10. Chapter TenChristian
Chapter Ten
Christian
I merely couldn’t afford to spend the night at my parents’, so I drove back to Laketown and arrived at dawn on Monday. Though I tried to clear my head of the trash I might just have imbibed the previous day, I couldn’t. The more I thought about my time at the meeting, the more frustrated I became.
While deliberating on whether to drink or not, the alarm rang. It was already time to get ready for work. Then an idea crossed my mind, I might just as well go to Fiona’s. Funny how I had missed her during the weekend when we were always together most of the time.
Decidedly, I shut the door to my house and walked over to her place.
At once, I rang the doorbell, and she opened it almost immediately as if she were expecting someone. I made sure to voice my thoughts to her.
“No, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she denied, and I made my way in.
I caught a look of surprise on her face when I slumped on the nearest sofa.
She was still in her pajamas.
“You have dark circles. Did you not sleep?” She frowned.
“I couldn’t get myself to sleep.”
“I’m sorry about that. Do you think you’ll be able to go to work in this state?” She queried.
“Ah, I must look so terrible,” I let out a self-mocking laugh.
“Well,” she ambled to the kitchen and returned, minutes later with a hot cup of coffee.
“It will calm your nerves.” She said,
“I need to get ready for work. You have quite a lot on your plate.” She mentioned.
“Yeah.”
I watched her leave the living room. I started feeling an excruciating headache gradually rise. Could my morning get any worse?
Sluggishly, I walked to the kitchen to wash away the coffee cup’s remnants and return the cup to the shelf. However, I found myself in a mental spiral, and the coffee cup crashed to the floor, shattering into a million ceramic shards.
I could hear hurrying steps, and soon, Fiona appeared, short of breath and panting profusely.
“Oh my goodness!” She gasped upon sighting the disaster on the originally pristine floor.
“Are you hurt?” She leaped over the shards and impatiently inspected me. She brushed her finger against my face in the spur of the moment.
I was surprised at her reaction.
“No, I’m not.”
“What were you thinking?” Her eyes had grown red. She rubbed her palm against her head, distressed.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could mutter.
She turned away and began to carefully pick up the broken pieces. That was when I realized she was wearing only a towel.
I was taken aback.
“I’ll do that,” I said, gently pulling her away.
“No,” she looked at me with concern.
Was she not aware that she only had a towel wrapped around her? A towel so susceptible to loosening around her?
I carefully collected the pieces she had picked despite her obstinacy.
“It’s my mess.”
“But it’s my house,” she countered.
I didn’t want to take advantage of her ignorance, so I decided to keep my gaze away from her. However, she appeared so tempting that I kept on stealing glances at her.
Her bare shoulders were very smooth and rounded. The water droplets that clung to her skin glistened under the light.
“I’ll get a mop,” she said, cutting short my reverie.
Was I supposed to remind her that she was only wearing a towel?
It definitely sounded absurd, but I was uncomfortable.
However, as luck would have it, no sooner had she entered the kitchen with the mop than she saw something that made her dash upstairs, stifling an outburst of shock.
Upon her reappearance, I had cleared away the shards and wiped the floor clean.
She quietly came to sit, apparently embarrassed. Her face was burning red. I chuckled because she was so bad at hiding her emotions.
She sat frozen in the spot, mortified in her pretty knee-length dress.
I took the initiative to speak and first apologized for breaking her coffee cup.
“It’s fine,” she softly said, looking away.
“I think I should get ready for work.” I wanted to spare her the torment of sitting beside me, knowing how embarrassed she felt.
“Wait,” she said, out of the blue. “I think you need to know this.” She looked up at me with a hint of foreboding in her eyes.
“What is it?” I sat back.
“I was at your family’s farmhouse yesterday.”
Hmm! I knew what that could only mean.
“What did they say to you?”
“I met with your mom. She wanted me to convince you to take Aurora back.” She responded. “But I refused. She seems desperate, though.” She added.
“Did she do anything to you?”
“No.” She swallowed.
“I’m sorry about that. I feel ashamed of her.”
“You don’t have to be. It’s not your fault.” She sighed.
“Thanks.”
She nodded.
“Liam will be here in fifteen minutes, I hope we won’t be late.” She made an overtaxed face, which I found comical.
I began to feel like myself once more. Something in me usually awoke whenever I was with her. Something in me that I thought I had long lost.
Liam eventually spent an extra twenty minutes outside the house.
“What happened?” I heard him ask her while I entered the car.
“It’s a pretty long story.” She grimaced, taking her seat next to him.
Remembering the encounter earlier, I could not but make light of it.
*****
The chairman of brAIN was yet again anxious to receive Fiona. He, no doubt, had taken a liking to her.
