It was too much.
Nicole arrived home about an hour later, thankful when she entered the apartment that Danielle appeared to be in her room, asleep. Danielle was a night owl who could just as easily have been up watching some late night infomercial, scarfing down ice cream.
But the apartment was dark and quiet and Nicole was happy to tiptoe into her old room and close the door behind her softly. Then she took off her dress and slid into bed, naked. She was happy to be back, in a way, although exhausted.
As she lay there, drifting, she thought of Red. The way he’d looked when she told him she didn’t want him to drive her home. His expression had been one of total devastation.
She didn’t want him to hurt, ever.
Nicole drifted off to an uneasy sleep, where she dreamed she was wandering down dark hallways in a maze that moved and changed. She needed to wait for certain passages to connect with one another before she could walk forward. Eventually she became confused and lost, wandering in circles.
She wandered and wandered until the night finally ended and she awoke.
When Nicole’s eyes fluttered open, light was streaming in through her bedroom window. And she could hear Danielle out in the common area making noise, which meant the hour was rather late. Danielle never got up before seven.
Springing out of bed, Nicole grabbed her clothes for the day and started for the shower, hoping against hope she could keep the questions and explanations to a minimum.
When Nicole left her room, Danielle was humming to herself and making a sandwich for her brown bag lunch. She looked up, saw Nicole, and went back to making her sandwich. Then she seemed to have a delayed reaction of pure shock. Danielle looked up again and shrieked. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m back,” Nicole sighed, trying to smile bravely.
Danielle stepped back from the counter. “You’re back, back?”
“Yes.”
“Not just for a day or two.”
Nicole shook her head. “No. I’m back. And I’d rather not talk about it right now. I’m late for work.”
“So you still have a job.”
For the first time, Nicole wondered. She might not have a job, actually. After all, she’d sort of dumped the CEO last night, and what were the chances he would let her keep working at his company after that?
“I think I have a job,” Nicole replied slowly.
“You think so?”
“We’ll see.” She started for the bathroom. “I better get in the shower before they have even more reasons to fire me.”
Danielle watched her go, still looking completely dumbstruck.
***
It seemed as though life was always unbalanced, Nicole thought. On the one hand, her relationship with Red seemed to have imploded—again. On the other, things at work had somehow improved overnight.
Remi swung by her desk that morning and said hello, asked how Nicole liked working for Edward.
Nicole was honest and admitted that she’d rather have kept working for Remi.
Remi said, “Maybe I can arrange that,” with a little smile.
Later, Remi dropped by and invited Nicole to have lunch with her, which she immediately agreed to.
During lunch, Remi apologized for being so horrible. She told Nicole that her mother had fallen ill the past weekend and she’d been so upset about it, she’d obviously taken her anxieties out on Nicole.
They made up, and Remi once again promised to see if she could convince Edward to let Nicole come back to work for her.
That greatly eased Nicole’s mind. Meanwhile, she tried her best to work diligently on the tasks Edward had assigned her, which were plentiful and dull.
She wasn’t sure whether she was hoping to see Red again or not. Part of her definitely wanted to make sure he was okay, the other part was scared of what he might say to her if they did run into each other.
But she didn’t see him.
In fact, she didn’t see him for a full week. Nicole had no idea if he was even in the building at all, but if he was, he certainly didn’t set foot in her neck of the woods.
Other people started to notice that Red wasn’t coming around her desk. There were those furtive looks again in Nicole’s direction from her coworkers, only now the looks were pitying, as if people already knew what had occurred and assumed she was dumped. Women especially were inclined to give her a sad face and tilt their heads just so, without uttering a word.
They knew how to make her feel low.
She stopped wearing the engagement ring. It was at home, packed in tissue paper and stuffed in the tip of one of her shoes in the back of her closet.
Things had even returned to normal between her and Danielle. Nicole got the distinct impression that it was far easier to have friends when you were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Then everyone could feel superior and act really sorry for you, instead of wondering why you’d gotten something they hadn’t.
She was becoming cynical, and she hated it.