“I—it was a bad choice of words. But I really do want to be with you. Please, can we work this out?” he says.
I feel my heart break as I hear his words. Hearing him say he meant it would have been the one thing that could have maybe made this okay. People do and say crazy things when they're in love, and I couldn’t have stayed mad at him if he’d meant the words. But he didn’t. He used them for shock value to piss his father off.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I say. “But not right now. Right now when I see you, I feel this … this anger inside. I need some time alone to process all of this before I can even consider forgiving you.”
“Opal, wait,” Brett says.
He’s still talking when I open the door and this time, I don’t look back. I just leave. It’s after five now, so I go back to my office to collect my coat and my purse. I can’t just sit here stewing on this, and if Brett follows me to my office, then I’ll have to play nice with him in case anyone over hears us. I can’t do that. Not tonight.
I leave the building and head home. Rita isn’t home yet and I am pleased about that. I need some time alone to really process all of this. I just can’t believe Brett would do this to me. I guess it just shows how different we really are. He can afford to walk away from any job and it wouldn’t matter to him. I can’t, but Brett can’t seem to fathom that. And apparently, he thinks that it’s okay to say he loves me when he clearly doesn’t.
My phone rings and I fish it out of my purse. It’s Brett. I roll my eyes and cut off the call. Apparently, not only is he making career decisions for me now, but he’s also decided that when I say I don’t want to talk to him, that I don’t really get a choice in the matter.
I slam my phone down on the chair arm, but it beeps again before it’s even out of my hand, a text message this time. I ignore the insistent beeping, trying to tempt me into looking at the message.
Resting my head against the chair back, I close my eyes. I just need to put Brett out of my head and think about something else until I can look at this without anger clouding my judgement. Maybe then I can get some perspective on it.
I open my eyes a bit and peer at my phone on the chair arm. I sigh and snatch it up. I’m not going to be able to not think about Brett when I know I have a message from him that’s unread. I read the message.
‘Opal, I know I fucked up and I’m sorry. But please don’t shut me out. We need to talk about this, to work it out.’
I sigh again. I debate calling him, but even the thought of hearing his voice brings an all consuming anger surging back to the surface. If we talk about this now, I’m going to let that fury take over, and I’ll end up saying something I can’t take back. Instead of calling him, I send him a text back.
‘We will talk about this. But not right now. Please respect my wishes. We’ll talk tomorrow after work.’
Pressing send, I wait for his reply. Nothing comes and my phone sits there silently, taunting me. Why isn’t Brett texting me back? Is he really willing to throw our whole relationship away because I asked for one night to think about things and gain some perspective?
I shake my head at myself. I told him I needed to not talk about this now and he’s not trying to make me talk about it. How can I vilify him for not respecting my wishes, and then vilify him for respecting them too? I can’t have it both ways. He’s just giving me the space I asked for.
Somehow, this knowledge calms me down a little bit. What he did was thoughtless and stupid, but surely I can get past it. I mean it’s not like he cheated on me, or smacked me or anything like that. I’ll just have to make him see that I won’t tolerate him pulling another stunt like that ever again. And maybe it is too soon to be talking about loving each other, even if I do already feel like I love Brett.
22
I pause outside of the building as I arrive at work at my usual time. I know today is going to be hard. Like… really hard. I have just about gotten used to being around Brett at work and pretending like he is nothing more than just my boss, but that had been when I wasn’t mad at him. I have mostly calmed down now though. I’m still not happy about what Brett had done yesterday, but I am over wanting to scream in frustration and punch him in the mouth. I hope that doesn’t change when I see him again.
I can’t complain if there is a little awkwardness between us, because while Brett’s actions caused it, I’m the one who refused to speak to him about it last night. I’m trying to force myself to step into the building and act normally when a voice rings out behind me.
“Hey, Opal.”
Turning around, I smile. A fake smile that I hope doesn’t look fake. It’s Jessie and she’ll know instantly if I’m not my usual self. And she won’t let it go until I tell her what’s wrong and I don’t think I could come up with something convincing on the spot like this.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” I reply.
“Well, you’re just kind of standing here for no apparent reason. Who
