44. Chapter 43
Chapter 43
Katherine
I stare at the blinking cursor on the screen in front of me, willing words to write themselves, hoping if I stare at it enough, it’ll just happen on its own.
I came to meet Tommy the day after I got back two weeks ago and then started work the day after that. He told me to take a few days, start in a few weeks but I just wanted to get to it. I needed this, I needed to start immediately. To have something to focus on.
My mom says I’m looking for a distraction, and she’s definitely right, I’m not denying that. I had one therapist at one point who said it was good for my anxiety to have something to look forward to, to keep myself going. He meant like a vacation or a shopping trip or a theatre show. I took it one step further and now I need a constant thing in life that’s going to push me, that’s going to help “future” me.
Working on myself is a constant job. I’ve got an appointment with a new therapist in a week, I’ve decided that even if I don’t think I need therapy maybe I do, because let’s face it I never worked through anything when I lost dad. I kinda hope James thinks about seeing someone, god I hope he went to see his mom, just to talk, see if maybe that was a relationship he could get back.
Fuck.
There I go again. Even when I think I’m not thinking about him, I am .
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against my chair. It doesn’t entirely help that my first assignment is a five part article about my trip and my experience. It’ll be part of the relaunch of the magazine’s website.
That’s right I will be one of the first writers to be posted on the website, for the most famous soulmate magazine in history.
No pressure, Katherine.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered and honoured and excited but I’m literally sitting here reliving the last four months of my life, and some would say they were a pretty life changing four months. But it’s totally fine, I don’t mind thinking about James from nine until five.
Totally fine.
The blinking cursor and blank page in front of me laugh back at me.
I have a week to get the first draft to Tommy, and honestly it shouldn’t even be this hard but I just don’t know how to start. Do people care about the why or do they just want to get to know how I packed up my life in two suitcases and ran half away around the world to find my soulmate?
I try to focus back on my computer. My eyes wander over my screen into the office in front of me.
Everyone has been crazy friendly since I started, not a single upturned nose or people whispering in the corner while looking over at me, like I imagined, like my anxious brain told me would happen.
A loud bing brings my eyes over the elevator, I thank my lucky stars we have one that goes right into the office. We’re so high up, sometimes I just go and stand by one of the million windows and look out at the city. I've really appreciated getting that perspective the last couple of weeks.
It gives me the same feeling as being at the lighthouse again, I feel alone again just for a minute. And if I close my eyes, I can smell the salt in the air and feel his hand in mine and I’m at peace again. At peace with my situation, with the way things have to be. Me, here, and him, there, but sometimes it feels like he is here with me.
“Your final contract, Kat. Sorry it took a couple weeks, I didn't expect you to want to start so soon and there were a few changes I wanted to make after our last chat,” Tommy says, laying down an at least thirty page content in front of me. I don’t think I’ve ever had to sign one before. “Take it home, read over it a few times to make sure everything is okay, then just sign if you’re happy and give it to HR on the thirty-second floor.”
I feel him linger at my desk as I just kinda stare at it for a minute. “Yeah sure, thank you so much.” My eyes get stuck on the job title part, ‘Junior Writer’. That’s me, that’s the first stepping stone, this is the step I need. Yet I’m not sure how I feel about it, happy for sure.
“You alright?” he asks when I don’t say what he had been expecting or at last my face doesn’t match my words.
He’s been great since I started, maybe he’ll be more of a boss type once I’ve been here for a while, shouting about deadlines and bad ideas. But I don’t think he will, I think he wants everyone here to be happy and work well because they want to, not because he’s scaring them into it. No one has said a bad word about him and that’s probably why I say what I say. “What if I’m not good enough?”
That’s honestly what I’ve been worried about the most, not living up to what he thinks, or what anyone thinks. Studying for this and writing my blog are one thing, but actually doing it, it’s like being thrown into a shark tank and not knowing how to swim.
“Oh, Katherine.” He moves around to the side of my desk resting his hip on it so he can look at me better. “One, I wouldn’t have hired you in the first place if I didn’t think you were good enough. Two, if you’re not ready to write these articles we can think of something else for you to have ready for the website. Three, I kinda think this has more to do with you having to relive it all then if you can actually write it.”
“I think you might be right.”
“Of course I am, I’m the boss, I'm always right.” A slow smile creeps across his face turning into one that takes up his whole face. “Katherine, I’d understand if you didn’t want to but I think a lot of people would be interested in what you have to say about what you went through.”
“I guess it’s just having to think about him.” That’s it, that’s all it is, all the moments we had, they come rushing back the minute I think of him. His face stuck in my mind for hours. But that’s just what I’ll have to get used to because no matter what he’ll always be a part of my story even if he didn’t want to be.
“Is that him?” Tommy says standing up fully and turning his body away from me, and I’m not sure what he means until I follow his line of sight towards the elevator in front.
“James?” I almost don’t recognise him in jeans, a sweater and a coat. The guy looks like he’s going to catch hypothermia any second.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” he says, practically pulling me from my chair and pushing me out from behind my desk.
How is he here?
Why is he here?
I trip over my own feet while I move around my cubicle, playing with my hair, flattening it down at my roots.
I feel my heart pick up, I was never nervous around him like this. Seeing him here right now it’s like a dream, one I’ve had most nights since being back. I wait for my alarm to wake me up, throwing me back into the nightmare that is my life without him.
But as I get closer to him and the smell of sunshine and sea waves hit me and I know this is real. “What are you doing here?”