Chapter Four #2
Tessa’s steps slowed, suddenly unsure.
“Which is why,” Xavier continued, “it brings me such great honor to have you all here tonight to celebrate with me, as Hello, Marketing’s newest vice president of accounts takes his position at my side.”
Tessa froze, mid-step, smile falling from her lips.
“Peyton Barnes,” Xavier called. “Congratulations on your promotion. I’m so proud of everything you’ve accomplished in such a short period of time, and I can’t wait to see what you do from here.”
Applause exploded through the crowd, and Tessa turned in search of her friends, confused and humiliated. What just happened?
Millie and Nina exchanged looks of horror and began pushing their way in her direction.
Peyton bumped against her shoulder as he passed, coughing softly near her ear to disguise the words she couldn’t process. “Try hard.” Then he jogged the two short steps to take the stage.
Betrayal burned through Tessa’s cheeks, heart, and soul, as she locked eyes with Xavier for one long moment.
She hadn’t missed the rest of Peyton’s statement.
He’d been mocking her for all her useless efforts.
He’d called her a try hard. She watched as Xavier’s smile flattened into something else in the moment before Peyton extended his hand for a shake.
“Come on,” Kate whispered in her ear, suddenly at her side.
Hallie tugged Tessa’s arm, and the pair smoothly ushered her away.
“I-I don’t understand,” Tessa said. She said the words louder than she’d intended, and her friends moved more quickly, dragging her into the fringe, then out the front door.
Rain fell in a fine sheeting mist as they emerged onto the sidewalk. Small puddles had formed in the street.
Tessa’s eyes welled with tears. Then, in communion with the sky, the drops ran down her cheeks as she and her friends rushed away from prying eyes.
“What the fuck just happened?” she cried, and Kate and Hallie towed her a little faster.
“I parked over there,” Kate said. “Let’s keep moving.”
“He chose Peyton?” Tessa asked. “How could he do that? Why?”
A passing truck thunked into a pothole as it passed, sending two waves of filthy water over the curb. The cold slap hit Tessa’s legs a nanosecond before dirt streaks marred the hem of her gown.
“Shit!”
“Oh, boy.” Hallie gripped her elbow tightly and dragged her forward once more.
Kate broke into a sprint ahead of them, rushing to open her vehicle’s doors. She started the car while Hallie stuffed Tessa into the passenger seat, then hopped into the back. Seconds later, they’d buckled up, and Kate pulled swiftly into evening traffic.
“We’ll swing back for her car after the gala when everyone is gone,” Kate said, casting a look into the rearview mirror.
“Yep,” Hallie agreed.
Tessa’s shock had shifted to something like betrayal before being burned away by red-hot rage. She wasn’t sure who she wanted to drop-kick into the river first. Xavier or Peyton? It was a toss-up really.
Then again, she thought dryly, with my luck, I’ll be arrested the one time I misbehave. Then, the guys would continue to go golfing while she rotted in jail.
Kate passed Tessa a white linen handkerchief. “Dry your eyes. Those guys don’t deserve your tears.”
“No time,” Tessa said, using both hands as squeegees on wet cheeks. “I’m plotting a double homicide.”
Hallie snorted and leaned forward between the front bucket seats. “Let’s lower that to a misdemeanor and toilet paper Xavier’s car instead. We can sign Peyton up with all the military branches online.”
Tessa rolled her head against the seat back. Given access to the country’s military, Peyton would probably charm his way into politics and end up as a supremely unqualified president. “You never let me kill anyone.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kate asked.
“No,” Tessa groused. Her chest ached, and her rage fizzled into misery.
“I helped grow that business,” she said.
“I worked for free for months. Then I was Xavier’s only junior ads manager for years.
I scouted for clients and brought them in.
I contacted, then contracted, local shops.
I did any and every marketing-related job possible to help his company grow.
I was the single worker ant while he managed it all and hired older, more experienced men than me.
Now he’s promoted a younger, less knowledgeable one?
” She glared at the fuzzy white headlight beams in the rain and cones of streetlamp light as they swept by in the night.
“I’m the more experienced one now. It should be me! ”
Kate stroked the length of Tessa’s arm from shoulder to elbow. “We know. Xavier knows too. They all do.”
“Then why?” Tessa asked, hating the whine in her tone. “Peyton is like twenty-three and fresh out of Pi Kappa Alpha. He probably still plays beer pong on the weekends.”
“I think he was playing at the gala,” Hallie said.
Tessa forced her blurry vision into focus, blinking back the tears that had finally slowed.
“You know what? I’m not doing this anymore,” she said.
“I’m finished with all of the nonsense.” She’d kept her head down and worked so hard because she thought there’d be a pot of career gold at the end of the long work weeks and endless campaigns, or at least a mediocre raise.
But this is what she got? Kicked aside for someone wholly unqualified? Absolutely not.
She was taking a stand. “I’m done.”
Kate glanced nervously in her direction several times before speaking. “You should probably take some time to let this settle. You don’t have to do anything about it right now. You’d break your own heart if you quit a job you love out of anger.”
Tessa’s face contorted in disbelief. “I’m not quitting my job,” she said, feeling the resolution of her idea settling in like stone.
“I’m done trying to make everyone else happy at my own expense, especially Xavier.
I looked up to him, and he let me down. Again.
I can’t do it anymore without losing my mind and my last shred of self-respect. I won’t.”
Hallie frowned. “More direct terms, for the passenger in the back?”
Tessa exhaled a breath that felt like freedom. She imagined a dark cloud of perpetual effort, sleep deprivation, pressure, and misery flowing out of her. Then, the life of peace she longed for filling her soul on a slow, easy inhale.
“Starting tomorrow,” she said. “I’m choosing myself.
I’m done making my life harder for people who don’t even see me.
I won’t put myself last anymore.” She looked at Kate, then twisted slightly, peering over her shoulder to Hallie.
“Last night we said we wished we could be the heroines of our stories. Tomorrow I’m getting started. ”