Chapter 6

• I wasn’t avoiding it. I really wasn’t. It just happened to skip my mind every single time I got the free time to actually… see it. I was simply also giving it… space. The respectful distance you gave a wild animal right before it bit.
• Yeah… that makes complete sense.
• Though, Mimi would beg to differ. She wasn’t really fascinated by the fact that the response had been sitting in my drafts for a whole week after the night we’d read it. She’d made that fact awfully clear to me more than once in the past week.
• I knew I wasn’t smart about this but it was beyond simply wanting to survive.
• I’d reread it five times and I was rereading for the sixth time now. The first time, I had read it like it was a contract, the second like it was a confession. The last two? Plus this time too, I was reading it like I could decode some hidden message behind the words of Matthias Rhoades’ email to me regarding the job offer from Wolfe Enterprises.
• Another spoiler alert: I couldn’t.
• “You act like if you ignore it long enough, it’ll fucking disappear, Z.” Mimi’s voice drags me from my seventh attempt in decoding the email as she walked into my room without a knock. “Hate to break it to you but guilt has a longer expiration date than almond milk.” She said through a mouthful of cereal before she stuffed another spoonful in her mouth as she sat at the edge of my bed.
• I sighed.
• I swiveled from the glaring light of my laptop screen to her in my chair as I slumped against the seat. I was fucking done with this.
• “You know why, Mimi.” I huffed quietly and Mira scoffed, though with a mouthful of cereal, it came out more like her breakfast had stronger opinions than she did with the way she had to catch herself last minute to stop the cereal from escaping her mouth.
• “You’re acting a like a child with that email, Zariah.” She said when she finally swallowed the cereal in her mouth. “Your life is dependent on this, so maybe I actually don’t fucking know ‘why’ you won’t just send a response.”
• I sighed again, though it was more resigned than defiant now. “This has so much to do with the fact that his company is against them. What if I joined their company and he comes back and realises I betrayed him by joining his rival company, Mimi?” My voice was softer.
• Mira was silent for a moment before she placed her bowl of cereal on my nightstand and crossed the small space between us to crouch in front of me.
• “You still think he’ll come back?” She asked, her tone wasn’t condescending but it didn’t change the fact the words hit me deeper than they were supposed to.
• They didn’t necessarily hurt, but they fucking hit. And it hurt even more when she continued speaking.
• “It’s been ‘six years’, Zariah.” She continued, her voice low now yet firm. “Six years that he left you at the airport and left you as a sobbing mess. He left you in pain and he hasn’t looked back once since that day.”
• I opened my mouth to say something but Mira interrupted me. To say what though? I had no idea. Most likely to defend a man that probably didn’t deserve it. “You told him not to look back that day, sure but you never told him to fucking ignore your efforts for ‘years’. You owe him nothing.”
• She paused, tucking a strand of my long dark brown hair behind my ear before she cupped my cheeks, a soft smile on her face. “Accept it, Zariah. Do this one thing for yourself and not because of some sort of warped sense of loyalty to a man you know doesn’t deserve it.”
• Her light brown eyes shone with unshed tears but I knew she wasn’t sad. It was a type of emotion we had grown to feel for each other with the years we’d known each other.
• “It doesn’t have to be now. It doesn’t have to be right now you make the choice.” She sniffed. “But you need to actually open up your heart to the possibility, Z. You don’t get this kind of opportunity twice.”
• “But..” I started, my voice barely audible from the emotions I was trying to push back. “What if this opportunity isn’t the right one?”
• Mira’s eyes glinted with something different this time. Something close to mischief as her lips quirked up to a very Mira-type of smirk—you could always see the threat and seriousness simmering underneath the mischief. “If this isn’t it, I say we raise the stakes—make them squirm a little?”
• I huffed out a silent laugh. She always had a way to make me laugh even in the most depressing of moments. Like this.
• Her smirk widened to a full grin and she stood up, going to get her bowl form my nightstand first before she left. But not before sending me a look over her shoulder that said ‘send that fucking email’.
• I think I’d made it clear my respect for Mira. No matter how much we sent jabs to the other, we knew wehre we each stood and how to support the cause of our growth. Mira knew me better than my own mother and I truly wouldn’t have had it any other way. She made the connection between us worth more than all the other relationships in my life, worth more than anything really.
• But that respect came with years of ‘knowing’ Mira was smarter than I was. Of knowing that she would never tell me to do something that wasn’t worth the risk. She showed me that she was wise. I knew she was always right.
• With that though, I turned back to my laptop that had gone to sleep while Mira had spoken some sense into me. I wiggled my finger on the trackpad and the daunting email filled my screen again. I knew how this was going to go. I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t help but hesitate as I opened the email I’d drafted out in response.
• ‘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.’
• The send button glowed like it was taunting me and my cawordice. I huffed out a curse under my breath.
• This was it.