Enough waiting. Time to take matters into my own hands.
I set my bag down on the ground and kneel down so I can dig through it and find my office key. Once I do, I slide it in, turn it and get inside the damned building. I’m pleased to find that none of my colleagues are as big of workaholics as I’d feared—I guess Brittany must be the lone ranger, still holed up in her office and so busy working that she forgot to check Slack for my messages and her phone for my calls.
The lobby is lit up, but the hallways have half the lights turned off. It’s almost spooky.
As I head towards my cubicle to retrieve my sketchbook, I hear a chair squeaking repeatedly. Due to a distinctive squeak from a wheel I know is defective, it sounds as if it’s my chair. I stop and consider things for a moment. The only theory I can conjure up for what could be making my chair squeak is that one of our janitors is taking a break. But why on my chair?
As I walk closer to my cubicle and come around the corner where I can see a full view of it, I find a few things on the floor. My sketchbook. My mousepad. Scott’s pants. Brittany’s lacy panties. And lastly, my office key, after I drop it out of my hands.
What the ever-living fuck?
Time stands still for what feels like eternity. I watch Scott turn his head towards me with shock in his face, but that doesn’t stop his hips from continuing to move front and back. Scott’s body then catches up with his brain and I watch him quickly remove his body from Brittany’s. He pulls his boxers up from his ankles and throws his body to the wall farthest away from me.
“Hazel,” he says, out of breath. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
What the hell am I doing here? Me… Not Scott, who’s cheating on me. Not Scott, who’s fucking my best friend. Not Scott, who doesn’t even work in this building. Me. What the hell am I doing here, is his question.
My brain can’t even come up with a proper response to his asinine question, because it’s still stuck on the fact that my boyfriend of two years is cheating on me with my best friend of three fucking years. My friend who has yet to properly react to my barging into my office. Brittany holds her legs open as if Scott is still inside her. She has her eyes trained on mine and wears a terrible, evil smile.
Why was I ever even her friend? Clearly, she just likes to screw me over— literally as well as figuratively— to pump up her own fragile ego. Finally, once I’ve made this realization, I’m able to express my anger.
“What in the fucking hell are you doing here, Scott Withers?” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Fucking Brittany, of all goddamn people!”
“Look, Hazel,” he pathetically starts, “I wanted to tell you but—”
I interrupt him. “But what? You were too busy sticking your dick in Brittany, who—”
When I turn to Brittany, I see that she still hasn’t moved a single inch. Her legs are still wide open as if she’s waiting for me to leave so she can resume fucking Scott. She’s not even covering her private parts— she’s showing them off. Her wet, throbbing lips leak out some sultry juices I can’t help but be weirdly drawn in by.
“Brittany, close your fucking legs!” I yell at her.
She takes her sweet time, but she does finally sit up on my desk, rubbing her naked ass on my workspace. Then she picks her underwear off the floor with her feet, putting in the minimum amount of required effort.
Scott continues, “I just didn’t know how to tell you. It just happened.”
Brittany interjected, “Oh, it happened. Again, and again and again.”
“How long has this been happening?” I ask neither of them in particular.
Scott looks at his feet like a child getting scolded. Brittany decides to be the brave one in this situation and answers my question. “Two weeks.”
Two weeks. That perfectly matches up with the amount of time Scott has been getting that absurd amount of overtime. And this whole affair explains why Brittany was so angry with me asking her on a double date with Scott. Why would she want to go on a date with the man she’s fucking and his sort of girlfriend? Could I even call myself his “sort of girlfriend”?
“Has it always been in my own goddamn cubicle?” I ask Brittany.
The nerve of them to seek out my tiny workspace in a sea of available options. They must have really gotten over on the fact that they were screwing me over.
She scoffs at me, as if that wasn’t a completely reasonable question to ask.
“Hazel. I’ve fucked on every chair, desk, and office in this building. You just caught me — or us — on an unfortunate day. Unfortunate for you, anyway,” she explains maintaining her creepy smile. “And this isn’t the first time we’ve fucked on your desk, Hazel honey.”
The amount of restraint it takes me to not lunge at her or, just as possible, throw up all over the two of them, is incredible. But the look of disgust in my face gets the point across, apparently, as they both start to look away from me.
How could they do this? I’m thinking. How could they do this to me? The two most important people in my life have betrayied me in the most emotionally damaging way possible. I don’t ask that question out loud though, because I know there’s no way I’d get an answer from them—
not one I’d like, anyway.
“Scott Withers,” I say with a voice so stern, his head jerks towards me. “Expect all of your shit to be on a box on the street. I’m done with you.”
Scott doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even want to come up with a poor excuse or apology to save our relationship. Not that I’d forgive that cheating son of a bitch. Brittany is no longer burning her soulless stare into my skull, and instead looks toward Scott disappointedly. She probably got off on the fact that he was my boyfriend, and now fucking him won’t be as fun.
“And don’t expect to see me anytime soon, you bitch,” I sneer at Brittany as I pick my office key up off the ground. For a short moment, I look over at my sketchbook, which amazingly appears to remain unscathed by their illicit fornication, but it has no good memories in it now. It’s sullied forever. So instead of taking it with me, I leave it on the floor next to Scott’s pants.
I slam the office door and leave them in their shame, or so I think. They have no shame. I haven’t even turned the corner towards the lobby before I hear the chair squeaking again, louder and faster than before. Scott is giving Brittany a more passionate fuck than I had received in weeks— maybe even more than two weeks.
Was it possible that he was cheating on me before he got with Brittany? I think. But then I decide it doesn’t matter. He’s out of my life. They’re both out of my life, for good.
When I get back outside, I know I have to haul ass out of there, and, again, get as far away from the building as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. It’s only going to be a matter of time before all that rage and all those feelings of betrayal graduate to become an unending flow of tears.
So, I start running even faster than before. I try to hold back from crying and I manage to keep my tear ducts in check until I’m at the stairs to the subway station. I’m grateful for the dark staircase in which to let out a few tears and snuffles without being noticed by too many people, hopefully. The beauty and downfall of life in New York City is that one is never truly alone.
Luckily, a moment of telling myself to toughen up works and I’m fine to go through the turnstyle and get on a train. Like I did before, I turn to look at my bag where my sketchbook would be had I brought it back with me. But I couldn’t touch anything in my office. It all reeked of sexual disgrace. Nothing in that office would leave that office unchanged by the love affair happening in there.
Still, I feel naked knowing my beloved sketchpad isn’t with me, despite knowing that the only people sketched in it are no longer worthy of being in my life. The subway stops at a stop near a street that I know has an art supplies shop. I frequently visit it whenever I need paint, charcoal, and tools in that vein. Once the train stops, I get out at that stop, determined not to go home empty handed and as downtrodden as I currently feel, and vowing instead to arrive optimistic about a new future I can forge for myself.
Before heading into the store, though, I pause. I think to myself that Scott and Brittany’s affair has pushed me to really think about my future. I'll basically be starting from scratch. A life without a bitchy best friend, a seemingly loving boyfriend, or a soul sucking job— as soon as I can find another, hopefully better and more fulfilling one, and leave this one where I don’t have to be around them all the time.
When I put it that way, my situation doesn’t sound all that terrible. I’d even go as far as to say that my new imagined future life sounds like a pretty great one. I wipe away the few tears that had started to flow again despite my best efforts, and head into the art store. It doesn’t take too much wandering before my gaze falls on a gorgeous, red, leather-bound sketchbook.
It’s the perfect sketchbook in which to chronicle my new and improved life.