Working at Harris Electronics was radically different from what I had imagined. It couldn’t beat Shaw’s when it came down to coffee, but damn near everything else was naturally better.

I thought I would miss it after I inevitably left, but not all that much. My contract had an expiration date, six months from the signing. I was conflicted about it, although I’d wager it was a perfectly normal reaction after what Harris told me.

My dear father used me as a poker chip without even so much as calling me to ask if I’d be okay with it. I wouldn’t have been, but that was far beside the point. He went behind my back and even tried to hide it, the bastard.

Granted, Harris may very well have been lying about it. God knows people in his position aren’t paragons of honesty and integrity, and working in close proximity to him opened up a window that could let me peek directly into his life.

I quickly came to realize he wasn’t just an asshole for the sake of being one, but rather out of necessity. He still tried to tone it down with me, yet often times it only made things worse.

Any job can be stressful enough, I can’t imagine how much pressure he was constantly under. However, even in the most extreme cases Harris seemed to keep his woes bottled up inside of him.

I essentially worked for a seething ball of rage that could easily destroy anything it touched, but somehow managed not to.  

At first, I found myself admiring his self restraint. It hardly lasted, though. I quickly realized his emotions — and that destructive anger, more specifically — were kept under tight wraps. Or rather, on the rocks.

He offered me a drink when we first met, saying it was his second of the day. The clock hadn’t even struck ten. His liver probably looked like a war zone, though organ damage notwithstanding, the man’s issues laid elsewhere.

I didn’t even dare talk to him at first, unless absolutely necessary.

As time went on and I settled into the job, however, boredom hit me like a ton of bricks. Some days were absolutely frantic whereas others felt like time itself stopped existing.

No meetings, no deliveries, no schedules to make sense of or calls to reroute. Browsing the internet kept me busy for a while, but even that didn’t last too long. In those moments I envied Brianna and her Instagram addiction. At least it kept her entertained.

Most of those days blended in together. I got used to the routine quicker than I thought I would, even if the first month was a slog. 

Harris spent the vast majority of his day holed up in his office doing God knows what. We rarely even saw each other. His work ethic was as strong as the alcohol he chugged. In before me, out after. Every single day.

I must admit it got pretty lonely in there, at least for me. I couldn’t tell if Harris enjoyed solitude or not, though I imagine he did, to an extent. He was a weird one, Alexander. My desk was near his office door and I could never hear a peep coming from within. Just an eerie silence that was sometimes broken by my own accidental noises.

It was almost oppressive at first, that silence.

It took Harris at least a solid month before he mustered up the courage to come out of his office. I legitimately jumped when I heard the doors to his office swing open, revealing the man himself behind them. Laughing quietly, glass of scotch glued to his hand.

“Did I scare you?” He snickered, leaning against the wall.

I shot him a glare that could have killed him on the spot, but played it off. “Yeah, kinda. Not much to do today,” I joked, the shock of adrenaline subsiding.

“Then why am I even paying you?” I detected a hint of sarcasm in his words, yet I still felt like they had an edge of truth to them.

“You won me, remember? I’m sorta stuck here.” My retort hit a tiny bit too close to home. The words flew right out of my mouth, breezing past the filter that usually prevented me from saying things I shouldn’t, or flat out getting fired.

Alexander wasn’t fazed, at least externally. “Oh come on, Lucy! You still chose to sign that contract, didn’t you?”

“But I…” The words died in my throat. He was right, though the tone of smug superiority was starting to annoy me already.

“You could have walked out at any time. But that would make daddy happy, wouldn’t it?” If the discussion was hitting close to home, that sentence burst through my front door. My stomach sank for a split second, and rose back up to bring forth all the bottled up stress and troubles I kept locked away deep within me.

“I see why you needed a secretary,” I hissed, throwing professionalism out of the window hoping it would drag Harris along with it. I wanted nothing more than to tell him what I really thought about him, right to his stupidly handsome face. I also needed to keep my job, and insulting my boss would probably throw a wrench in that.

Alexander disappeared back into his office, leaving me with a few words spoken with a hint of dejection in his voice. “You were right about me the first time.”

Perhaps Harris was an asshole through and through, but his assumptions weren’t too far off. That’s what truly hurt about his words, the fact that deep down he was right and he knew it.

Part of me wanted to work at his company exactly because I knew my father hated every second of it.

We hadn’t spoken all that much ever since I began working there. He didn’t approve of it, despite it being his fault. 

That very same night I came home to find Brianna on the phone, ordering food for the both of us.

The look on my face gave away the fact that it hadn’t been a great day. Brianna was quick to notice it, and went straight for the wine cooler without even saying a word.

“You could file a complaint against him!” She suggested, taking a small sip. “A gross old man harassing his secretary, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time.”

