Overdue

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

I didn’t turn on the lights. I dropped my keys onto the table beside the front door where they belonged but only out of habit.

I sank to my apartment floor in a puddle.

Prickly carpeting smooshed into my face.

I had sobbed and screamed the entire drive home— why the fuck did you do that, how could you be so fucking stupid —and now my body went into shock.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this humiliated or ashamed.

How could I have misjudged Macon’s friendship in such a monumental way?

It was such a rookie mistake, so pubescent.

The horror in his eyes.

My chest squeezed, and my arms went numb.

I thought I’d triggered a heart attack until I realized the numbness was only because I was lying on top of them.

I wiggled them out and let them tingle painfully.

I relished the physicality of this pain because it aligned with what was happening to me mentally.

The floor vibrated beneath my cheek. A young couple who attended the local college lived below me, and one of them was walking from their bedroom toward their kitchen. The guy called out something that sounded like a question. His girlfriend gave a muffled response.

I fumbled for the phone in my bag, which had fallen onto the carpet beside me.

It was bad , I texted Kat. So bad. Going-to-have-to-get-another-job bad.

I stared at the screen, waiting for her usual quick response.

It didn’t come, which meant she was probably commuting.

We’d found each other nearly a decade earlier in the book circles of social media, and we often chatted during our overlapping waking hours.

Despite the actual ocean between us, whenever I said or did something stupid, Kat was my first line of defense.

But Cory was my second. He was the one who hugged me, who told me everything would be okay—and then reminded me of all the times that he’d done something similarly idiotic.

It felt bizarre that he wasn’t here. That I couldn’t tell him about my day.

All of my muscles tensed as the incident replayed in my mind. Macon had run away from me. I cried again: for Kat, for Cory, for a time machine.

My screen lit up, and my heart leapt. Kat!

Did your car start? Are you home?

Macon.

Despite everything, he was still making sure that I was safe.

My skin crawled with renewed shame. I wanted to ignore him, but he’d only drive back to the library and then retrace the route to my apartment, worried that I was stranded someplace with a dead phone.

He had saved me from the side of the road before.

I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, until I finally settled on this: I’m home.

I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.

All I can say is that it’s been a strange week.

If it’s okay with you, let’s pretend that never happened.

It took a full minute—I watched the clock—before the three dots appeared. Unlike me, Macon thought about his reply before typing it.

No worries.

That was it.

God. What a disaster.

I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told Kat that I’d have to get another job.

Returning to work and sitting beside him for forty hours a week was unthinkable.

The level of not thinking that had gone into all of this was extraordinary.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered the possibility that he might turn me down, but…

I honestly believed he wouldn’t. How could I have been so cocky, so overconfident to assume that my feelings were mutual?

On what planet had I been living for all these years?

I didn’t know if I could give Sue a single day’s notice, let alone a full two weeks.

How would I explain my sudden departure to her?

Where would I find another job? Would the library at the college hire me or would they require a more advanced degree?

My screen lit up again.

WHAT HAPPENED?

I scrambled to my feet, lurched onto my couch, and burritoed myself in a blanket. Can you talk? I asked, and my phone immediately rang with an incoming FaceTime call.

“It was bad,” I said through a fresh burst of tears.

“I can barely see you. Where are you? Are you all right?” Kat was standing outside her library. Her hair was in its usual practical ponytail, and her light brown skin was tanned and generously freckled. She glowed in the morning summer sun of the Southern hemisphere.

My own glow was pale and haunted, illuminated only by my screen. “Oh God. It was bad.”

“So you keep saying. What happened?” As I told her, she gasped in all the right places. “Are you sure he wasn’t just startled?” she asked, although her expression betrayed that even she didn’t believe this was a possibility. “Maybe he needs more time to think about it. About you.”

“He said the word no twice. He couldn’t have been clearer.”

“No, you’re right. No means no and all that.”

A thought, appalling and repugnant, seeped through me. “I’m one of those monsters—one of those hideous monsters who sexually harasses their coworkers.”

“You are not.”

“I am. Oh my God, I am.”

“Did you accept his no?”

“Of course, but—”

“Would you ever try anything like this again?”