I couldn’t blame him.
This time, they played a real game, and he emerged as the winner by something he referred to as ‘sleight of hand.’
“I’ll be more than happy to lose to you next time.” He jocularly said.
“Next time it is.” Fiona chuckled. “I’ll go and change.” She added, excusing herself from our company.
“Lucky you, Carr,” the chairman smiled. “My son’s assistant is not half as smart as she is.”
I could only twitch a smile. It wasn’t necessarily something worth joking about.
“If I had my way, I would recruit her to work for me.”
“I’m afraid I cannot let her go, sir.”
“So you’d better continue to be jealous and keep her with you. There are not so many like her.” He moaned.
I was going to do so even if he didn’t advise me.
I realized how important Fiona was, not only to me but also to the company at large. She was not the kind to be easily disposed of.
I asked Liam to take her home with the car at the end of the day’s work. As expected, she protested against the idea, but I didn’t give in to her obstinacy.
As I intended to have a drink with Mason, I patiently waited until he satisfactorily completed all of his tasks for the day since he wouldn’t agree to leave them uncompleted.
“It’s a wonder how I let you off when you refuse to listen to me.” I mused, rotating in the swivel chair in his office.
He chuckled.
“Are you not afraid of getting laid off?” I asked.
“No,” he grumpily said.
“Really?” I scoffed.
“Yes,”
“Why? You have a job elsewhere? Do you do it part-time?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“What then is it?” I wanted to know.
He relaxed into his chair.
“Fortunately, I have a friend who is poor at recognizing sycophants all in the name of philanthropy.” He calmly but firmly said.
I burst out laughing.
“What brought about that?”
“Just a few memories.” He arrogantly shrugged.
“Wow, Mason!”
He was unbelievable.
“When did I ever fend for sycophants? I want to know.”
“Well, I do not want to talk about it. It’s best if you recollect on your own.” He continued with his work, tapping away on his computer.
“Dude!” I couldn’t stop laughing.
We mutually thought it was pretty good to have a few drinks in the office rather than in a regular bar where he commented we could “fall prey to Delilahs.”
However, “Delilah” soon changed to “Dolly”.
Dolly was the name he fondly called Cherie, his wife. I had not heard him call her that in a long time now, as it had become forbidden since their separation.
“Dolly, what’s with her? Are you tipsy?” I queried.
It was crystal clear that he missed Cherie, but the pitiable situation they were in prevented him from actualizing his desires.
“I’m not.” He frowned. “It was a slip.”
“Would you admit that you miss her now?” I asked when he would not answer my first question.
He cleared his throat and restlessly rubbed his eyes.
“She lives two doors away from my house, you know.” I casually said.
“What?” His eyes immediately lit up as if he had discovered some sort of invaluable fortune.
“I think that means you can see her whenever you want to,” I added.
“Are you serious?” His shield of macho had broken off, and now he looked vulnerable.
“Yeah,”
He instantly sat upright. “Has, does… has she seen you? Have you met?”
“Yeah, we’ve met,” I responded.
He sighed.
“But there’s bad news.”
He immediately frowned.
“I don’t think she is there alone.”
He sighed, his eyes downcast.
“But she’s closer to you, isn’t she? And your daughters, too.”
“Forget it,” he gulped down his glass and poured himself another drink.
“Don’t try to get drunk, man,” I warned.
“I won’t,” he growled.
His state was truly pitiable. Perhaps he might need a therapist.
I hated to see him this way.
“Why don’t you tell her you still love her and want her back?” I suggested.
He looked up at me and began laughing.
“After seven years?” He suddenly grew somber again, his eyes red with emotions.
“It’s not a crime to still be in love after seven years of divorce, is it?”
He went mute and resumed drinking.
“Man, I want you to know that your cowardly flight must end sooner or later. You will have to eventually make a decision that’s best for you and your family.”
He ignored me and rose to his feet.
“We didn’t work out seven years ago. We’ll never work out.” He solemnly said.
“Won’t you at least give it a try? It’s not bad to try. You still love this woman, and you are here torturing yourself with the past.”
“You don’t know her like I do,” he turned away and began walking out of the room.
“I can drive you home.”
“I can drive myself.” He snapped back, and then he was gone.
It was sad to know that Mason was in a much tighter situation than I was. He was in love, yet his love tormented him. He had children, yet he lived alone.
He wanted to act in the best way possible, yet he was shooting himself in the leg.
The lights that flooded the town rivaled the stars in the sky. My mind wandered to Fiona.
I wondered what she was doing at that moment. Glancing at my watch, I decided she must be asleep as we were in the early hours of the following day.