I shook my head. “He owns the company. And me, by extension.” Perhaps I added a bit of drama to it, but the base concept was sound.

“So what? It still counts!” She yelled, hoping to better deliver her point.

“Oh come on, Bree! He just said a couple mean things, it’s not like he touched me or anything!” I was starting to get exasperated, and even the wine didn’t help. 

“That’d be fucking awful,” She grimaced. 

Brianna didn’t know the full story, which made me chuckle. “I wouldn’t say that.”  

She cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly to the right. “Really, bitch?”

“Really,” I replied without batting an eye. “Look him up, name’s Alexander Ha—” She cut me off, lunging towards the table to grab her phone.

“Harris, yes I know,” She murmured, her fingers tapping away at the screen.

I had a stupid, knowing smirk on my face. She was bracing for impact, already cringing as the picture loaded. Watching Brianna’s reaction made me burst out laughing. Brianna turned to look at me, a puzzled expression on her face.“This is your boss?!” 

“Bree, meet Alexander. Bit different than what you thought, huh?” I nudged her, just as she glued her eyes back to her phone.

She glanced at me as she scrolled down, loading more pictures of him.“I see why you wouldn’t mind him—”

“Keep it in your pants, woman! He’s a jerk,” I admonished her. In honesty, jerk would hardly cut it.

She shrugged and threw her phone onto the couch, to her side. “Maybe. But still, damn.”

Alexander Harris was perhaps a product of his own surroundings, but I couldn’t say that with certainty. I didn’t know him all too well, and besides, he was my boss. I doubt many can claim they have a good — or even decent — relationship with their superiors.

Brianna was somewhat right, though. He was an extremely attractive man, and I’ll freely admit I caught myself thinking about him in less than puritan ways, in more than one occasion.

Despite having the body a Greek God would kill for, Alexander was still the type of man one couldn’t build anything significant with. I had been burned before, just over two years prior to my return to New York.

Charles. I met him at a bar after class, which should have already raised at least some suspicions. I couldn’t see the red flags and wasted far too much time chasing what I thought was happiness. 

I remember my friends telling me there was something off about him, but I wouldn’t listen. It took me some hard evidence to realize what was happening. 

Charles would always leave his phone face down on the table, and bring it with him everywhere he went, even to the bathroom. I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight, what was happening was obvious.

He forgot his phone once, and as shameful as it is to admit it, I snooped. I never claimed to be a perfect person, after all, and curiosity got the best of me. 

It was only then I realized he had been cheating on me for months.

Needless to say I was heartbroken. My friends took care of me and little by little things got back to normal. I dove head first into my studies, focusing on nothing but achieving the best possible grades I could.

Just below the surface I was a mess. Between my obligations and the stress, the diluted depression and even a host of other things I can barely describe, I had an ever roaring storm of chaos weighing me down.

I got better, eventually. The process was so gradual I can’t pinpoint when or how it started, it just crept up on me. I woke up one morning and experienced a singular moment of clarity, or perhaps some sort of epiphany that dispelled whatever curse had been called upon me.

Those wounds disappeared, but their scars remained. I vowed to focus on myself and stay away from toxic people. It worked for some time, but being near Alexander reset my progress back to the starting line.

I planned on leaving Harris Electronics as soon as I could, meaning I would have to wait the end of the contract.

It would look good on my resume, and with some luck, I could probably even get a recommendation letter from Alexander himself if I ever needed one.

I had no idea what I would do after leaving the company, though. Part of me wanted to climb the corporate ladder, another wanted nothing to do with it and wished to go back to Shaw’s.

The word conflicted doesn’t even begin to describe my state of mind in those days. It didn’t last long, for better or worse. 

My phone rang, or rather buzzed, on a sunny Saturday morning. My face lit up as I saw Shaw’s round face appear on the screen, and I answered right away.

Right off the bad I noticed something was up. His voice sounded dull and weary, not even remotely bright and commanding like it always was. The reason behind it was simple, and wiped the smile seeing his face on the screen put on my face. 

Deep down I knew that moment would come, I just didn’t think it would be so soon. Shaw was neck deep in debt, and the only way out was selling his shop. 

I wanted to help, I really did. There was nothing I could have done, however, short of winning the lottery. 

We said our goodbyes and he hung up the phone.  My life was taking a turn I would have never seen coming just a month before, and I can’t say I was too happy about whatever the future held. 

Shaw’s closing meant I didn’t have much choice in the matter: all I could do was stay at Harris Electronics until the next disaster stormed through my life, provided Alexander would even allow it.

I sat in silence for a while, eyes slowly sweeping the room as I noticed a thin layer of dust on the television set. 

It had to go.