Leah
One month later
It’s been a month since I started a dream job in my dream career path. I’ve got the ocean, the mountains, and perfect weather over three hundred days a year.
I should be beyond happy, but I’m a complete wreck.
All I can think about is him. And to make matters worse my boss gave me a company phone and expects me to be available twenty-four hours a day eight days a week. Yes, she really tried to explain some sort of weird math to me where I can “optimize my productivity” and work eight days a week. I thought she was joking at first. Then I thought she was talking about me outsourcing some of my work. In the end I was totally confused, but I got the main idea. Work as hard as possible and then work harder.
And that leaves no time for anything social. I didn’t expect my first year or two to be a walk in the park, but I was hoping I could get in touch with Xavier at least.
Half of the nights of the week I sleep at the office. It’s just so much easier. I’m downtown with clients and it saves the time having to run to my apartment and back. It’s not even uncommon. They have women’s and men’s showers and locker rooms here. They hire the best and brightest, their words not mine, and then just play the war of attrition. Only the “strong” survive.
And right now I’m completely spent.
Spent to the point I’m feeling sick most mornings until I can get a few cups of coffee into me and some sort of sugar rush from the vending machine. At this rate my body is going to be wrecked within the first year.
But the only “wrecking” of my body that I want is that which can only be provided by one man.
The man who held me up in his arms like I was weightless. The way he made me feel so small and feminine. And the way he gave me my first time.
Everything was so perfect. Too perfect in fact. I wanted to leave him a note. I wanted to wake him up.
And most importantly I wanted what we had that one night to continue.
But something deep inside me just knew it couldn’t. We live on complete different sides of the country. That and he travels all around the world most of the year.
How would that relationship work? We meet up a few times a year for absolutely blissful, romantic weekends only to say to each other, “We really have to do this more often,” as we leave each other at the airport each time knowing what we have will eventually meet a tragic ending?
It’s just not sustainable.
But the part that is the most frustrating and most angering is what my brother did. How he intentionally kept us apart. How would he even know we’d have an interest in each other?
And if he hadn’t my life would have been much different. I wouldn’t have run away for school. I would have stayed in New York and allowed Xavier to pursue me, not that there would have been much pursuing needed.
I was hooked immediately.
“Leah, do you have that sales deck for the 1:30 p.m. conference call with Beverly Studios?”
I look up from my desk realizing I’m daydreaming again.
“Yes, Mrs. Jackson. It’s on the cloud server.”
“Excellent. With that done can you get the reality media pitch wrapped up by lunch?”
“On it now.”
She pivots on her heal with military precision and is gone.
I look at the clock. I’ve got just over two hours to put together a pitch I barely know anything about.
And the worst part is I’m sure that the minute that document hits the server she’ll be right back over at my desk with something else to work on. And she always makes sure to leave me with a final project when she heads home at 9:00 p.m. And at least three days a week I get an incoming text around 6:00 a.m. with something that’s due by 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m.
Completely unsustainable. I mean, maybe I could pull it off if I just had a little emotional support here. Someone who could tell me that everything was going to be okay. Someone who could tell me that I’m doing a great job and that in two years I’ll get a promotion and I’ll be able to free up my weekends and start to get my life back.
A life I could only want with one person. The same person who could be my rock.
The man who I spent one magical night with and will never do so again.
Xavier.