Chapter 5

• I also knew Wolfe Enterprises was seperate from Lancaster & Co. but I was still stuck on the idea that if I decided to take this opportunity and I got the job, I would be betraying years of my life I could never get back despite the hope that clung to my very being which seemed to fade away each day that Nolan Lancaster was coming back to marry me.
• But I knew I needed to remember that this had nothing to do with Nolan, or the past in fact. Neither did it have anything to do with the years I have spent waiting for the man I knew was never going to show up.
• This was a clean slate. A new shot.
• And though I was terrified of taking it, it was just as Mira had said; ‘What was the worst that could happen?’
• But there was that little voice at the back on my mind that creeped up on me. Whispering my fears as a sort of cruel reminder.
• ‘What if you failed?’ ‘What if they realized you didn’t belong in a building with glass walls and suits that cost more than your house rent?’
• ‘What if somehow you ended up getting burned, Zariah?’
• “You’re going.” Mira broke my train of thoughts with her tone of finality, like she had heard my wavering decisions. “You’re going to that interview, you’re going to impress them, and you’re going to finally stop saying ‘would you like fries with that’ like it’s your job.”
• “It is my job.” I huffed.
• “Not for long.”
• She picked up my phone from where it had slipped onto the couch and handed it back to me. “Reply. Right now.”
• I hesitated before I took it from her, the email still open.
• Mira was always right. What was the worst that could happen?
• I started typing.
• To: Matthias Rhoades
• From: Zariah Smith
• Re: Opportunity Inquiry
• ‘Dear Mr. Rhoades,
• Thank you for reaching out. I would be interested in learning more about the position and scheduling an interview.
• Looking forward to hearing from you.
• Best,
• Zariah Smith.’
• I hesitated before I hit send and just like that, the gears started turning. As I thought of how this all could go to shit if I made the wrong move. What if ‘this’ was the wrong move and I was about to ruin the years I had spent waiting.
• And though I was sure Mira was right about this being that one opportunity I’d been waiting for, I couldn’t help but think that I still had no idea what I had gotten myself into when I took that order to their table earlier in the night.
• ⭑❈❈⭑
• Running was the one thing that kept me mostly sane in the haze of life’s craziness. I had grown entirely dependent on the sound of my feet hitting the pavement and the recoil of my joints in every step as I passed a route that had grown too familiar to me over the past five years I’d been in New York.
• It was no suprise I was up as early as five in the morning to get ready for my morning run since I could barely get sleep in. I hated that I had to depend on the strike of my feet on the pavement and the struggle to catch my breath after every run to be able to think clearly. I hated it but yet I loved it. I would truly chose waking up at ungodly hours of the day to go for a run than be stuck with other vices that would only shorten my supply on brain cells. Not that I had many to work with in the first place.
• I snorted silently to myself at the joke I made as I unlocked the apartment door, half-drenched in sweat and maybe a twing of regret for going for a run with less than three hours of sleep from last night. My lungs were wheezing like I’d sprinted thhrough five years of emotional damage instead of three miles of pavement.
• I peeled off my black hoodie like it personally betrayed, I toed off my shoes by the door and took a few steps into our apartment before I basically faceplanted into the couch, sweat-soaked and internally scrambled.
• Mira didn’t even look up from the Espresso machine in the adjoining kitchen.
• “Running from your problems or towards a delusional sense of control today, Z?” She asked, her voice was way too chipper for someone who hadn’t just trauma-jogged across town.
• I groaned into the throw pillow beside my head. “If you keep talking, I might pretend to die.”
• “Cute.” She snorted. “I’ll put it on your urn— ‘Here lies Zariah Andrea Smith; ran from her feeling right into cardiac arrest’.”
• I flipped her off without raising my head.I heard the soft thud of her placing a mug on the coffee table beside me before she spoke again.
• “You’re welcome, you emotionally repressed gazelle.”
• I sat up with a huffed and reached for the mug with the desperation of someone being offered food after being starved for five years. “You know,” I said after I took a silent sip, the warmth of the bitter coffee easing a little of the tesion in my chest and shoulders. “Most people repond to morning cardio with encouragement.”
• Mira flopped down on the couch beside me with another snort. “You? I respond with truth. Encouragement’s for people who aren’t trying to sweat out their trauma in clearance-rack sneakers held together by pure spite.”
• I rolled my eyes in that way that was too familiar to be normal if you asked me. A person shouldn’t have to roll their eyes so much it became instinct.
• I sighed, the kind of exhaustion that wasn’t just from lack of sleep but a type of tiredness that settled into your bones after years of weight—the weight of holding on to too much. Exhale didn’t get it out but with the wamrth of the coffee and Mira being beside me, it made things a little less heavy.
• “I hate how well you know me.”
• “You should.” She responded with her own exaggerated sigh. “It’s fucking terrifying.”
• I took another sip of the coffee, this time longer than the last, and stared at the ceiling like the answers to my problems would be floating around there somewhere if I looked hard enough at the yellow water stains.
• “So,” She cleared her throat, her tone casual but I knew her too well to think it actually was. I narrowed my eyes at the ceiling. “What’s the real reason you didn’t send it?”
• My head snapped to her. I hadn’t told her that I couldn’t send the email last night.
• But I cleared my throat—there was no use in denying it. “I don’t trust it.”
• “Because it’s coming from the man you accidentally verbally uppercut at the diner?” She scoffed, but it wasn’t condescending yet her words stung a little when she continued. “Or is it because part of you thinks it’s a handout?”
• I didn’t answer. And my silence spoke volumes.
• “Or,” She pressed, her voice quieter now. “It’s because taking it means admitting you’re tired of being the martyr child with the morally superior poverty?”
• My eyes moved to hers. I’d looked away some time while she was speaking before, my voice a little rough from the emotions I was avoiding putting a name to. “Low fucking blow, Mira.”
• “Is it, though?” Her voice wasn’t sharp, simply firm but not unkind. “Your family loves you. But they also love being right. They love solving everything with credit cards, bank wires and vacation homes. And you walked out because you didn’t want to be bought.”
• “You’re not making your point because I still don’t.”
• “Good.” She said without missing a beat. “Then don’t be. My point here is that you should take the offer. Build something of yourself, Z. Something they can’t claim they gave you.” Her voice turned a little softer but it was still firm when she spoke again. “Something they can’t buy.”