Her face twists up with discomfort, and she bites her bottom lip. “I’m… yeah, I’m with them. I’m, well, I’m in your old role.”
“Oh,” I say, veering back from her as I try to balance my reaction. I have no entitlement to anger–she had no part in me leaving or what happened. I lick my lips and put on my Goldie smile. The one I have to force. The same one that’s been shelved for… a handful of weeks. It feels uncomfortable to slip into, like wearing the shoe that gave you the blister the very next day.
“Goldie, I wanted to tell you I was taking that role; I didn’t want you ever to find out second-hand but believe me, please, when I tell you I had no way of contacting you.”
My mind starts rolling through a list of ways she would have contacted me, but I stop myself. She is saying she would have and her face and body language confirms. I am not Connie. I will not gaslight myself into another narrative where Sabrina is the enemy.
“I’m sorry I didn’t reach out. It all happened so fast, and it was… sour,” I say slowly, choosing my words carefully so I don’t inadvertently trigger myself. “I really do feel bad about it, Sabrina. Like shit,” I whisper, my chest lightning with the admission.
Her smile melts a little. “It’s okay.” She hesitates to say more, and I can sense she doesn’t want to part ways just yet–her grip around my arm increases, and my heart rate skyrockets.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her bottom lip wobbling. What does she know? Does she know?
At the base of my throat, my pulse throbs. My temples ache. My palms sweat. I swallow hard. “For… for what?” I manage, my smile feeling a bit lopsided as I struggle to keep my composure. My heart is beating so fast that I’m on the brink of dizziness.
Her mouth opens and moves, but she never speaks. I feel sick, and I know for certain there will be no salmon. There will be no salad. I just want to get out of here.
“Just… whatever happened with him,” she says, dropping her tone to near silence.
“Who is him?” I need her to acknowledge him to me. I need to know that they know I exist. That he didn’t have it all erased; every connection I made, each relationship I had, all that I accomplished.
Her eyes hold mine, and she speaks up with confidence when she answers. “Reynold Porter.”
“Reynold Porter,” my voice box repeats. It's not me. It’s not me at all that’s repeatinghisname. It’s like a toxin purging itself from my body as I repeat it a few more times. I’m thankful for Sabrina because she holds my eyes with hers, unwavering, unwilling to make me feel worse in what she clearly knows to be a horrendous situation.
“Thank you,” I say to her, and if she doesn't know why, she doesn’t tell me.
“Here,” she says, finally breaking away from my gaze to dig through her purse. She produces a phone and passes it to me. “Put in your number. We’re going to be friends, Goldie.”
I feel foolish that my eyes grow warm, but I’m just so raw at this moment that I don’t spend the energy wiping the tears when they fall. I let them roll, cathartic and indulgent at the same time. I could have reached out to her, and I don’t want to be that person anymore, the one that waits for everything to come to her out of some distorted sense of self-worth.
She pulls me into a hug, holding me tight as she says, “I’m so sorry, Goldie.”
Sabrina never disliked me. We weren’t friends because I never allowed it.
“Me too, and I will definitely text you,” I tell her as we pull apart, and I enter my information into her phone.
We’re about to go our own ways when it occurs to me I still haven’t gotten anyone at the Brutes to make contact with Gonzo Family Auto. When I went back to finish paperwork, I told Ms. Laws exactly what had happened to me. It was right after my first session with Dr. Longo, and I just felt like rather than struggling with it, to be honest.
She was kind and never mentioned it again.
But I deserve that fucking letter, damn it. I worked for years for it. I want it.
“Hey,” I say as she turns back around to face me. “Can I ask you for something?”
* * *
Despite the factthat Sabrina is going to give me a letter so I can add it to my own file at Gonzo Auto, I leave the grocery store empty-handed. She knows what happened or some twisted version of it.
My name has been in the same sentence with that fucking word. That four-letter disgusting, vile, defiling, humanity-stealing word.
People know. They’ve pictured me.
My face screws up in my hands as I sob in the driver’s seat of my car. The street lamp above me flickers and burns out, leaving me in the dark. I cry, and my chest shakes so hard I think my car may rock.
I know it wasn’t my fault. And I know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I’m not.
I just wish that it didn’t happen. Because I’m tired of wishing it didn’t. I want to just… be free of it. Cut the ties keeping me tethered to this big, unspeakable, massive weight anchored to my soul.