Tess
“Kendra?” I called, opening the door slowly so I wouldn’t startle her.
It had been several weeks since I’d been to her apartment, and though I’d used my key on a regular basis before, things felt different now.
But since she hadn’t answered when I’d knocked, I poked in carefully.
Her condo looked the same as usual, immaculate in some areas, others in total disarray.
Kendra was like that, only occupying parts of her apartment at a time, the same way she only occupied parts of her life.
Her sofa, for example, had books and magazines piled as though she’d been doing a binge read.
The coffee table had her laptop and more than one empty plate that had yet to be taken to the kitchen.
On the other hand, her office—a room I could easily see due to the open layout—looked tidy and neglected.
Which made sense, I supposed. I was usually the one who pulled her in there when she would have been perfectly happy to work from the living room.
Vainly, I wondered if she’d even been able to get any work done at all since I’d been on leave.
Feeling guilty for the thought, I gathered up her dirty dishes and carried them to the kitchen, cleaning up after her in the way I’d grown accustomed to as her employee. In the same way I cleaned up after Teyana.
God, if they ever actually got together, the two of them would need to hire an adult nanny.
Not it.
After leaving the kitchen, a thump drew me from the main part of the apartment. “Kendra?” I called again.
“Back here,” she said, her voice seeming farther away than it should for being in her bedroom.
I followed the sound and found her in her closet, sitting on the floor, wearing nothing but a matching bra and panty set, a variety of outfits strewn around her.
She peered up at me, her perfectly made-up eyes blinking in surprise, which had me wondering who in the hell she’d thought I was when she’d invited me to come waltzing into her closet while she was half naked.
Then I remembered I was dealing with someone who didn’t always connect thoughts and events in a linear fashion, and also someone who had no boundaries when it came to her body.
“Am I running late?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I came early. Thought we should probably talk first.”
“Oh, good. Seeing how I’m still not dressed.” Her face and hair were already done, though, so she’d be ready to go as soon as she was.
But even with my appearance, she made no move to do so.
In all the years I’d known her, she’d never been one to have a hard time choosing an outfit.
No, this was something else. Something I recognized since it had only been about two months since I’d sat in her same exact spot, fretting about how I was going to be able to pull off selling the DRF to Scott Sebastian behind Kendra’s back.
When I’d been in that state, Teyana had joined me on the floor.
It had been a while since I’d been that close to Kendra, but the impulse felt right, and I plopped myself on the ground and stretched my legs out in front of me, figuring the closet was as good a place to talk as any.
But as many times as I’d practiced my speech, the words didn’t come. And I wasn’t about to ask her what was up with her because frankly, I didn’t care.
Or I was trying not to care. Not caring was harder to follow through with than I wanted it to be. Even after the way she’d treated me, even after keeping her relationship with Teyana a secret for so long. Even though she was engaged to the man I loved.
Instinctively, I glanced at her left hand and saw it bare.
I wasn’t going to ask about that, either. She probably just didn’t wear it all the time and would put it on before we left.
Before she left. I still hadn’t decided if we’d be leaving together.
After several silent minutes, she drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on the top of them. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”
Annoyance stabbed through me. In all the years I’d worked for her, I’d never not come in when I was supposed to, and I was offended that she’d think it was a possibility I’d flake now, never mind that it had definitely crossed my mind.
But being annoyed wasn’t going to get us anywhere. What we needed was to finally be honest. “I wasn’t sure I would either,” I admitted. “And I’m really not sure whether or not I’m staying.”
“Not staying today or not staying ever?”
It was an odd way to phrase it, but I understood what she was asking. “Both maybe. I don’t know.” I pulled my knees to my chest, mirroring her posture. “It depends on what you’d want me to stay for.”
“Because you’re a stellar employee. Because I like having you around. Because you know who I am and you still…” She trailed off, seeming uncertain how to fill in the blank.
I still...yeah.
I had still for her an awful lot. Still stayed loyal when she’d taken me for granted and kept me in the dark and hadn’t given me the opportunity to grow.
But maybe I’d done a bit of the same to her.
