22. Macey/Noah #2
No, that would be ridiculous. He was the one who ruined everything in the first place.
The last item back in my purse was a set of notecards.
Weird. I hadn’t used notecards since my seventh-grade science fair, where I focused on the question: Does music impact the growth of plants?
Scientists may say no, but my daisies that listened to classic rock grew five times more than the others.
The handwriting on the notecards wasn’t even mine.
I flipped through them as I entered the elevator.
To Macey,
I can’t be there every time you read a bad comment, so I hope this helps. Grab a card every time you need to be reminded how amazing you are.
Noah
Curious, I pulled out a card from the middle of the pack.
The people who leave mean comments are the ones without any self-confidence. I love how bold and confident you are.
I tucked the rest of the notecards into my purse but folded this one into my pocket.
Noah
It had been a long time since I was inside an office that wasn’t a doctor’s appointment or Nathan’s fancy corner office.
I didn’t like it.
Why was every office temperature set to below zero? Was it some intimidation tactic: I don’t need a parka because I’m tougher than you? I shivered as I took a seat in front of the glass desk. On the other side, a velvet rolling chair whirled around to face me.
Victoria.
Macey’s boss. And the user behind the Fishly541 account.
“Noah Hansley,” she said. “I recognize you. Any reason why you bombarded past my assistant and into my office?”
Victoria looked different from her photo on the Roamer’s Digest website. As editor-in-chief, nearly everyone rolled up to her in some capacity. Chin-length brown hair hugged her jaw, and bright red lipstick blinded me. She looked like every leading villain in a movie about magazines.
Macey described her as intimidating, but all I saw was an average human who hid behind anonymous accounts like a coward.
“I think you know,” I said.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “I think I don’t.”
“It’s about how your actions are impacting Macey,” I explained. “She’s your top employee and a damn good one at that.”
She impatiently tapped her pen against the table. “If you’re referring to withholding event invitations from her, it’s nothing personal. I have to give other writers opportunities no matter how much they’re trending online.”
“That’s not what I’m referring to. Though that’s a problem, too. If event staff want Macey there, it’s not right to sub her out with another employee. There has to be another way to handle that.”
And a way that didn’t involve hurting Macey.
She pursed her lips, and I imagined her defenses rising. “Your subtle insults aside, tell me what you’re referring to.”
“Fishly541.”
“Excuse me?”
“The anonymous Instagram you’ve been using to post all those negative comments about Macey.”
The pen in her hands froze mid-air. Victoria moved in slow motion, like she was walking through molasses. She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “There are negative comments about Macey?”
This was getting frustrating. She was a great actress. “I know you’ve been undermining Macey for months. Frankly, it’s embarrassing that you’ve stooped to the level of anonymously posting horrible things about your employee.”
Victoria blinked, then let out a snort. “What kind of fanfiction are you writing?”
I didn’t follow.
She dropped the pen onto a stack of files and sighed. “I would never do that. I don’t know why you would even think that.”
“But the writing and tone of the comments are the same as your articles. You’ve written specific things that only people who know Macey would know.”
“I don’t know what comments you’re even talking about.” She threw her arms wide, exasperated.
I pulled up Macey’s Instagram on my phone and handed it to her. Victoria took it apprehensively and spent a few minutes scrolling through the comments. She scoffed and handed it back to me.
“I don’t know what kind of macho man shit you’re doing barging in here like this, but this sounds like something you should talk about with Macey, not me.”
Victoria wasn’t behind the account? I looked for common traces of lying—damp palms, fidgets, lack of eye contact—but all I saw was sincerity. That, plus the desire to punch me.
Okay, I understood the intimidation now.
“You really have nothing to do with this?”
She only glared. “Get the fuck out of my office.”
I let out a short breath, and then I got the fuck out of her office.
It was almost 5:00 p.m. at this point, so I had two options. One, try to sneak out of here unnoticed. Two, purposely seek out Macey.
Those options were taken from me when I realized that Macey’s desk was a few steps down from Victoria’s office .
“Noah?” Macey poked her head outside her gray cubicle. “What are you doing here?”
Excellent question.
“Looking for you.” I tried for suave. “Thought I could walk you home.”
“Really?”
Please don’t push this further.
I nodded.
“That’s sweet of you. Give me a minute to pack up.”
