Chapter 24 – Aricia
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aricia
I’ve sat at my desk five days this week trying to draft up a legal agreement between me and Peter.
I’m struggling to write something a first-year law associate could do with her eyes closed, that I can’t get done at all.
My head aches from staring at the blank page and I might have to admit that I can’t do this.
I can’t write a cold contract for Peter to sign – and I don’t know why.
Rana enters my office at exactly the wrong time.
“Uh oh,” she says as she stumbles in with my coffee and sees my face. "Something's wrong.” Rana sets the coffee down on my desk and immediately pulls out her chair. I can see she already drank half of her own cold brew.
Not a good sign when someone sees your face and immediately assumes that something’s wrong. I roll my chair away from my computer screen and sigh.
“I’m fine.” My tone is entirely unconvincing.
“Uh… no you’re not. I’m late with the coffee by twenty-five minutes.”
I glance over at the clock. Rana and I have a coffee ritual that brings me a sense of comfort and stability like none other.
It’s more than just the caffeine addiction, which normally would have kicked in by now with a reminder that my coffee is late.
Instead, I have to look at the clock to see that Rana is fully correct.
“Rana. What is it y’all kids say? I’m cooked?”
Rana snickers, but then quickly stifles her laugh. “I’m not that young.”
Maybe I just need coffee. I start drinking the warm hazelnut latte Rana brought for me today. She got this drink from a local coffee shop and thank goodness, it’s still hot. I can’t bear to look at my screen.
“I can’t write this agreement for Peter.”
“Uh… what do you mean can’t? You’re a lawyer.”
“I know that. I mean… I can’t. My body won’t let me write it.”
Rana smirks with delight. “Maybe because you don’t want to write it.”
“Of course I want to write this. Peter and I can’t have a baby together.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how it happens. That’s not how this works.”
“But Aricia, going the traditional path didn’t work either!
Honestly, I’m invested in how this plays out.
” Rana takes a big sip of her drink. I know she’s trying to be helpful here, but…
I don’t know. She has that youthful optimism that I honestly only ever feel now when I’m with Peter. She might have a point.
“What do I do then?”
“I don’t know. Have you and Peter talked about this stuff?”
Talked? Yes. But then that talking quickly devolves into something else, like it usually does.
Peter also said that he loved me, which I haven’t thought about because I don’t know what I’ve done for him to love me.
And just the way I’m thinking makes me wonder if I’m not even healed enough to be in this situation.
Healed or not, I’m still pregnant, but I can handle that without Peter. And I can fix myself rather than putting that all on him.
“Peter says he loves me now, which I don’t even understand. How can he love me, Rana? And what about the baby? A legal agreement will make everything certain between the two of us.”
“Oh…Aricia…” I hate her tone and try not to fly out of my chair when Rana crosses my table and throws her arms around me. She’s hugging me!? Do I seem like I need a hug? I try to wriggle away for just a second and then… I just let it happen. I hug her back and Rana squeezes.
“Peter doesn’t need a reason to love you and I know Kennard hurt you, but there’s never going to be certainty. Never. Maybe you should just give Peter a chance.”
“What if I don’t want to give him a chance? What if I am tired of giving men a chance to break my heart?”
Rana relaxes her grip slightly. “He won’t break your heart. Or I’m gonna kick his ass just like I did to Inessa.”
Strangely, I believe her.
“Do you really not want to give him a chance?” Rana asks me.
I look at her and see myself as a younger woman with all my hopes for love and romance.
I put all those hopes on Kennard and when it didn’t pan out, I just focused on my career and gave up on love.
I don’t want to be that person for Rana, who looks up to me.
I don’t want to be that person who gives up on love for the sake of my younger self.
“I… I don’t know how I let myself fall so hard for him and it scares me.”
It feels like I relieved a mound of pressure tightening in my chest as I practice admitting the truth about how I feel out loud. Rana smiles, like I just said something exciting and not downright terrifying.
“Oh my God, did you tell him that? What did he say?”
“I didn’t tell him that, Rana. I told him that I would give him a legal document and then after he made breakfast, I said thank you and… I haven’t seen him since.”
“Wait WHAT?!”
“What?”
Rana shakes her head. “How do you keep so many secrets? Do you have a finsta?”
“I don’t know what that is, Rana. And I’m not keeping secrets. I just don’t… I’m not that mushy of a person.”
“But Peter made you breakfast. So he’s obviously a mushy person.”
“Or he was a hungry person who wanted to go through my cabinets and fridge.”
“He’s rich, he doesn’t need to do that!”
“Rana…”
“What? It’s public knowledge. He’s paying for his cousin’s case and we charge a lot.”
“Fine. Then he wanted to go through my cabinets.”
“He loves you.”
“Rana…”
“Aricia and Peter sitting in a tree–”
“Rana!”
“Okay,” she says. “Fine. I just wanted to lighten the mood before I got to the bad news. But I still think you should have Peter ‘take care of it’.”
“Peter won’t be handling anything in my life that I can’t handle myself. Now get to that bad news before I explode.”
“Inessa’s lawyer contacted us. She intends to file a civil lawsuit against Plant, Parker, & Nigel for discrimination, wrongful termination, and retaliation under Title VII.”
Rana waits for my response. The room spins around me and I fully intend to come up with something intelligent or proactive to say.
“I’m going to throw up,” comes out instead, and I’m just grateful that it’s not actual vomit. I lean back in my chair, trying to process all of this, because I can tell from the look on Rana’s face this isn’t all I have to deal with today.
Kennard is dead. He’s been dead for a long time at this point, and our relationship was over longer than that, and his mistress has nothing to do with me.
I didn’t choose to be unfaithful in my marriage.
Why should my company suffer the consequences?
Why should I? My blood boils with rage, but once the emotion rises, it fizzles into this deep, unsettling sense of powerlessness.
Like the first time I really suspected my ex-husband was cheating on me.
“Are you okay?” Rana asks after a few seconds of silence. “Should I stop?”
“What else is there?”
“Her lawyer is taking her for a ride,” Rana says. “Nobody wants this stuff to come out in court.”
“She’s also suing for IIED.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Intentional infliction of emotional distress?
“She’s blaming me for that one,” Rana says. “I didn’t even hit her that hard.”
“Hand over the documents,” I respond with a sigh. As badly as I wish I could be the type of person to throw up and to hide from all of this. I’m an attorney. It’s not in my nature to back down from a fight. “Which law firm around here is even bothering to take this case?”
Rana hands over the documents and answers my question. “David Feinberg.”
“Asshole!”
“I know.”
Strangely, as I take the documents from Rana, my mind wanders to Peter…