Chapter 5 Episode 5

“Elly, the man runs this company like Seal Team Six. You’ve seen his calendar. You’ve seen his clothes. You’ve seen his whole, y’know, aura. And yet you caught him off-guard. That probably scared the s**t out of him.” I want to argue, but something about what she’s saying feels kinda right. The Bastian from last night was a completely different person from this morning’s ice sculpture with an attitude. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I say, forcing myself to take a bite of noodles. They taste like cardboard, but that’s not the ramen’s fault. Everything has tasted like cardboard since Dr. Haggerty’s life-ruiner of a prognosis. “He made it very clear where I stand. Just another employee.” “f**k. That,” Yasmin declares. “You want to know where you stand? You’re the woman who walked into that building six years ago with a community college degree and holes in her shoes, and worked your way up to senior project manager through sheer f*****g brilliance. You’re a fuckin’ rock star, El.” “Somehow, I don’t think he sees it that way.” “So then quit! Screw him! He needs you way more than you need him. You’d find another job like that—” She snaps her fingers. “—because you’re great and he sucks and them’s the facts, girl.” Quit. God, that’s a terrifying word. I’ve been thinking it all morning, this wild, reckless idea that keeps sticking a toe in the deep end of my mind. Quit. Walk away. Use these precious ninety days—eighty-eight and a half now—for something more fulfilling than dealing with Bastian Hale’s temper tantrums. “I can’t quit,” I whisper into my bowl. “Health insurance, for one. Plus, y’know, like, rent, food, the radical idea that I need money to live.” “You’re brilliant, Elly. Anyone in this industry who knows anything would be licking their lips at the thought of stealing you away from the blue-eyed bastard.” “Yeah, sure. I mean, maybe. But I⁠—” Yasmin puts her hand on mine. “Look, I’ve watched you kill yourself for this man,” she continues, softer now. “Always first in, last out. You do the most and you never ask for the easy way out. And for what? So some trust fund sociopath can humiliate you for being kind? For caring? Nuh-uh. Again, I say unto you: f**k. that.” My eyes burn again, but this time, it’s not from humiliation. It’s from the God-it’s-so-much of it all—the diagnosis, the exhaustion, the sudden clarity that I’ve been so focused on climbing the ladder that I never stopped to ask if it was leaning against the right wall. “There’s something else,” I say. Yasmin’s frown deepens. She knows me well enough to recognize when something’s really wrong. “What is it? Eli…?” “I’m sick.” I hate how that sounds, so I hurry to add, “Not cancer or anything; don’t freak out; but my eyes… I’m… I’m going blind, Yas. In ninety days. That’s what the doctor said. Three months before it all goes dark.” The restaurant noise continues around us—the clink of bowls, the hiss of the kitchen, someone laughing at the next table—but Yasmin has gone completely still. “… What?” she asks at last. “It’s called Leber congenital amaurosis. It’s genetic, apparently. Super rare for it to show up this late, which makes me a unicorn in all the wrong ways.” I try for a laugh, but it comes out cracked and miserable. “So yeah, that’s why I was practicing walking around with my eyes closed last night. That’s why I ran into shirtless Bastian. And that’s why I brought everyone pastries this morning—because I wanted to do something good while I still can, and look how that turned out.” Yasmin reaches across the table with her other hand and sandwiches both of mine in her palms. “Elly, oh my God.” “Please don’t cry,” I beg, because if she cries, then I’ll cry, and I’ve already used up my bathroom breakdown quota for the day. “Me? Cry? Never.” She wipes tears from her eyes and sniffles. “Is there treatment? Surgery? Anything?” “Nope. Just a big ol’ f**k you from the universe.” I squeeze her hand back. “Which, yeah, is another reason I can’t quit. I need the health insurance for all the fun adaptive equipment I’m going to need. Screen readers, mobility training, the works.” “Forget the insurance.” Yasmin is scowling again, my fierce little tigress. “You have three months of sight left, and you want to spend them letting Bastian Hale make you feel like s**t? Fixing Kyle’s dumbass spreadsheets? No. I refuse to let you waste away in that gray cubicle all by your lonesome.” When she puts it like that, it sounds insane. “No buts. You know what you should be doing? Seeing the Aurora