“Of course not, but—”

“End of discussion.”

Seconds passed. I was finding it hard to look at her. “I fucked up,” I finally said.

“Yep.”

“It’s going to be so awkward at work.”

“Yep.”

I moaned. “What am I supposed to do?”

“About Macon?”

“Macon, my job, everything. All of it.”

“Cory?”

“What about Cory?” I asked.

Kat appeared to be searching for the right way to phrase her next question. “Are you sure this is something you still want to do? This arrangement with Cory?”

“Yeah, I just”—my voice lowered into a confession—“thought it would be easier than this.”

Her guffaw was sharp and unexpected, and she instantly looked repentant. “Sorry. But you know that’s absurd, right? Why do you think the dating industry is worth billions of dollars?”

“I know, but—”

“If you really want to do this, you’ll have to pull your shit together and get out there.”

“Says the married woman,” I said petulantly. Kat was a little older than me. When we met, she was already married, and they had a child now. I hadn’t witnessed her dating years.

“Well, you better believe Cory isn’t sitting alone in his Airbnb right now, sobbing to a mate on the phone.”

Reality dipped. I saw Cory in a crowded room with thumping bass, leaning in close to chat up an alluring woman. The temptress smiled back at him and licked her teeth.

Lightheadedness and nausea rolled through me.

“You need to leave your apartment”—Kat was getting bossy now—“and meet a man you don’t work with.”

“Okay. Okay.” I nodded even though my head was still swimming. “How do I do that?”

“You know, go to a pub or bar or whatever.”

“Alone?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “No. You have to bring somebody, a friend to keep you company and help you watch out for scumbags.”

“Right.” I shook my head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

“You’ve never done this.”

“Right. I’ve never done this.”

“Here’s what you’re gonna do: Wash your face, eat dinner, go to bed. And while you sleep, I’m going to come up with a brilliant plan.”

Panic bubbled back to the surface. “No, I need to go out tonight. Now.”

“You need to go to bed now.”

“I’m serious, I can’t stay here. I can’t sit with this. I have to get out.”

“Out to where?”

“To a bar! Like you said.”

“With whom?”

It was a good question, and it stopped my spiral. Sue and Alyssa were out of the question, and most of the other people I hung out with were actually Cory’s friends from work. “What if I went alone,” I said, “just for tonight—”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. You’re a disaster.”

“Thanks,” I said, managing to feel even worse.

“Listen to me. I’m saying that it would be dangerous for you to go out alone tonight. You’re in a bad headspace, and I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret.”

This got through to me, and I relented. Deflated.

A flash of light, a reflection, shone behind Kat. My library overlooked a glorified pond while hers overlooked an entire ocean. “What about Brittany?” she asked.

I hesitated. “I don’t know. Cory and I are both friends with her.”

“But aren’t you closer friends with her?”

“I guess. Maybe.”

I was. When our former downstairs neighbors, Brittany and Reza Najafi, had moved into a house across town the previous autumn, I was the one who’d made the extra effort to stay in touch.

Cory had only visited their new place once for their housewarming party, but I’d been over a few additional times to help them paint and decorate.

I’d also helped Brittany scour some garage and estate sales for furniture to fill up all that new empty space.

“So,” Kat said, “claim her before Cory can.”

The notion chilled me. We hadn’t broken up, yet lines were being drawn. Kat wasn’t wrong, though. “I wish you could come with me,” I said.

Her face fell, and I knew she wished it, too.

“Stupid Australia,” I said glumly.

“Stupid America.”

“You have to get to work.”

“I do. Text me if you need me, all right?”

We hung up, and I called Brittany, no text beforehand, no chance to change my mind. She answered on the third ring, sounding worried. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

It depressed me that most people assumed a call meant something bad had happened. Unfortunately, it was often true. “Yeah.” I sniffed. “I mean, no. But yeah.”

“Are you crying? Did your car break down again?”

Cory and Macon weren’t the only people who had saved me from the side of the road. Reza had jumped my car once in a Taco Bell parking lot.

“Is she okay? Where is she?” a voice asked in the background.

“I’m at home,” I said.

“She’s home,” Brittany said to her husband.