Chapter 11
Sarah's POV
I watch them from across the room, my heart lifting a little as Lincoln and his wife start arguing. God, that woman is so insecure. It’s honestly nauseating. No wonder he comes into work stressed and exhausted every day, she probably smothers him, nags him, and never lets him breathe.
When she storms out of the building, I can’t help but feel pleased. Hopefully she’ll go home alone and leave Lincoln here where things actually make sense for him… where he has people who understand him. Where he has me.
He stays near the doors, looking sad and stressed out. Perfect moment for me to step in. I walk up to him and gently take his hand to get his attention.
"Not right now," Lincoln mutters, pulling away.
"What's going on? What happened? Where's your wife going?" I ask.
"I said not right now."
His anger does something to me. God, he looks good like this. Everyone else around us keeps talking, unaware of the storm brewing between us.
"Look. You're gonna start to ruin the vibe."
"Then get away from me."
"No. Listen to me, Lincoln. We're friends, aren't we? And when something is going on with you, it affects me. So please, you can talk to me."
"Sarah, I really don't wanna talk right now."
"Okay. We don't have to talk, but come here."
I pull his hand again. He barely resists before letting me guide him toward one of the quiet rooms. The chairs are stacked on the tables, the lights dim. I step inside, close the door, and lock it. He walks away from me a few slow steps before dropping down with his back against the wall.
"Do you want a drink?" I ask.
"No."
He sounds so defeated. I love making him happy, love being the one who brightens his day, and clearly something is going very wrong in his marriage.
"Look, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but I'm not leaving you alone feeling like this."
I hop up on one of the tables, then slowly slide down to sit beside him on the floor, letting my dress fall over my thighs. I look over at him, then back at the dark room. He exhales several times before finally glancing over with a tired smile.
"You don't have to be here, you know?" he murmurs.
"I wanna be here."
"No. You don't."
He’s being so sweet to me even though he’s hurting. He has no idea how badly I want to stay right here with him. Honestly, I’d rather be in here with him than out there with anyone else.
"I know what you're doing, trying to get rid of me."
He gives a sarcastic smirk.
"What if I don't like your company?" he jokes.
"I know damn well you like my company."
"You shouldn't have to sit here stewing in my sadness. Whatever's going on with me is my problem. I don't want to pull you into it. And like you said, bad vibes, right?"
I smile softly and reach for his right hand, resting it on my knee.
"I was joking. Even when you're grumpy, your bad vibes feel like good vibes to me."
He looks away, maybe to hide a blush. Or maybe he’s just overwhelmed.
"Sarah, why aren't you out there getting to know some of the guys? You're 22 years old. You need to be living your life."
"I am doing it. Right here with you."
"I'm an old man dealing with old man problems."
"Dude, you're only 31 years old. Stop being dramatic. And besides, it's problems everyone deals with. You can talk to me about it, or you can just sit here dealing with it. Your choice."
"It's just… I don't know."
There it is. He wants to say something. He just needs a little nudge.
"Okay. Whatever you say in this room stays in this room."
"No."
"Yes, Lincoln. I can tell you're under a lot of stress, and it's not just work stuff.
And if you keep it inside of you and never talk to anyone about it, it's gonna fester.
I know your marriage is a very touchy thing, and I know it's private.
I'm not asking you to tell me your private issues. I get that it's crossing a line."
He stays quiet, so I keep going.
"But if you can't talk to a therapist or you can't talk to your wife, you need one person to talk to.
I'm a woman, so I'm the best candidate to explain why women act the way they do.
And something tells me you and your wife aren't vibing right now.
Maybe she's stressed out. Maybe you're stressed out.
And there's some kind of misunderstanding going on.
And I just hope I didn't play a part in that. "
"No. Of course not," he replies way too fast. Which tells me exactly the opposite.
"Does your wife hate me or something?"
He hesitates. "I don't think she hates you. She's just… I think she just misses me."
"Then why wasn't she with you for the party?"
"She claimed that she kept on trying, but I—"
"Let me guess. I was in the way?" I ask, annoyed.