Borealis. Walking through the Louvre. Watching every damn sunset and reading every book you’ve been putting off. Looking at the faces of people you love.” Her speech stumbles on the last one before she recovers and finishes, “Not wasting precious days being Bastian Hale’s verbal punching bag. I won’t let you.” I look away so she can’t see my eyes studding with tears. As I do, I see my phone light up through the open mouth of my purse. Email notification. I almost ignore it, but the subject line makes my stomach drop. I free one of my hands, grab my phone, and tap to open it, already knowing it’s going to be bad. RE: URGENT: Revenue Analysis Required Given your apparent abundance of free time this morning, I’m confident you can handle the attached revenue analysis. I need a complete breakdown of five-year projections, including seasonal variations, competitive positioning, and risk assessments for each of our three proposed market penetration strategies. I’m sure someone of your capabilities won’t find this challenging. I check the attachment. It’s fifty-eight pages of raw data. “That’s impossible,” Yasmin says, reading over my shoulder. “That’s at least a week’s worth of work.” “That’s the point.” A hot, sharp feeling surges up in my chest. Not tears this time—this is something else. This is twenty-seven years of keeping my head down, of being underestimated, of being overlooked and underappreciated, all crystallizing into a single moment of absolute fury. “He’s trying to make me fail. He wants me to either kill myself trying to meet an impossible deadline or flounder publicly so he can justify whatever sicko power trip he’s on.” I look at Yasmin. “Huh?” “Don’t play his game.” She taps on my phone screen to open up the Notes app. “Here’s what you’re going to do: You’re going to go back to that office, and you’re going to write the best damn resignation letter anyone’s ever seen. You’re going to fold it until it’s all corners and shove it up his clenched asshole. Then you’re going to walk out of there with your head high and your dignity intact, and you and me are gonna make the next eighty-nine days the most fun anyone’s ever had.” I want so badly to bottle up her fire and take a dose of it myself. As long as I’m looking at Yas and holding her hand, that feels possible. But the second I close my eyes, the blackness inside my head gets taken over by images of all the different versions of Bastian who have rocked my world in the last twenty-four hours, and I end up feeling more confused than ever. “I don’t even know how to write a resignation letter,” I admit. “Good thing your best friend is a copywriter.” Yasmin’s fingers are already flying across my phone. “Two weeks’ notice?” I think about this morning. Just another employee. One of many. Yasmin’s grin is positively vicious. “That’s my girl.” We finish our meal and head back to the office together. Yasmin has to peel off at the tenth floor, where the marketing department lives, but she pumps my hand before the elevator doors close. “I love you, Elly Belly,” she tells me. “Always and forever.” Then the doors close, and I’m alone again. 1: to cut food into very small, fine pieces, typically by chopping or grinding. 2: don’t just cut him—f*****g end him. The twentieth floor is afternoon-quiet when I return. A few people glance up as I pass, probably wondering if I’m okay after this morning’s scene in the test kitchen. I’m sure the stories have already grown legs. I give them bland smiles, professional and plain, saving my energy for what comes next. My cubicle feels smaller than usual. The gray walls hem in on me like a cage I’ve been living in for so long that I forgot it was locked. I sit down, pull out my phone again, and look at what Yas and I put together. Please accept this letter as formal notification of my resignation from my position as Senior Project Manager at Hale Hospitality Group, effective immediately. While I have valued my time with the company and the opportunities for professional growth it has provided, I have decided to pursue other opportunities that better align with my goals. I will ensure all current projects are documented and accessible to whomever assumes my responsibilities. Thank you for the experience of working at Hale Hospitality. I wish the company continued success. I read it twice. It’s professional, courteous, and completely bloodless. Everything a resignation letter should be. Nothing that would give Bastian the satisfaction of knowing he got to me. But something about it feels wrong. I delete it and start over.