her family photos copyrighted.
I seriously do not get paid enough, as a best friend and PR manager. Sometimes, it feels like I work ten different jobs at once with absolutely nothing to show for it. Well, except in the Emilia department, she’s the best person in the world when she actually tells me shit.
All the cubicles are dark. Everyone else left hours ago. But me? I’m still clinging to the glow of my screen like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
In a way, it kinda is and that’s sad as hell.
I try not to think too much about Lyle, but I can’t help it.
He’s awful. Charming, cocky, and completely toxic. The kind of man who leaves a mess
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Chapter 93
everywhere he goes and somehow, I still open the door when he shows up.
It started back when I was just the over–eager intern with too much ambition and not enough sense. One flirt turned into a kiss, then into his bed. One night became two. Then it became… something that wasn’t quite nothing, but definitely wasn’t something.
It was casual, I’m the one who caught feelings and started expecting stupid things him waiting to take me home and would be clouded with an unimaginable wave of pain when I had to get articles of his countless flings and two–week–relationships taken down.
—
like
But maybe I’m a masochist and the pain is my aphrodisiac, because when he’s done sleeping around and breaking my heart, I wait, knowing he’ll come back to me when he’s fed
- up.
He always comes back.
And I’d let him in. Every time.
God, you’re so pathetic, Tessa.
I pull off my reading glasses and rub at my sore eyes, trying to blink the blur away. My head still hurts, and the Tylenol I took earlier might as well have been candy.
After sitting there for a few more minutes, just kind of… marinating in my feelings, I finally grab my things and start cleaning up my desk. Coffee cups, printouts, sticky notes I’ll never read again — it all goes in the trash. I thought I’d feel better once everything was tidy. Accomplished, maybe. Like I could go home and feel human again.
Nope.
Instead, the silence hits harder. Louder.
I don’t even know what I expected. Maybe someone to say, “Great job, Tessa! You get to go home to your apartment at 1AM, where no one is waiting for you. No Emilia to berate you for coming home late or make soup at past midnight just so you don’t have to eat your detrimental cooking. Just you, your cold leftovers, and the memory of a hockey player who ditched you for some leggy blonde he met at the same gala you got dragged to like a prop.”