"She doesn't mean anything by it. I mean, if you had a boyfriend and you were with him for a long time and he started spending a lot of time with someone else, I'm guessing it would make you upset too. Right?"
"I would try to be understanding to my boyfriend, yeah. But I guess I’d feel a little jealous. But not to the degree where, when I'm with him, I start giving him shit. That's something you need to nip in the bud or you're both gonna end up very miserable."
"We're not miserable."
"Yeah. Tell that to everybody else. Everyone saw how miserable you looked. When you come into work, you always look tired."
"That's because of work."
"So it has nothing to do with your life at home?"
"Sarah, stop. Seriously, my wife isn't doing anything. If anything, I'm making her stressed out."
"What does she have to be stressed out over? She doesn't work."
"She does work. Just because she works remotely doesn't mean her job is any less important."
"But your job is clearly more important, and you told me you paid off all the debts for both of you. Most of those debts were her debts, so I really—I mean—"
I pause, scratch my head, and scoff lightly.
"I'm really sorry. Maybe I'm being a bitch, but I don't get what it is that she's so upset over.
And as a woman, I can tell you if you really don't stand up on your two feet and tell her how you feel and don't accept that kind of behavior, she's going to walk all over you," I tell him.
"Are you speaking from experience?" Lincoln asks.
"Yes. That's how I treat guys that I don't respect, and then I always end up leaving them."
"Wow. You sound like a heartbreaker."
"Yeah. When someone doesn't stand up and show me that they deserve to be respected."
I can actually see the gears turning in his head.
"It's a lot more complicated than that," he murmurs.
"It really isn't, Lincoln. It's either she understands you and trusts you or she doesn't. And if that's something that's going to be an issue, you gotta start thinking about your own mental health."
He’s listening to me. Really listening, and I’ve never seen him look lonelier than he does right now. I want to cheer him up. I want to be the person who pulls him out of this.
"Hey," I whisper, getting his attention.
He looks tired, like he barely slept. So I shift the topic, lighten it a little.
"Okay, question," I say. "If the Series-4 cognitive shell learned to improvise its own speech patterns, like, not pre-approved ones, but ones based only on observed human habits, do you think it would become more sarcastic or more literal?"
He actually laughs, a soft, confused sound.
"What does that even have to do with anything?" he asks, shaking his head.
I grin. "Come on, answer."
"Uh… probably sarcastic. The team talks too much shit around it," he replies.
"And what about when it comes to choosing between two commands?" I push. "Like… hmmm ‘follow safety protocol’ versus ‘follow a direct order’? Which one wins if the robot isn’t explicitly programmed to choose?"
"Safety protocol," he says confidently. "Every single time. Otherwise people could game the system and get themselves killed."
"Okay… " I stop, smirking, then toss the ball back at him. "Your turn. Ask me something."
He raises a brow. "Like what?"
"Anything. Tech. Life. Whatever."
He thinks for a second, then asks me something about sensor calibration preferences, and I answer, bouncing another one back his way. For a moment it feels like it’s just us in here, the two of us trading little hypotheticals like nothing else exists.
Then I tilt my head.
"So… what’s your ideal woman?"
He looks at me like I threw a wrench at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm just wondering what led you to marry your wife," I say.
"You know? She's very beautiful. But she's not like you in any way, shape, or form.
You must have really loved each other to be with each other despite all your differences.
Because aside from the few shows that you guys watched and you telling me you worked together in the past, you don't really seem to have that much in common. So I guess I'm just curious."
He exhales deeply. The two of us are sitting on the floor facing each other now, his long legs stretched out, mine folded under me. He smiles a little, like remembering something far away.
"Well," he begins, "we basically met when we were kids.
She was so headstrong, and I don't know, just full of life and joy.
She's very creative, very loving and compassionate.
And even for her age, I recognized that when I would come around and help with the garbage disposal stuff with my uncle, she would always have a snack waiting for me and him.
I wanted to laugh at her and tell her that why would I want to eat after smelling garbage.
But I didn't have the heart. I thought it was very sweet. "
"Maybe she had a crush on you from back then," I suggest.
