“I was surprised to hear that you were here,” he said to me.
“I know. This is a totally inappropriate visit. I’m here to see Easton.”
“Well, you are out of luck because he’s working from home today.” He was extremely cold. We had never got to the point of being friends, but he was always friendly towards me in the past. He must have seen the clip of the interview.
“I haven’t been able to contact him today.”
“Well, obviously that means he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“I didn’t mean the things that I said. I was in a bad place and I said things that I knew would be hurtful.”
“What you said could have had a very negative impact on our business,” he said. “You’re lucky that the red-carpet pictures seem to be getting more attention than what you said.”
“That’s lucky, I suppose.” Easton was not here. Toby seemed to be working, and even if he wasn’t, he didn’t seem like he was in the mood to talk to me. What more could I do? “Toby? You and Easton have been friends for a long time. Do you know how I can get through to him?”
“I don’t know what to tell you if you have tried to contact him and he isn’t letting you through. He’s hurt right now. It’s not just his pride either. You basically said that he wasn’t good enough for you. It was one thing if he thought that was true, and now the whole world knows. To be honest, I don’t know if you can win back his trust. It’s going to take a lot because it took a lot for him to even believe that he had a chance with you in the first place.”
I felt like there was a rock in my throat and I was struggling to swallow. That was the worst thing he could have told me. I did not want to think that I had fucked up so badly, but if even Easton’s closest friend didn’t think I had a chance, then what else could I do? I left, walking myself to the lift, thankful that it was empty, so I didn’t have to hide it when I cried.
31
Easton
For the fiftieth time in about ten minutes, I found myself looking over at my phone. There was nothing there, I knew that already, but I picked
it up anyway. Just as I thought, no new notifications.
Well, if you want to hear from her so bad, why don’t you just text her? Call her?
I sighed and put the phone down. I looked back at the TV, at my paused videogame. I knew things were going badly in my life when I got out the video games. I knew that people liked to use them for relaxation, but for me, they were purely a tool for zoning out, so I could stop paying attention to what was happening in my real life. It was this little world that I had complete control of for when my real life didn’t feel that way.
I could just call her, I could just text her, but the thing was, I didn’t want to. I knew that even if my phone did light up and it was her, I probably wouldn’t answer. Toby had told me already that a little while ago, she had shown up at the office, looking for me. That was a few days ago though, and the calls and text messages had completely stopped. That didn’t mean I wanted that.
I knew it didn’t make sense, but that was the way I felt. I didn’t want her to stop even though I didn’t want to give in. It bothered me that she was essentially done already. How long had it taken? Not even a week and she had given up trying to contact me. In my mind that just meant one thing. She meant everything that she said in that interview. She thought I was beneath her and that I wasn’t even worth her time when she was the one who had done something wrong to me. Even worse than that, anytime that I might’ve thought I was good enough for her, I really wasn’t.
There was never going to be a chance. Even after she cleaned me up and taught me how to wear a suit, even when I looked the part, I would never be good enough for her. She thought I was an idiot who probably couldn’t feed myself since I couldn’t dress myself when she met me. I wasn’t worthy enough to be at her side. I didn’t want that to be true, I wanted to hear her apologize, but with all the time I had had to sit and think about it, I wondered whether it was worth it. Whether my self-esteem was so low that I would try and gain validation from someone who had told basically the whole world exactly what she thought about me, and none of it was good.
I picked up the controller and unpaused my game. Whatever. I should’ve just gone with my gut in the first place. She wasn’t the type who fell for guys like me. I thought it was true in the beginning, and in the end, she just confirmed it for me.
I played my game absentmindedly for a few minutes before pausing again. Looking around the room, I took in my surroundings. The place had regressed back into the dump that it had been weeks ago. After Missy’s first visit, when she yelled at me for living in a pigsty even though I had the money not to, I had taken some of her advice and cleaned up. To be honest, I had the intention of inviting her over for activities other than work, so I had even taken the bed up off of the floor and put it onto the proper frame, but those plans were no longer going forward. I had hired a cleaning service that was meant to come once every week, but I had turned away the cleaners when they had shown up a couple of days ago.
Now, not only was my place dirty, but I also had also run out of almost everything. It was around noon. It wasn’t like I was doing anything better. I had some work to do, but it was nothing that I couldn’t get done in a couple of hours which was why I hadn’t started. I stood up and stretched out my joints. Maybe a walk would do me good actually. I technically hadn’t left the loft in days. I was no expert, but I felt like it wasn’t a good thing.
I took a quick shower and shaved the stubble that I had allowed to grow in over the past few days that I hadn’t left the house. Walking into my closet, I was hit with the urge to call or text Missy to ask her what I should wear, but I quickly pushed it away. Putting on joggers that she had approved, I walked out of the house. Outside, I felt like a baby deer walking for the first time. The assault of the noise and activity surprised me for a second. I was going to start walking when a woman hurried up to me. It took a little while to recognize her, but then I finally did.
“Maggie?”
She nodded rushing up to me. She was holding something in her hands, looking like she would’ve given a chase if I had walked away without noticing her. “Easton. I’m so glad I caught you.”
“Caught me?” I asked. I had only seen Maggie once or twice, but she worked for Missy. It didn’t take a lot to conclude that the reason she was here was because of Missy. I felt a mix of conflicting emotions. What would Maggie have to tell me herself that didn’t come from Missy? Nothing. Therefore, why wasn’t it Missy here instead of her?
“I’ve been coming here over my lunch breaks to see whether I could catch you on your way in or out, but I haven’t been able to. Not until today.”
I balked. “What? You’ve been stalking me? Missy sent you here to stalk me?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not stalking you. And Missy doesn’t know that I’m here.”
None of the new information that she had told me was particularly pleasing. In fact, it had just made me a little bit angry. I didn’t really believe her when she said that Missy hadn’t sent her, because why else would she be here? Whatever. It didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth it.