I admired her desk as she shut down her laptop and pushed her notebooks to the side.
Pushpins held up a calendar with inspirational quotes as well as Polaroid pictures of her and her friends.
There was one older couple in the photos—based on the similar smiles, they were her grandparents.
A collection of succulents in pots gave color to the space, and she added a small amount of water in them before she was ready to go.
In the elevator, Macey asked, “What did you do today?”
I hated lying to her. Really, I did, but I didn’t want to stress her out over this right now. Especially considering the embarrassment I felt over being wrong about Victoria.
“Talked with Nathan, went on a long walk around the neighborhood, donated to whale conservation,” I joked.
She laughed. “That sounds like a better day than mine.”
Bright sun greeted us as we exited out the revolving door. It wasn’t until we were outside that I realized I had no idea where to go next. I had never been to her apartment before. Macey turned right and I followed.
“Not a good day?”
“It had its ups and downs,” she said. “I found the notecards you left in my purse.”
I wondered when she would find those. It was a hasty idea, done after seeing how defeated she looked at some of the comments. She smiled, and I realized there was nothing I wouldn’t do to see it again.
“I hope that wasn’t the low of the day.”
“The opposite, actually.”
Mental fist bump.
“My low was so crazy you probably won’t believe it.”
The smell of fresh bread from the cornerstone bakery flooded my senses, intertwining with my curiosity. I was half-tempted to pull us inside to get the details and a croissant at the same time.
“My bar for crazy things is pretty high,” I said. “Tell me what it was.”
She eyed me hesitantly. “Kyle came into The Burrow Café.”
I racked my brain for an explanation of who that was to her and why it mattered, but I came up with nothing. “Kyle who?”
“My ex-boyfriend.”
Oh, lovely. Time to have the ex talk right before I intended to ask Macey for a real relationship. I didn’t particularly relish hearing about her past boyfriends.
I almost tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. “Why was your ex-boyfriend at The Burrow Café?”
“I don’t know.” Macey shrugged. “He was being weird, and Britney kicked him out.”
“Weird?” I pressed. “Weird how?”
Macey swung her arms back and forth as we crossed the street. In the distance, someone cursed out a car that ran a red light.
“Congratulating me for reaching half a million followers while insinuating I used you and him to get those followers,” she answered. “And he had the audacity to imply you’re a liar.”
Despite the sun warming our skin, I felt very, very cold.
“Don’t worry,” she continued, reaching to squeeze my bicep. “I know you’re not. ”
Any thoughts of croissants left my head as nausea rolled in my stomach. Parts of the complex situation floated through my head like jigsaw pieces, and I tried to put them together. So far, I was hitting mismatched pairings.
“Thanks.” I had a bad feeling about this situation. “You’ve never really talked about him before.”
Some of the light left Macey’s eyes. “His name is Kyle Arnold. Maybe you know him. He cheated on me, then begged for me to come back. When I said no, he told everyone I was a nobody. Hurt my reputation almost as much as he hurt me. Then he had the nerve to say I was lucky to have dated him because I got some followers out of it.”
My feet froze in the middle of the sidewalk. Or maybe that was my calf muscles. Either way, I was incapable of walking.
I did know Kyle, albeit not well. We ran in similar groups. I faintly remembered Kyle mentioning he went on a few dates with a writer at Roamer’s Digest , but I had no idea of the full story. Didn’t really care to know, considering he dated a lot of people.
Now I wished I had asked for more information so I could at least try to understand the audacity he had to treat her like shit. To make her feel subpar.
Kyle must have never experienced what I’d incurred these last few months: the way that air rose out of my lungs when I looked at Macey for too long, the itch between my fingers when her palms were close to mine, the sense of emptiness when we parted ways.
The Macey of today paused a few feet ahead of me. With the setting sun, she looked ethereal—like an angel of good fortune.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I found my footing again and caught up to her. “I know him. I thought he was an okay guy, a little desperate for fame, but apparently, he’s an asshole. ”
“Oh, he is. Let me tell you about the time he…”
Macey recounted an old story about Kyle as dread pooled a hole in my stomach. It felt like all the progress I made these last few months came to a halt.
I knew how much it killed Macey that her ex-boyfriend lied to her, and here I was, doing nearly the same thing.