CHAPTER 21
Anderson
I got to work early Monday morning, determined to catch Joanna when she entered the building and insisted that the two of us approach Tobias together and get him to see reason. From the moment she ran out of the gala and hopped into the cab, I had been trying to call her repeatedly. But she wouldn’t accept any of my calls. She wouldn’t even answer any of my texts…
And neither would Tobias, for that matter.
I never knew how much losing both of them would impact my life until I was faced with the reality of it happening. The Gentry family had been in my life for decades, and I had taken for granted how important they were to me. Now, with neither Tobias or Joanna speaking to me, it felt like my whole world had been shifted completely upside down, and if things stayed this way for much longer, I didn’t know how I was going to possibly carry on. A deep depression was starting to come over me, something I had never felt before in all my life. I could hardly even bring myself to get out of bed.
When my alarm clock went off Monday morning, I’d just lied there, letting it screech, unable to muster the energy to turn it off. I only turned it off when I heard the angry thumping from the tenant below me who had undoubtedly taken a broom to bang on her ceiling to send me a message. I already felt like shit, so by no means did I want to hear Ms. Ryan’s angry mouth, or find out that she’d complained to the landlord about me over a damned alarm clock.
When I finally managed to sit up in bed, I instantly reached for my phone—hoping that I had a message from Joanna, or even Tobias. But of course, I’d had no such luck. Besides, I had barely slept to begin with; if either of them had tried to contact me, I would have known immediately.
With a sigh, I figured that I was just going to have to talk to them in person when I got to work. That thought alone was the only thing that encouraged me to get out of bed. I was determined to get them both together in the office so that we could all talk like the rational adults we were supposed to be.
I forced myself through my morning routine, showering, dressing, eating a bagel, and getting to the office, determined to accomplish my task. Yet when I got to work that morning, I quickly learned that I was in for a rude awakening.
Joanna never showed up.
Tobias did though.
“Tobias!” I said, seeing him walk down the hall to his office. But he didn’t even bother to turn around, as if he was deaf to my voice.
“Come on, Tobias. Don’t be like that. Let’s talk about this,” I said, but still got no response. “Really? Are you honestly going to give me the silent treatment? Aren’t we too old for this, man? Tobias! Tobias! I’m your best friend in the world, and you’re going to treat me like this?”
“Were,” he said quietly, although he still wouldn’t look at me. “You were my best friend in the world. I don’t know who the hell you are now. My best friend wouldn’t treat my sister like one of his sleazy conquests, in the middle of our firm’s gala, no less.”
“I’m not treating her like a conquest! Come on, now! You should know that I have too much respect for Joanna to do something like that.”
“Oh yeah? I bet you respected the hell out of her in that closet.”
“Look, we were being stupid. I know that. But I swear, it’s not what you think.”
“Get the hell out of my way, Anderson. Go do your work and just get out of my sight.” With that, he turned and I knew that I had essentially been dismissed. I watched him storm off and disappear behind his office door with a slam.
“Shit,” I muttered, turning around and seeing several employees passing by, giving me scolding glances as if they’d never heard an expletive before. “What the hell are you guys looking at?” I said, agitated. “Are you done with your reports?”
“Ah…N-no,” one of the stuttered. “They’re not due until the end of the week though, right?”
“Doesn’t mean you have to wait that long to finish,” I fussed. “So stop looking at me and get to work.”
“Y-yes, Mr. Anderson.”
I watched them hurry away, feeling mildly guilty for bullying them for no reason. But I couldn’t help myself. When I felt bad, I tended to act bad. It was a habit that I had yet managed to get control over.
I glanced back to the door Tobias had disappeared behind, tempted to bang on it until he opened up and heard me out.
I tried to recall the last time Tobias had been seriously mad at me. It had seemed like a lifetime ago. We’d been fresh out of high school at the time. He had let me use his car for a date. I had stayed out longer than normal with for that particular date, and hadn’t returned Tobias’s car for two whole days. I’d been careless, taking my date on joyrides, stopping here and there to drink and make out.
In the end, I’d left it far from the pristine condition Tobias had initially lent it to me in.