Besides, that hadn’t been what I was asking. “I mean, what job do you want me to stay for? If you want me to be here as your assistant and house sitter and housemaid—”
“That’s not fair to you,” she finished for me. “It’s not where you belong either. I know that. I’ve always known it.”
I propped my chin up on the top of one knee. “Then why is that where you kept me?”
She blew out a rush of air. “I’ve been wondering about that a lot lately, trying to come up with the answer. It was a lot of things, I think, none of them good excuses, but if you want to know—”
“I do.”
“Well. It was easier, for one. You know what I need and how to do things the way I like them, and training someone new for that is just...hard.”
“I would help with that, you know.”
“I know. But whomever I hired, she’d never be you.”
Flattery was exactly the way to my heart. But I steeled myself against it, not wanting to get caught up in the warm fluffy feelings when this conversation needed to be had in full. “Why else?”
“I was selfish. Obviously. I liked having you to myself. I liked that you weren’t a part of the elitist snobs I deal with on a daily basis. I liked that you were real.”
She was right—it was selfish. Considering what I knew now about her world, though, it also might have been a protective instinct on her part. I didn’t really want to give her that much credit, but since she hadn’t tried to ask for it, it was easier to admit she might deserve it.
I didn’t have to encourage her to go on this time.
“And because I think I wanted something I could control. When it feels like I have nothing I can control. Nothing that’s all mine.
This business was, and I was afraid…” She paused to clear her throat.
“I think I was afraid that if I let you be everything that you could be, you’d outshine me. ”
Ugh. Immature, ridiculous, gross thinking, and yet so many people in our society thought along the same lines. Women were taught to feel that way, especially. Taught that there was limited room at the top for the female gender, and so we better claw our way up and push everyone else down.
She’d probably had that idea pushed on her more than I had, coming from a world of perfection. A world that valued how things were perceived more than the reality behind them. A world that would make a woman feel like she should choose a loveless marriage instead of the woman she loved.
I wanted to be mad at her. And I was. But also, I felt sorry for her.
And I loved her. And wanted the best for her. Despite everything. Still.
“The success of other people doesn’t diminish your own value,” I told her, hoping she’d hear it.
“I know,” she said. “I really do know. And maybe it would have been easier to allow that to be true with you if it weren’t you. Because you already had the thing I wanted most. How could I give you what was left too?”
I had the thing she wanted most? What on earth could I have that she wanted when she had money and good looks and success and the right pedigree and Scott and...
Oh.
“Teyana,” I said. It wasn’t a secret that I knew about their on-again, off-again affair. I’d told her when I’d told her I was taking a leave, and Tey had had at least one long phone call with her about it.
But even though I’d gotten used to the idea of them being together, I still hadn’t put it all the way into perspective, and I tried to do that now.
Tried to imagine myself in her shoes, which wasn’t hard since Kendra had Scott, a fact that was devastating.
If I had everything else she had, and she only had him, I’d still seethe with envy.
So, yeah. I could understand her feeling that way about me.
Except… “I don’t have Teyana, K.”
“You do, though. You have the ability to be with her and be yourself and not worry about who thinks what about who you are to each other.”
I leaned forward, forcing her to meet my eyes. “You have that ability too.”
“Not without losing.”
It wasn’t fair for me to try to decide whether or not the things that she would lose by coming out about Teyana were worth it.
There was no way I could make those assumptions, especially when I was solidly part of the privileged when it came to sexual orientation.
I couldn’t truly understand the obstacles and prejudices a bisexual woman faced or make a judgment about how she chose to deal with that.
But I did know something about losing in general.
“I think that’s what love is about sometimes.
About losing. Sacrificing, but also about losing yourself or the idea of who you are because you’ve finally seen who you are through the eyes of someone who loves you better than you love yourself, and it doesn’t quite match up to what you thought you were. ”
Like how Scott had known I wouldn’t be able to give up the DRF for him. Because he saw me as that good of a person, and I believed him, which made me have to change my self-identity. It made me lose him, too, of course.
But this wasn’t about me.