Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
Rhys
My meeting with the review panel is about as painful and boring as I knew it would be, which is quite the combination really.
I sit through the reading of the allegations the way I'd sit through any routine appointment, spine straight, hands still, not a single thing given away on my face.
Physically threatening a colleague.
Physically assaulting said colleague.
An undisclosed relationship with a colleague, which is not, on its own, against policy I've ever signed, except that I held a counselling and guidance role in her candidacy, and she and the colleague I allegedly threatened are competing for the same position, which makes it, in their words, a substantial conflict of interest.
I let them get all the way to the end of it before anyone asks if I have anything to say.
“Have you ever had any other complaint about me?” I ask first. “In the four years I've been here.”
The HR manager, Carol, answers. “No. In fact, Rhys, your performance and conduct have, until now, been uniformly excellent.”
I nod.
No surprise there.
“And Mr Pedler's fellowship application. Can he or anyone in this room point to a single way it suffered because of my relationship with Ms Riley?”
“He did lodge a complaint. But based on your meeting notes and recorded correspondence, your handling of his file was thorough. Appropriate. If anything, it's shown you've gone above and beyond.”
No shit. I might hate the shitbag, but I wasn't ruining my reputation on sabotaging him. He was always capable of doing that himself.
I continue. “And Ms Riley. Did she receive any favouritism from me at any point in her candidacy? I'm not even referring to documented instances. I mean has there been even a single accusation of favouritism towards her? Other than from Mr Pedler.”
Silence, this time, long enough to answer the question on its own. “No,” Carol says finally.
“Right,” I say with the control I've mastered over the years.
“First, I'll expect the information that you've just told me will be formally recorded in the report that comes out of this.
Second, the incident with Mr Pedler was personal.
It had nothing to do with either of our professional roles, and it didn't take place on university grounds.
Third, I hit him because he was standing in front of Ms Riley's family, her colleagues, her supervisors, verbally abusing and harassing her, and I have no intention of apologising for that.
If you were going to discipline me for it, then I suggest you look just as hard at his conduct while you're at it.”
Nobody moves.
“Finally,” I reach into my jacket and pull out a letter and set it on the table, “to remove any possibility of a conflict of interest that may affect Ms Riley's application for the Hargreaves fellowship, or any other applications or opportunities that come out of her time here, I'm rendering my resignation. Effective on receipt.” I check my watch. “Two thirty-nine, this afternoon.”
The protests start before I've even sat back down.
“But Rhys, we haven't finished the review. We understand these are extenuating circumstances, but there's a process, and it takes...”
“I don't need more time to know I don't want to work here anymore.” I stand, straighten my jacket, the calmest I've felt in days.
“And the longer I stay, the more damage I do to Ms Riley's reputation just by being associated with it.
That's something I won't tolerate, no matter how it looks on my file.”
“I have six weeks of accrued leave, two weeks can be used to cover my notice period,” I continue. “My cases have all been handed over and a message will be going out to every student and colleague I've worked with, letting them know I'm available as a reference if they need one.”
“I wish the department well. It's good work, what happens in this office.” I clear my throat, finally realising I'm about to leave this building for the last time. “I am proud of what I've built here, and the work I've done.”
I've made it to my car with a single box under one arm when I hear her shout my name.
I set the box on the boot and wait, bracing myself to come face to face with her for the first time since the night at the bar a few days ago.
She's out of breath when she reaches me. “Are you insane?” It's closer to a yell than a question. “Why the hell did you resign?”
“Because I wanted to.”
I wait for the follow-up, the argument, whatever question she's been practicing in her head, but they don't come. She just stands there, chest still heaving, looking at me like I've done something she'll never understand.
She doesn't have to.
“You need to let them finish the review. You'll be cleared, I know you will. You can't just leave. You love this job.” Her voice is full of pleading. “Rhys, I only worked with you for a few months, and I can already see how good you are at your job.”
“I'll find something else I'm good at. Something else I like even more.” I shrug. “It's just a job.” I look at her, the fatigue lining her eyes. “Have you not been sleeping again?”
She rubs her eyes, as if only just remembering she's tired, now that I've mentioned it. “I've been studying. It's only...”
“Ten days until your defence,” I finish for her. “You're going to do brilliantly. I know you will.”
She smiles a little, as if my remembering has touched her. “How do you know I will?”
“I'm good at my job, remember?” I give her a small smile. “Was good at my job. Which means I know exactly how good you are at yours.”
She swallows. “Why did you actually resign, Rhys? Can't you just tell me? It doesn't make any sense to me.”
“Because sometimes you have to know when it's time to let something go.”