“Where the hell have you been?” Tobias yelled when I finally returned with his car. “And what the hell happened?” His gaze had raked over his car, seeing that it certainly looked worse for wear on the outside. That was nothing compared to what it had looked like on the inside though. Unfortunately, it was like I had been wearing beer goggles the whole time that had left my vision distorted; I hadn’t been able to see the damages I’d done to his beloved car until that very instant, right as he was pointing it out.
It was like watching in slow motion as he approached his car, his keen vision seeing every speck of dirt, every scratch, every smudge… He opened the door to the reek of the wine coolers my date had spilled all over the cloth seats. I still remembered the way he had closed his eyes, keeping them shut for a moment as if hoping that when he reopened them, his car would be restored to new.
“Anderson, so help me god… You did not mess up my car like this. You. Did. Not.”
I had stood there, sputtering and trying to figure out what to say. Wishing I had a magic wand to repair the car Tobias had worked so hard to acquire.
“Anderson!” Tobias had yelled, demanding an answer.
I flinched, not having a single idea what to say for myself. “It’s nothing, man. Don’t worry about it. I’ll fix it…I’ll clean it and it’ll be good as new before you know it,” I had said, trying to act as if it was no big deal.
“You damn straight you will, you jackass,” Tobias had growled. He didn’t speak to me for two days after that, and those had been two of the longest days of my life. I had managed to scrape up every penny I owned to fix his car.
Things were different this time though. Joanna wasn’t a car that I could just run through a wash and repair to restore to new. And as much as Tobias had loved his first car, he loved his sister more. It was going to take a lot more to make it up to him. And if I didn’t figure out how to do it soon, I was at risk of losing my best friend forever.
My stomach twisted painfully at the thought.
Knowing I was highly unlikely to get another word out of Tobias for the day, I left from standing in front of his closed office door and headed to my own office.
When I reached my office, thoughts of Joanna returned.
It dawned on me that if I could at least get her back on my side, perhaps we could win over Tobias’s blessing together.
First though, I needed to get her to accept my calls.
I closed and locked my office door, went to the phone, and dialed Joanna’s number, my fingers automatically finding the right digits. I was very much a product of my generation, and therefore hardly knew anyone’s phone number by heart, thanks to my constant usage of speed-dial. But considering how many times I had called Joanna over the past two days, I had learned her number by heart. It may have just been my imagination, but I thought I could even distinguish between the sounds of the rings; when I listened to the rings of calls she wasn’t going to answer, there was a hollow tone to them that other rings didn’t have.
“Come on, Jo, pick up,” I pleaded, but already knowing it was useless after the fourth ring. The phone chirped, delivering me to her voicemail for the billionth time. I had a feeling that I was just a couple messages away from completely filling up her inbox.
“Joanna, please. Just call me back. We can work this out. I’ll talk to Tobias. He’ll get over it. He has to. I’m not going to just give up because he caught us. Come on, Joanna! Answer me! Just pick up—” but I was cut off by the beep, which had also happened to me for the billionth time.
I leaned back in my seat, wondering again how I had managed to get myself into such an unfortunate predicament. In one night, I had lost my best friend and the girl of my dreams. It just didn’t make sense.
I sat in my seat, so disappointed with myself that I started getting a pounding headache. I rested my head on my desk, tired, angry, frustrated, and sickened all at once.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but I eventually realized I couldn’t spend the entire day hiding in my office in despair, especially while there was still a lot of work to be done. After all, I had just harassed a couple of employees. What message would I be sending if I spent an entire day being useless and unproductive?
Furthermore, I didn’t need another reason for Tobias to be upset with me, that was for sure.
An uncomfortable feeling washed over me again, knowing that too many people already thought I had only landed my role at the firm for being Tobias’s best friend. I had never cared much about the rumors, believing them to be nonsense. Now, however, if I lost my best friend status, how could I be certain that my job wouldn’t be the next thing to get lost?
I wanted to believe that I was important to the firm, but I couldn’t be naïve enough to think that Joanna couldn’t easily take over my job if necessary. And where would that leave me?
Out of a best friend. Out of a woman. Out of work…
At the end of the day, I wasn’t irreplaceable.
I shuddered, and turned on my computer. The times of taking anything for granted was far behind me now.
Trying to ignore my pounding headache, I began to pull up the latest numbers. Yet they only sent a pang through my chest, for I knew that they would be a lot easier to make sense of if Joanna beside me, checking over them also. We’d made a good team.
“Dammit,” I said and sighed.