Or maybe I just miss the one-sided cat and mouse game that he doesn’t even know he’s playing. It’s the thrill of the chase, it’s how every small smile he gives me, every word he speaks, is a victory in itself. It’s challenging me constantly to try and win him over. And if there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that I like to be challenged.
When I lie in bed later that night and stare out the window at the streetlights, I realize that, for the first time, my bed feels empty. Like it’s missing someone. And not someone who leaves in the middle of the night or the next morning. Someone who will stay.
The truth creeps in like an oil spill.
I, Kayla Moore, am a lonely, lonely girl.
***
When I walk into the office on Monday morning, there’s no denying I have a little extra swing in my step. Even though my piece won’t come out until Friday, I’m feeling good. Fantastic even. This is it. This is my new life. I’ve pushed aside all my woe is me crap from the weekend and am focused on the positive. Once that piece comes out, not only will it (hopefully) help Bram and Lachlan, but it will say to the world, “Hey fuckfaces! Hey, every person who’s doubted me! Look at me! Look what I’ve done with myself!”
But as I walk past Neil in the hallway on the way to lunch, he looks like the bringer of bad news.
“Kayla,” he says, pulling me to the side. “I need to talk to you.”
I’ve never seen him act serious before. “What?” I ask, wringing my hands together. “Everything okay?”
“Sort of,” he says. He examines his nails for a moment then looks up at me and sighs, looking completely apologetic. “There’s been a change to the article.”
I stand up straighter. “What change?”
“It’s still being printed, don’t worry,” he says quickly. “It’s just that, uh, well sweet cheeks, Joe won’t run it with your name. He’s putting down my name as the byline.”
“What?!” I exclaim, loud enough for people to stare.
“Sorry!” he says, whispering harshly. “I didn’t want it that way, but Joe says no one knows who you are. But the good news is that he’s running it. Yay.” He gives a tiny, desperate jump for joy. “Right?”
I can’t even speak to him. I push him away, whirl around, and march toward Joe’s office. I hear Neil yell behind me, “Don’t do it, it’s not worth it!” but fuck that noise. This is my article. My chance. It’s worth it.
Joe’s door is closed so I quickly rap on it, trying to take a deep breath, to control my rage which is totally out of control.
“What is it?” he asks brusquely from the other side.
I open the door and step in, shutting the door loudly behind me. He looks up in surprise then cocks his head and shakes it.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I say bitterly. “You know why I’m here.”
He looks back down at his papers. Always looking at fucking papers. Use a damn computer like the rest of us.
“I know you should talk to the damn editor with a little more respect,” he says gruffly. I’ve dealt with enough gruff from Lachlan this last week so it doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest.
“You’re not running my name with the article!” I tell him, hands waving all over the place. “I wrote it. That’s not fair. That’s like…that’s like…”
“It’s business,” he says with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The article is good, and you should be proud. And it might even get some attention, which is what you wanted for this goddamn charity nonsense. But it won’t help if it’s from someone who works in advertising. All the credibility is gone.”
“Then…then, let me work here. You said I can write. You said it’s good. So then make me a staff writer.”
He shakes his head. “Kayla, you’re just fine at what you do. The weekly can’t run without ads. Let the writers handle their work. They’ve been at it for years. You’ve written one,” he jabs his finger in the air, “thing.”
“Then let me keep my name to the article and let me write more things,” I plead. “Let me try again. I can prove myself, I know I can. I can do more than just book fucking ads!”
His oversized, hairy nostrils flare at that. He carefully folds his hands in front of him. “Look. Originally you weren’t going to write it anyway. Just appreciate the experience and be proud that it was good enough to get printed, though I’m sure Neil did more than his fair share of cleaning it up. If you look at it that way, I’m sure he deserves to have his name on it just as much as you.” He clears his throat and starts rummaging through the mess of paper cups and sticky notes on his desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to pretending you didn’t barge in here with this terrible self-entitled attitude, and you can go back to doing what you normally do. Got it?”
I press my lips together until they hurt. I so want to yell, scream, hurl things at him. But that won’t get me anywhere. I hate, hate, hate admitting defeat, but that’s what this is—utter defeat.
I leave his office, refusing to look at anyone who might have heard my outburst, and head straight into the bathroom. I’m relieved to find it empty, and I rush over to the toilet stall, put the lid down, and sit. With my head in my hands, I breathe, breathe, breathe, and try to hold it all together.
Breakdowns aren’t common for me. Not the ones that seem to tear you from the inside out, like this one is threatening to do. And I know it’s dumb that I’m feeling this way when I should have seen it coming. It’s just an article. One thing I wrote. And I was an idiot to think it was going to lead to something, that it was going to change my life.
But I can’t ignore the disappointment. It hurts. More than that, it’s embarrassing. I’ve told everyone I know about this and so many people are going to be looking for it come the weekend. Yeah, I did good…but it’s not the same.
I stay in the bathroom stall my whole lunch break, fighting back tears, swallowing my anger. Then, after a while, I push my pity aside and turn on myself, my next best target. I berate myself for freaking out on Joe like I did. He’s an ass and definitely not in the right, but I could have lost my job—my real job—by talking back like I did. That was hella risky and I wasn’t thinking straight. Even though the whole thing is just awful, what I really need to do is go back to Joe and apologize for freaking out.
But my pride can be a lioness, and instead, when I’m finally calm and composed, I go back to my office, sit down, and commit myself to my real job—the one I’m paid to do. The only one I know how to do.
Mondays fucking suck.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kayla
Naturally, I have a hard time shaking it off. I lay low all week, shutting myself away from the world. The only person I see is my mom, and I’m not even planning to go over because I know she’ll ask about it and I don’t want to let her down. But she sounds so sad and helpless over the phone, maybe even weaker than normal, and I can’t say no.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks me from her chair, watching reruns of The Nanny on TV, while I make dinner for us. I ended up telling here there were changes with the article but I didn’t go into details.
“Not really,” I say.
“That’s okay. Talk when you’re ready. Just remember what I told you last time—you’re on your own track.”
Yeah, but my track is officially going nowhere.
I spend the weekend shut in as well, eating a pint of caramel waffle cone ice cream and binging on Netflix. I know that the Outside Lands Festival is going on, I know that Steph and Nicola are getting aggravated by my inability to answer the phone or respond to their texts. I even get a text from Bram on Friday that says, “Kayla, what happened?” assuming that he’s read the article that Neil wrote. But still, I pretend that it doesn’t exist.