Chapter 4 #2
“It was little things here and there, most of which I tried to ignore. When I asked him to mark all our meetings on the shared calendar in advance, he got angry and said that I didn’t get to choose how he ran his company.
While it seemed weird, I didn’t question it because I didn’t want to lose my job.
I was able to take care of Daisy and make ends meet, so I didn’t want to press my luck.
But last month, I went out and did my grocery shopping during my lunch hour, and when I got back, he was in my apartment waiting for me. ”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No. I wish I were.”
“How did he get into your apartment?”
“He told the superintendent that I said it was okay for him to have a key. When I questioned why they would just give it to him, he told me that he explained that I was using the apartment as office space and that I was his employee. He showed the superintendent the paperwork confirming my employment and that the office address listed on my employee record matched the address of the apartment.”
“Julie, that’s fucking illegal,” I growled, ready to go find this asshole.
“I know. Trust me, I was already trying to figure out how to get out of the situation before it got worse. I couldn’t just quit my job and leave because I didn’t have any money in savings, and we had nowhere to go.
But then he started making it a point to show up unexpectedly during the week when Daisy was in school and made excuses about why he needed to see me.
He never gave me any advance notice, and when he came in two weeks ago while I was in the shower, that was my final straw. ”
“Fucking hell, Julie,” I said as I sighed heavily and shoved a hand through my hair.
“It’s been a mess, and I’ve been doing everything I can to try to get us out of it.
I’ve been buying extra non-perishable groceries and storing them in the car so he wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
I had to leave most of our stuff behind because I couldn’t let him on to us leaving.
I knew he wouldn’t allow me to. He had made it apparent that he thought I was his property because I was his employee.
As long as I lived in that apartment, he felt he could come and go whenever he wanted to. ”
“You should have called the police or—”
“And what? Tell them that my boss was being inappropriate? I did, Gage. I talked to someone about him stalking me and knowing where I was when I wasn’t at home.
I told them about the creepy notes he started leaving me on work documents when he would come by to drop them off.
I told them about the unwanted touches that he refused to stop doing.
And do you want to know what they said?”
“Probably not,” I admitted, already knowing it would piss me off.
“They said that I could file a complaint with the HR department at work. Our non-existent HR department.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow. Trust me, I have been beating myself up over my stupidity for so long that there’s nothing you can say that will make me feel worse about this than I already do.
What kind of person goes to work for someone who doesn’t even have an HR department?
I mean, I should have seen the red flags sooner.
I worked for him for four years, Gage. Four years.
I never noticed anything was wrong until Daisy started school. ”
“He was probably just waiting for her to start so he could start moving in and going after what he wanted,” I said angrily.
“Yeah, he made that glaringly obvious when he tried to kiss me the other day. I pushed him off, and he got angry. I saw a side of him that I hadn’t ever seen before.
He’d always been so nice and soft-spoken.
But something changed, and he snapped. He pinned me against the wall and rubbed himself against me, telling me how he could tell that I wanted him.
He insisted that I was playing hard to get.
When I told him that I wasn’t interested and that he was making me uncomfortable, he hit me.
He held me by my throat until I couldn’t breathe.
I tried everything, Gage. It wasn’t until I started crying that he backed off.
He was so pissed that he threw my vase across the room and left the broken glass on the floor as he stormed out and told me he would be back to finish what we started. ”
“Did you ever consider changing the locks?”
I didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already did, but I also couldn’t wrap my head around all of this without wanting to murder the bastard.
“I had them changed twice before he informed me that if I changed them again, he would fire me for destruction of company property.”
“But that’s not company property—that’s your fucking apartment.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. And then he showed me that he had taken over the monthly rent on my apartment, starting that month. He claimed that because I worked from home, that space was my office and the company was required to pay for it, just as they would for office space for any other employees.”
“Do other employees work from home, too? Does he pay their rent?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to the office, so I’m not sure if there are any other employees.
It turns out I don’t know a lot about the man I’ve been supposedly working for the past four years.
All of our video meetings were always just the two of us.
I do data entry for him, so it’s not like I’ve had any reason to meet with anyone else.
My job was always simple and he said it was to help him stay organized and on track.
” She let out a nervous laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the company doesn’t even exist and I’ve just been being played this entire time. ”
“Julie, that’s fucking scary,” I said in disbelief. I scrubbed a hand down my face and let out a shaky, frustrated breath. “Where did you meet him? Didn’t you go in for an interview or something before you got the job?”
She shook her head as a few tears slid down her face.
“I met him right after Mike’s funeral. It was a few days after the service, and I was sitting at a café looking at job listings while Daisy slept in her stroller.
I had dark sunglasses on to try to hide my grief, but I was so consumed by it.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do.
I didn’t want to end up a homeless, widowed, single mother wandering the streets with a baby she couldn’t afford to keep.
I was desperate, and he must have sensed it.
He sat at the table across from me, and when I started crying, he came over and offered me a tissue.
He seemed so nice that I didn’t think twice before I told him my life story.
I expected him to walk away, but instead, he offered me a job and it felt like the grief lifted slightly.
There was hope when I thought I would never feel it again.
I was so relieved to have a job that I accepted without asking any questions.
” She tipped her head forward as more tears spilled down her face, as she covered it with her hands.
“I was so stupid. So fucking stupid, Gage. After last night, I knew I had to leave.”
“What happened last night?”
“He came into my apartment uninvited, asking for a report I had been working on. When I went to get it, he made himself at home at my computer and was looking at my recent search history. He was pissed that I was looking at rental cabins in the middle of nowhere and attacked me. He hit me, and I fell to the ground as he stood over me, yelling about how I could never leave. I lied and said I was looking up places to take Daisy on vacation. I don’t know if he bought it or not, but it got him to stop.
He left, but he said that I should remember he sees everything.
I waited an hour or so after he left, then I grabbed what I could and we left.
I drove straight here, not even giving it any thought that someone might be here.
” She stopped for a second as tears welled in her eyes.
“I just always felt safe here, and I wanted to feel that again.”
She closed her eyes and let herself cry as I scooted across the couch, closing the small gap between us, and pulled her into my arms. I held her as she fell apart, letting all of the weight of her emotions go as she wept against my chest.
I wanted to promise her that everything would be okay and that I would take care of them, but I didn’t want to do something stupid, like fall in love with my former best friend’s little sister.
Loving Julie was easy. It always had been.
But trying to keep myself from falling for her right now would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.