“We didn’t talk about seafood salad. And who’s Greg?” he asks.
Even though I’m sure Ethan is tempted to laugh, his prevailing emotion seems to be concern.
“I must’ve misheard,” I say a little too defensively, leaning forward to snatch my notepad off the desk. I take a deep breath and fight back the same tears I’ve been suppressing all day. Once I’m relatively certain they won’t start streaming down my face, I look up at Ethan again. “Look, I know I’m being sad and weird and sort of useless right now, but I want to stay here. I need something else to do, even if it’s just… this,” I hoist the notebook up pathetically. “If I go home, I’ll just sit there and cry. I know that’s lame, and maybe you don’t understand because you don’t do relationships or whatever…”
“Margot, I get it,” Ethan says, cutting me off. “Of course you can stay. I just need to know that you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
The words lack conviction, but Ethan accepts them anyway. Maybe it’s because our workspaces are separated by a big glass wall, so he knows he can keep an eye on me if I stay here at work.
There’s no point in continuing our meeting, so I make my way back to my desk. Throughout the day, I feel the warmth of Ethan’s gaze on me through the pane of glass, checking to make sure that I haven’t burst into tears or mistakenly ordered a huge vat of seafood salad.
Obviously, I’m in no fit state to do any real work, so I tidy my desk then my inbox. I browse the internet for furniture and start a spreadsheet of all the things I need to buy to replace what Jeremy took.
Financially, it’s going to be a stretch. Jeremy wanted a nice apartment close to downtown. I agreed to split the astronomical rent, even though I would have been just as happy with a cheaper place out in the suburbs. Paying the rent on my own will be difficult, but not impossible. When the lease is up in a few months, I can find a more affordable place.
By the end of the day, I’ve made a spreadsheet of furniture prices, created a new personal budget, and contacted my landlord, who already changed the locks for me and removed Jeremy’s name from the lease.
What I haven’t done is anything resembling actual work. Feeling guilty, I try my best to focus on a few minor work-related tasks.
At five-thirty, Ethan emerges from his office, looking annoyed. “What are you doing?”
“Working,” I say without looking up from my screen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ethan pinch the bridge of his nose. “Margot, I’ve watched you document the price of every mattress within a fifty-mile radius over the last eight hours. I think you can probably call it a day now.”
I cringe inwardly and mutter, “Sorry.”
I always knew Ethan could see my computer monitor through the glass wall; I just didn’t realize howclearlyhe could see it. Sometimes I forget that nearly everyone on the planet has better eyesight than I do.
Ethan rests his hands in his pockets and shakes his head, looking slightly amused. “It’s fine, Margot. I’ve never seen you so much as take a personal phone call at work. Even if you sat there and did nothing but read alien porn for the next week, you’d waste less time than most people around here. You don’t need to feel guilty, but you also don’t need to stay late frantically trying to crank out work to make up for today.”
For the first time all day, I feel a tingle of some emotion in my chest. It’s so fleeting that I can’t even identify it before it slips away. It could be gratitude or embarrassment or just simple amusement. But in its wake, that tiny pinhole of light opens back up.
“Are you staying late?” I ask Ethan.
It’s not unusual for us to work until eight or nine o’clock on Monday nights to catch up from the weekend. I worry that if I leave now, he’ll stay until midnight just to compensate.
Ethan hesitates. He lifts a hand from his pocket and rakes it through his hair. As usual, it falls right back into place. I wonder how my hair looks. Terrible, probably. I’m not sure I bothered to look at myself in a mirror before leaving the house this morning.
“I’ll finish up some work in my home office tonight,” Ethan finally says. Translation: he still has a lot of work to do, but he knows I’ll insist on staying late if he does. “We could order some Thai food for dinner first,” he adds.
The pinhole of light widens a little, its warm glow breaking through the fog. A tiny guiding light illuminating a single emotion: hunger. It’s not much, but it’s more than I’ve felt all day.
***
Tuesday is a little easier. I get some actual work done and eat leftover Thai food for lunch at my desk.
Most importantly, I start to feel things again. Not the full force of them, just a nudge here and a trickle there. A few more pinholes of light burst through the darkness, and I can almost see a way forward.
Almost.
6
Ethan
After work, I signed the paperwork and got the keys to my new house. Calling it mine feels weird since I’ll never actually live in it, but technically, I now own a three-bedroom, two-bath craftsman in Littleton.