Chapter 32
thirty-two
ROSIE
They don’t let me see my exam scores, and I’m still sure they were less than satisfactory. Somehow, though, I’m back in the Xion Group hallway. The hands in my lap are red from squeezing and releasing and squeezing and releasing.
It’s quieter this time. A single person loiters in the hallway with me.
Aside from the interviewers busy in the office to my right, there’s no one working on Sunday.
I pity the three employees sitting behind that door.
Not only do they have to clock in on a weekend, but their first task of the day is interviewing Jeremiah.
We ran into each other in the elevator. He might’ve said something under his breath. I’m not totally sure. His friend placed two seats away could be staring daggers into my temple, but I don’t feel the need to check.
Having your idol believe in you, tell you she’s faced the same trials, and remind you of your own power, changes your brain chemistry. How I interpret every interaction shifted once I replaced doubtful thoughts with echoes of my accomplishments.
Seeing the love of your life stand up to his emotionally abusive dad leaves you with some courage, too. If Locke can so bravely reshape his life, then I can reposition my mindset.
Others recognizing my talents is nice, sure, but my life will no longer depend on it. The only opinion that will hold the weight of my world, is my own. The people who care about me in my life taught me that lesson.
“I’m surprised you got this far.”
Jeremiah’s scratchy voice is just as surprising as his frame looming over me. I was so distracted thinking about how I’ve grown, I didn’t even notice he finished his interview.
He looks different. The angle of seeing him through my lashes may be to blame, but I think it’s more than that. Since Jeremiah’s words lost their power, his presence has too.
I ignore him. I don’t have anything to say.
After a stretch of silence, he huffs. Stomps his foot into the floor and grunts, “You’re really wearing that? Are you trying to get the internship by sleeping with the interviewers?”
My eyebrows raise. It’s not hurt coursing through me this time—it’s shock. In the countless times he’s attacked me, he’s never been so brash.
“My outfit is fine.”
I don’t glance down to check. My hands don’t itch to yank my skirt lower.
Jeremiah scoffs. “Maybe for a slut. Did your boyfriend tell you your outfit was appropriate? You’ve got him wrapped around your finger so tightly he’d probably tell you a blatant lie like that.”
The venom comes clear through his pitch, but the insults don’t scratch at my skin or bounce against my skull. I don’t cling onto how he spits out slut, or lie, or appropriate. I’m too busy thinking over the accomplishments I can outline for the people behind the office door.
I’ve been on the dean’s list every year, both in undergrad and graduate school. I’ve won multiple trading competitions. I’m confident in numerous programming languages, like Python and R-
“Do you think you’re hot shit now that your boyfriend handles everything for you? Just because he thought calling me a loser was some sort of ‘gotcha’ moment? Is his rich daddy’s bank account going to pay your way into Xion too?”
My head whips to the left, where Jeremiah has thought it appropriate to sit next to me. His face is red, breathing heavy and jaw clenched. He’s the one who’s insulted me, but out of the two of us, he’s fuming.
“What’s rich is you getting on a high horse about my partner, when you were ready to kiss his feet a few weeks ago.”
His expression is familiar. It’s a copy of the eyes wide, mouth agape expression Locke’s father had at Friendsgiving.
I was so proud of him that night, and I’m proud of him now.
He’s forged a path for himself despite facing his fears of the unknown.
My situation isn’t an exact replica. The ache I’ve felt has always connected to my future, not my past. I always knew who I was.
It was my need for other people to know, that slashed away at my heart.
Locke doesn’t have a perfect idea of what’s coming next and neither do I.
I could walk into that room, be ridiculed by the interviewers, and face a reality where my career doesn’t start at Xion Group.
Everyone in this building could turn their noses down at me right now and try to make me feel small.
They won’t. Knowing that my path will be forged by me, and me alone, takes away all the power others have over my mind and heart.
It washes away the need to see a room of strangers validate my skills.
I can sit with my talents, contently, knowing what I’m capable of—with or without someone else being aware of it too.
The feeling is liberating. Jeremiah doesn’t seem impressed.
“I liked you better before you thought you were worth something.” He hisses.