"I don't know. Maybe. But we'd see each other every now and then. Like, she'd be walking home from school, and I'd walk her home. And we kinda got closer after her mom died."
That catches me off guard.
"You got closer after her mom died?"
"What I mean is we'd seen each other around, but I didn't officially meet her until, I don't know, like, March of that year. And she had lost her mom a year prior. I had known her mom, I mean, in passing, but that's the first time we officially, like, talked to each other. And yeah."
"So she basically trauma bonded with you," I prod.
Lincoln stares at me. "What are you talking about?"
"Did you lose someone too?"
"A very long time ago," he answers quietly.
"Little brother. He was, like, five, but still.
I don't remember him much. But I do know the effect it has on the family, that weird sadness that everybody carries, pretending as though the person that died didn't exist because they don't wanna talk about it, but it's always there…
like a ghost. So I get it. It's easy to sink into that sadness. And losing your mom is hard."
"So she replaced her mom with you."
"I don't look at it like that."
"But that's basically what happened," I say gently. "She saw you as a male figure, a protector, and she fell in love with you because you probably made her feel… safe. You filled a void in her that she had, and you were just available."
"I looked out for her. I think it's a little more complicated than—"
"Dude, she already had a crush on you."
"What are you trying to say?" he snaps, getting defensive.
I lift my hands calmly.
"It's… just… interesting how people end up together based on convenience rather than romance. Do you really think the both of you would have ended up together if you had met each other organically?"
"We did meet each other organically."
"You know what I mean," I insist. "Like, out there on the street, not having known each other from childhood. It seems as though you were already kinda pasted together without having gone out in the world and seeing what either of you wanted."
"I dated people."
"Yeah. But you guys were very young."
He closes his eyes for a moment, clearly thinking, clearly bothered. And inside, I feel that quiet satisfaction.
Good. Let him think. Let him question it.
"Regardless." Lincoln shrugs, like he’s trying to close the topic. "I fell deeply in love with her."
"I'm sure you did,” my reply comes.
There is quiet for a bit, me just trying to tread carefully in what I say next.
“I'm gonna ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me," I tell him, watching his face carefully. He nods.
"Are you still, at this moment, in love with her?"
He takes a deep breath, looking over at me, though his eyes seem to drift past me, as if searching for an answer somewhere on the wall.
"Why would you ask me that?" he responds, instantly defensive.
"I'm just curious. Whatever is said in this room, it stays in this room, Lincoln. I care about you deeply. I just want you to be okay, and I want you to be honest with yourself."
"Of course, I'm in love with her."
Something tells me he's not being honest.
"Are you sure, or are you just loving her because you feel an obligation to stay with her?"
"Sarah, I'm married. Whatever it is you're trying to do—"
"No. Please. You're misunderstanding what I'm doing," I cut in softly. "Look… I've known people, you know, even my parents, working through their stuff, that felt as though they needed to be in some kind of long standing commitment to make each other happy rather than define their own happiness."
"And I suppose there's nothing in it for you whatsoever," he challenges, narrowing his eyes.
"I wanna see you happy. And if you're happy, our job flows better."
"And you think if I were to divorce my wife right now, that would make our job easier?"
"I never said anything about divorcing your wife, Lincoln. I don't know why you took it there."
"I didn't take it anywhere that you weren't already taking it."
"Lincoln, I'm just saying."
"I'm perfectly happy with my wife."
"Well, you don't look happy," I point out firmly and quietly.
"And I'm your friend, and I'm gonna tell you the truth even when nobody else will.
Maybe Gabrielle isn't being truthful with you, but I'm being truthful with you.
And the longer the both of you sit here either not addressing your problems, or sticking together out of some kind of weird duty, the more it's gonna weigh down on you, and it's not fair to her either.
I think you guys should get counseling or at least be honest about what the hell is going on.
And maybe you don't know how to be honest with her.
So I thought since we were good friends, you could be honest with me, but I understand. "
I push myself up from the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, Lincoln looks like he doesn’t want me to leave. He stays still, watching me with that tired, conflicted expression… the same one that tells me I’m getting under his skin.
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