Her face crumples.
I step in and press a kiss to her cheek, soft. “You're going to achieve everything you've ever dreamed of. I have never believed in anyone the way I believe in you.”
I drive away, watching her in the rear-view mirror the whole way, getting smaller, until the turn takes her out of frame, and the weight sitting in my chest is so vast there's room for nothing else.
Marcus
I am, by any reasonable measure, extremely drunk, and I am doing it at my own desk, at two p.m. on a Tuesday, which honestly feels like as good a time as any.
“And her laugh,” I tell Hunter, who is sitting across from me with his feet up on my desk, nursing the same beer from an hour ago. “Nobody laughs like that. It's not a girly, polite laugh. It's a real one. All throaty and chesty.” I sigh. “And speaking of her chest...”
“I... don't think we were, mate,” Hunter argues. But all I hear is profound agreement.
“Perfect chest. An' she reads with her finger tracing under the line. Like a kid. Grown woman, practically a doctor, sits all curled up in a chair reading like a kid. It's so fucking cute, I would die to see it again for just five minutes. I would actually die, Hunt.”
“Wouldn't recommend it,” Hunter says. “Bit permanent.”
Jack knocks and lets himself in before I can tell him not to, holding out a tablet with a paint swatch glowing on it, something he needs signed off on ASAP.
“Sorry, quick one, Boss. Which shade did the designer want for the Henley Street facade? Driftwood or Coastal Fog?”
I look at the swatch for a long moment, deeply, genuinely moved by it.
Such pretty colours.
“Who cares what the designer wants. Paint the whole street tha' colour. Paint the whole suburb. S'the exact colour of her eyes in the morning, before she's properly awake.”
Jack blinks. “Er, so... Coastal Fog?”
Hunter snorts and just shakes his head. “Can this wait until tomorrow? I think we might give your mighty leader a break from making any decisions today,” Hunter says, already steering Jack back out by the shoulder.
“You're gonna be doing this every night now, aren't you,” he says, dropping back into the chair.
I glower at him as I reach for another beer. “What would you know about it?”
“Right, yeah. Heartbroken over a woman you were sharing with your brothers, the kind you'd drink yourself into a stupor over for weeks. What would I possibly know about that?” For a moment we both sink into the memory of us just like this a few months ago when he was half dead from his heartbreak over Aria.
“Shut up.” I try to point at him, and it takes my finger a full second longer than it should to actually land on him. “Why didn't you warn me this was gonna happen. You knew. You knew, and you let me walk right into it like an idiot.”
“Pfffft. Pretty sure I did warn you. Repeatedly. I told you the moment she was back that you were going to be fucked. That first day, you nailed your fucking shoe to the plank, remember? I knew you were going to be so fucking screwed.”
“You did NOT.” I'm louder than I mean to be, loud enough that it bounces back at me off the glass and makes me flinch at my own voice.
“Nobody warned me about this. That my heart would feel like it's been ripped out of my fucking chest. Everyone says love is so grand, so wonderful, and it's not, Hunter, I don't like it, I want it to stop, and also I never want it to stop, and both of those things are true at exactly the same time, and I don't know what to do with that.”
I sigh. “You know what the worst part is.” I'm not really asking. “S'not even the big stuff. It's the little things. How many days since I heard her voice. Does she think of me when she drives past a hardware store. Is Lance getting his creepy dicky grabby hands on her?”
Hunter goes quiet for a second, actually quiet, the kind he doesn't do often. “You're really in love with her.”
“'Course I am.” Hunter's quiet again, and then, because he's Hunter and there's a limit to how much real emotion he can comfortably endure, he says, “Well. The condom companies are going bankrupt either way. First me. Now you.”
“Shut upppp. This is serious!”
“I'm just saying. Rough year for the safe sex industry.”
I snort-laugh, too loud, and something about it cracks something else loose in my chest. I stand up too fast, chair going out from under me and hitting the wall, and suddenly I have clarity.
“I've got it.” I'm already moving. “I know exactly what I'm gonna do.” I yank the door open and yell to absolutely nobody, “SOMEONE GET ME A CHAINSAW! AND THE BIGGEST FUCKIN' NAIL GUN YOU CAN FIND—”
Hunter's out of the chair and hauling me back inside by the collar before I've even finished the sentence, one arm braced across the doorway, afraid I'm going to escape into the wild.
“Ignore him!” he shouts to whoever might've heard.
“Mate. Get some sleep. And then we'll implement your brilliant plan.
But for now, no power tools. Whatever's in your head right now, I promise you, sending her your amputated foot is not the grand gesture you think it is.”