RAFE #2
She looks at me, aghast. “Yes, he did. I have no mailing list, no website, no social media content because of him. I have nothing. I don’t even…” Her voice breaks, and she takes a moment to collect herself. “I don’t even have clothes.”
She doesn’t have clothes? What happened to all the beautiful dresses she was using? I want to ask, but it doesn’t feel appropriate; there’s a vibration of distress in her voice that I don’t want to disturb.
“The only thing you need to succeed is the determination to do so. He didn’t take that from you. Look at what you’ve done today,” I say, gesturing to the copious notes she’s made.
Her cheeks take on a rosy hue, and she looks away for a moment. When she turns to face me, her sudden proximity causes me to lean back.
Her mouth, her lips, are right there.
We pause, staring at one another, and that same energy from before sparks between us.
“Mr Bastion,” she says quietly.
I have no idea if she’s going to say anything else, but I correct her with a quick, “Rafe.”
She nods, licks her lips. Those damn lips. “Rafe. You’re right. Thank you. That means a lot.” She swallows, her gaze slipping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before she adds, “Especially coming from you.”
My heart pounds like it’s just remembered it exists to pump blood around my body and wants to do every fucking drop at once.
I wish she would stop saying you like that, making it sound like I’m somehow important to her.
It’s flattering, but when she looks at my mouth right before she does it, it turns my thoughts in a direction I don’t want them to go.
“I don’t need much,” she continues, her tone lighter now. “Just a stable income so I can rent somewhere decent. Where my neighbour doesn’t come home drunk and piss all over my threshold.”
A horrified groan leaves my mouth. “Someone did that?”
“Yeah. I think he was trying to mark his territory. Either that, or he thought my front door was the bathroom.”
She lets out a tiny giggle to let me know she’s joking, but none of this sounds amusing, and the idea of her being alone in a place like that pains me.
“Sounds like Lizzie did the right thing, making you come here. I would have done the same in her position.”
Diana’s gaze skates over my face, like she’s trying to scan for deeper meaning to my words. Whatever she sees, she misinterprets it because her next words come out rushed. “I’m so sorry. I’ll leave as soon as I possibly can. I just—”
I push my stool away from the island and stand.
“It’s fine,” I blurt, knowing I sound curt and uncaring, but it seems preferable to confessing that the idea of her living where someone would urinate against her front door makes me want to offer her a permanent home right here, with me.
I nod at the documents she’s prepared. “You have everything you need to be well on your way to a livable income if what you’ve listed is actionable immediately.
I don’t know that I helped you at all. You’ve done it yourself. ”
“No.” She does a rapid micro-shake of the head.
“I’ve been stuck on this stuff for weeks.
I needed to know you were coming back.” The air around us comes alive with an energetic charge that crawls across the back of my neck.
“I needed that external pressure. That support. I’ve never really had it.
My dad never cared about what I was trying to achieve, and my mum was hardly ever around.
It made everything so much easier, just knowing you’d come back and look it over. ”
“I’m glad.” I pick up my jacket and fold it over my forearm, but before I walk away, I ask, “Tell me, why is this so important to you?”
“What?”
“The business. What does it mean?” I tap my fingers against my heart. “In here.”
She frowns, but then her body relaxes. “I want to be financially free, but if the end goal was money and money alone, I would have chosen something else. Something more straightforward; less risky. A secretarial role or a graduate trainee position somewhere. I could have applied to law school. But I didn’t want to do any of those things.
I want to do this because I love it.” Her eyes light up, passion infusing her voice.
“I love books. Fashion too. I love the performance aspect of social media. Because it is a performance. It’s a curated view of reality.
I love the artifice of it. The art of it. ”
Her energy is infectious; I want more. “What else?”
She leans her elbow on the island and stares at me, hard, as if she’s the one who’s asked a question, and she’s trying to determine the answer in my body language.
I feel examined to a degree I wasn’t expecting, yet I don’t mind it at all. Her attention is a warm bath I want to soak in.
“I don’t ever want to have to depend on someone else again,” she says.
“I don’t want to hand over control to someone else.
I want to be free to make my own choices and gain that freedom by doing the thing that I choose to do.
The thing I love doing. I choose this career.
This business.” She stabs her index finger against the island, as if it is the business.
“Because choosing for myself is freedom. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get it. ”
She meets my gaze and seems to shrink ever so slightly, the confidence she demonstrated moments before seeping away as she chews on her bottom lip and waits for my verdict.
“Don’t look so anxious,” I say. “There are no wrong answers, but that was a good one. You’ll be fine.” I offer her a reassuring smile. “You’ve got passion. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
She holds eye contact, and that hot unfurling sensation begins so I look away.
“What’s important to you?” she asks.
I’m not expecting the question, so it takes me a moment to answer, but when I do, it comes easily and honestly. “My daughter. My family and friends. My business. In that order.”
Diana nods slowly, taking it in as if it has great weight. “That’s a good list,” she says quietly.
I want to linger in her company, but there’s no excuse for it, so I merely say, “Good night, Diana,” and leave her in the kitchen, alone.