Chapter 28
Sitting at Luke’s kitchen table two days later, my throat tightened as my fingers flew across my keyboard.
I wanted to believe everything Luke had said to me when we went to the beach the day I quit—the myth of sunk costs, that it was valid to choose to exit the corporate race and pursue different passions—so badly, but Max’s words still struck a nerve.
I told my therapist about Max calling my life a mess, and as my therapy homework, Wendy recommended I write about some of my experiences at Peters & Dowling as a way to process my departure.
It was more difficult to find the words to describe my fainting incident in John’s office than I imagined it would be, and as I wrote each painstaking word, my shame came roaring back, but also my indignation.
Articulating it in detail helped me see what happened through a more objective lens.
I didn’t deserve the dressing-down he gave me.
I’d been working so hard, and I hadn’t made any mistakes or missed any deadlines.
By the time I got to the part where I’d turned to flee but couldn’t make it to another office fast enough to stop myself from fainting, it was hard to swallow, and my eyes were full.
Writing it felt like reliving it—the panic, the embarrassment.
My pulse thundered in my ears, just like it did that day.
“Val?” Luke’s voice called from the front hall, making me nearly jump out of my chair, my psyche yanked suddenly from the fiftieth floor of Peters & Dowling’s New York office back to Luke’s house in Edgartown.
He rounded the corner toward the kitchen and said, “You know, I’m starting to get—” I tore my eyes from the screen.
He stopped when he saw my face. “Hey, what happened?” His brow furrowed, voice laced with concern. “Did you get bad news?”
I shook my head. “No.” My voice was hoarse. “Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “I was just writing something that made me kind of emotional.” But Luke’s presence was already having a calming effect on my nervous system, causing my pulse to quiet. How does he do that?
He closed the distance between us. “Wanna talk about it?”
“It’s okay.” My forced smile was weak and unconvincing.
“Well, I want to talk about it, if you think it would help. But I understand if you don’t want to tell me.” Worry was written all over his handsome face.
Suddenly, I did want to tell him.
“My therapist told me to write about some of the events leading up to my burnout. She said she thought it would help me process them and make peace with the decision to leave. In addition to being a good writing exercise, since she knows I’ve been writing.”
Luke nodded, clearly following along with every word.
“I was writing about something that happened at work the week before I left, and it brought back some…feelings.”
“What happened?”
I wasn’t sure how to explain it. But of course, I just had. “Want to read it?”
“If you want me to.”
I nodded and turned the laptop toward him.
He sat down and pulled it closer. I watched as his pupils moved side to side, his face almost immediately turning cold.
His brow furrowed deeper, his lips a thin line.
I knew when he was done because he stood up from the dining chair violently. It fell over with a slap.
“This really happened?” His tone was menacing. I could tell he wasn’t asking whether what I wrote was the truth, but expressing disbelief that it happened at all.
“Yes.”
“What the fuck? I can’t believe he said all those things to you, made you so upset you fainted.
” He started pacing, fists clenched at his sides.
“What a sexist piece of shit.” His hand reached up and gripped the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry. I feel like I’m supposed to be supportive right now, but that”—he pointed at the computer—“pisses me off. No wonder you left. Fucking assholes.”
I bit my trembling lip, my eyes welling. It was so validating—his reaction, his wrath. Just like when Drew said John was a sexist asshole, implying the ridicule wasn’t my fault. I didn’t believe him at the time, but I was starting to.
I was about to say thank you when Luke took in my expression. In an instant he picked up the chair and dropped back into it. “Oh no, she’s crying again. Um, fuck.” He pushed both hands into his brown locks. “I don’t know how to say the right thing.”
“No, no. It’s not that, your reaction”—I shook my head and wiped away the tears, replacing them with a reassuring smile—“it’s validating.
It makes me feel like…like it wasn’t my fault.
I was so embarrassed, I didn’t want anyone to know.
I thought it made me weak, proved I wasn’t cut out for the job after all. ”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand, and a feeling of safety—the opposite of panic—emanated through my body from the spot where our skin touched. “You’re not weak, Val. That’s called a hostile work environment.”
I nodded, willing myself to believe him.
His soft eyes searched my face.
“It was the perfect thing to say. All of it.”
“Ha,” he breathed. “Good.” He leaned back in his chair but didn’t let go of my hand.
The afternoon light streaming in the kitchen window reflected off the countertop behind Luke like a mirror.
After a moment he added, “That’s some damn good writing, Val. Who knew two pages of text could infuriate me so much I nearly broke one of my own dining chairs.”
I bit the insides of my lips, a smile begging to break free. “Thanks, Luke.” Relief coursed through me, my heart rate long steadied.
He left his hand on mine, like he had nowhere he’d rather be. I stared at the tanned fingers, noted the roughness of his callouses. My anchor in this confusing storm of mine.
“What were you going to say when you got home, before you saw I was upset?” I asked softly, voice still a little hoarse. I lifted my gaze to his face, wondering if he’d remember.
His chocolate eyes bore into mine. His jaw flexed, like he was questioning whether to tell me. “I was going to say…I’m becoming addicted to seeing you at my table when I get home every day.”
My breath caught, and those brown eyes begged me to admit that I was addicted, too. I opened my mouth. And then my alarm sounded, my phone vibrating violently on the wooden surface of the table. I exhaled. “We need to go get Luna.”