Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOME GUY I USED TO FUCK IN COLLEGE
PRESENT
I like to think that with episodes of crazy, come moments of complete clarity.
Every time I lost my mind, it was followed by moments of stillness that brought a sense of calm. A sense of self.
I am currently in my calm. My schedule is on track, I’m wearing a bra, dinner is in the slow cooker at home, and it isn’t my day to pick up Penny and Jilly.
So, when my assistant calls me as I’m getting ready to head home for the day, I debate letting it go to voicemail. Not the most responsible thing to do. Not something a boss should do…
Before I can think better of it, I answer his call, standing up to gather my things.
“This better not be bad news, Wilmer,” I start as I tuck my MacBook into my tote.
His stilted chuckle doesn’t soothe me, and I still, waiting for him to speak.
“Only if you decide to fire me over a scheduling mishap,” he starts, and I sit back in my chair with a huff .
“Just answer this: am I heading home right now?” I glance down at my pumps, loving the sleek look of the patent leather, but wishing I could kick them off and sink into a bubble bath with my favorite podcast playing. That was going to be the plan with the bit of time I had free while Peter took the girls to an after school shopping trip.
“I’m afraid not. I forgot that I scheduled a meeting for you earlier this morning. It starts in a few minutes,” he tells me and I stare at the ceiling, wishing it would cave in so I could leave, even if on a stretcher.
I never used to be this way. I lived for work, for the sense of enrichment completing a project gave me, for the controlled outcome of my inevitable success.
Until I lost my mind this last time, I guess.
“Mistakes happen,” I tell him before he can say anything else. “Just please refrain from forming the habit.”
It isn’t his fault he hasn’t caught up with this version of you. The old you would’ve loved the idea of bagging another client .
“His name is—” My office door opens just as Wilmer says the name we do not utter. “Abraham Pugliesi.”
Time hasn’t changed him much. The lines around his eyes are deeper, his hair carries more gray strands than it once did. But his build is the same, the sparkle in his eyes as he stares at me without flinching…it’s all the same.
He’s afraid of no one and I am terrified of him.
He fills up the frame of the door and I’m transported back to a time where I was the one at his office door, watching another student make a move on him. A student he’d already fucked. Probably many times.
I shudder at the memories that follow—how insatiable his sexual appetite was, how it felt to be conquered by him…how easy it was to let him be in control.
Until it wasn’t anymore.
I end the call without another word, determined to end this “meeting” just as efficiently .
“Why are you here?” I’m still seated, still watching him as if he could disappear at any given moment. We’re both entirely too good at that.
“I won’t pretend this is a coincidence,” he starts, and I cut him off with a laugh that fills the space with its volume.
“And I’m sure the grocery store and restaurant were.” He shoots me a confused look, but I stand, continuing to stuff my things in my desk or bag. “You found your way here, now find your way out.”
I walk into the hallway, past Wilmer’s vacant desk. I was the nice boss, the one who let him go home early more often than not. And now I’m stuck dealing with a part of my past that I’d thought was buried and gone.
“Sabrina,” I hear him call out from behind me, but I make it into the main hallway before he reaches for me.
It’s a touch that I wasn’t sure I’d experience again after the taste of it at the restaurant. One that’d dulled in my memory but snapped right back once his fingers made contact with the bare skin of my arm.
“Why are you here?” I grind out, turning on my heel to point at him. “You think my life stopped and I waited for you? I got married! I had children! I created a future you and I could never have.”
“You’re so angry with me and I don’t understand why.” He steps toward me, his hands now at his sides. The frown that mars his face makes me want to shake him. “You left me, Stellina .”
I shake my head before the statement is fully out of his mouth.
“We both know that isn’t true,” I respond through gritted teeth, angry at his recollection. Because it’s so far from my own.
“I tried?—”
“You tried ?!” I scoff, hoping my hard gaze pierces through his impenetrable shell. The one I tried so damn hard to break through. “Don’t give me that bullshit. Don’t you dare give me that bullshit.”
The years are warped with disappointment and having to pretend to be a person I never could keep up with. Abraham may’ve been the master of masks, but I’d learned a thing or two from my time with him.
“That’s it. Give me your anger.” His hands twitch and I remember a time when he’d reach out and pull me toward him, forcing me to face the truth. Thankfully, he keeps his hands to himself this time. “Show me how much I still get under your skin.”
I shake my head before turning away from him. Is it running if I walk away? Do I seem like I care less if I speak less?
“You can’t deny it, so why bother trying?” he shouts after me.
“You’re delusional,” I toss over my shoulder. And then I turn to look at him, walking backwards to continue amassing space between us. “Expecting me to pine over you. You can be the great Abraham Pugliesi to the world, but to me you’re just some guy I used to fuck in college.”
I bolt out of there, not looking back, hoping he doesn’t follow me. And when I realize he didn’t as I’m getting in my car, I try to make sense of my frazzled state.
Yes, I was the one who walked away. I was the one who knew that we were doomed to fail in any life we’d try to create for ourselves.
But he was the one who never answered me when I tried to find him.
When I tried to tell him…
It doesn’t matter anymore.