It’s the evilest thing he’s ever said to me, and the most insignificant.
I turn to him slowly. He perks up with the attention I give him.
It dawns on me that he always said I needed other people’s focus.
Like I couldn’t live without it. That night at the bar, he insisted I only stood up for that stranger because he wasn’t paying attention to me.
It didn’t cross his mind that I just refuse to watch other women being bullied.
The longer I look at him, the straighter his back gets. The wider his grin grows. I laugh, small and quiet. The irony can’t write itself.
The best, most mature thing to do, is go back to ignoring him. I could let him stew in his own loneliness and crave the attention he so desperately needs. Obviously, it means more to him than he’ll ever admit. I’d be okay with torturing him that way.
It’s five seconds of internal debate before I recognize that current Rosie doesn’t need to tell Jeremiah off. She’s happy to wait until she reaches the top and can look down on him later.
Past Rosie wants to tell him off, just once. Just to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Jeremiah scoffs and leans back into his seat. Cocky smile twisted onto his face, he throws his arm around my back rest and gets comfortable. He thinks he’s won again.
I turn my body to him fully, my own wide grin blossoming. Just this once.
This is for past Rosie.
“Jeremiah, your only value is that of what people give you. The people you bully, the ones that hang around so you won’t bully them…
You don’t have anything else, if you don’t have them.
In a way, I guess I was like that. Minus the fake friends and people not really liking me, though.
I have real friends, who see me and want me around because of who I am.
Not because of what I threaten them with. Do you have real friends, Jeremiah?”
I pause to let him answer. Suddenly, he has nothing to say. His arm starts to slowly move away from my chair, and I laugh.
“The biggest difference between you and me, is that I was mistaken. I thought I needed other people to tell me what value I had. It took me too long to realize I hold so much power in my mind and soul, and the opinions of people like you are useless. They’re just words.”
The door opens. Jeremiah’s “friend” walks out looking frazzled—face washed of any confidence or self-assuredness.
It hits me then that Jeremiah isn’t the only person in my program who has been hiding their insecurities behind insults.
I was so caught up in my own self-doubts, I never noticed everyone else’s.
That’s what makes me different too. Despite my insecurities, I never thought to translate them into something hurtful or negative.
“Rosalie Mendoza?”
The employee doesn’t make eye contact when he says my name.
His vision stays locked on the clipboard in front of him.
For a split second, my nerves stand still.
Just for a moment before I remember who I am, what I’ll be, and how, no matter what, Xion Group will only be a blip in the greater story of my life.
As I stand, I lean over to Jeremiah’s crestfallen face and whisper, “You’re only great when you make other people feel small. You don’t have the skills or the mindset to become successful, so you make other people shrink. That’s what makes you a loser.”
The man at the door calls my name again, and I don’t look for Jeremiah’s reaction. I don’t care.
I have an interview to focus on.
Out of the three men sitting in front of me, only one feels wholly welcoming.
Two of them stare down at my resume, then back at me, eyes pointed.
Ironically, the only employee who hasn’t given me a look of skepticism is the one that forgoes introducing himself.
He’s also the only Xion member I feel I’ve seen somewhere, but I know I’ve never interviewed with.
“Rosalie,” Mr. Barlowe, the department head who brought me in the room, addresses me with a raised brow. “Your career goals ultimately circle back to a desire in quantitative analysis, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
His smile is crooked. I don’t waste time asking myself it’s genuine or not. “Then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear about any quantitative analysis projects you’ve worked on during your time as a student.”
I smile back before plunging into a long-winded answer I must’ve studied over a hundred times.
Then, it cycles. Mr. Barlowe and his colleague, Mr. Carnegie, stare at me like I’ve walked off the streets lost and confused. They ask questions that either feel too juvenile for a prestigious internship like this or should be too complicated for a candidate to answer.
Even when it takes a stretch of silence to gather my thoughts, I produce something. I answer. My mind, just for a second, slips into a frustrated state of wondering why their interview is so off-balance.
I remember Dr. Adebayo. Locke. Myself. And as soon as that thought comes, it passes. My life and future are beyond worrying about opinions of men who undermine my skillset without knowing it firsthand.