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  But then one day, as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone.

  I asked around, but I never got a clear answer as to why.

  I was heartbroken.

  When I thought of high school, I thought of him. Of his intoxicating presence two tables over—of my irredeemable awkwardness and all the what ifs and past regrets.

  I half-laughed at the bittersweet memory. I felt a pain knowing that Liv had had the innocence of moments like those ripped from her. When I was her age, all I had to worry about was some silly boy two tables over. She’d been forced to grow up long before she needed to. Her worries were about her mother’s mental health, and bills, and her broken, barely keeping it together, older sister. It wasn’t fair. I looked at the school with a mix of nostalgia and sadness. I could have never guessed all the changes that would take place; all the twists life had in store. As I sat there in my rumbling car, aching for simpler times, the bell rang out across the quad. The wind whistled across the now lifeless lot. I sighed resolutely, adjusted my hat, and headed for work.

  Chapter 3

  Cars lined the highway. They had all slowed to a halt in the icy conditions. I stared anxiously at the clock. I couldn’t afford to be late. My boss would be furious, and I couldn’t risk pissing him off even more. I needed this paycheck.

  As my car trudged along on the slow-moving highway, I heard an anxiety-inducing rattle shake the dashboard. The heater had stopped working months ago, but I didn’t have enough money to get it fixed. I didn’t even want to think what the rattling was or how much that would cost. My breath came out in white puffs as I leaned forward over my wheel urging the cars ahead of me to move. I looked at the clock again.

  My car squealed into the parking lot, my tires losing traction for a heart-racing moment before they gripped the asphalt again. I pulled into a free spot in front of the enormous tan colored office building with only three minutes to spare. Large, floor to ceiling windows dominated the east side of the building. The low pink-hued morning sun reflected off the shiny glazed paneling. Quickly, I closed my creaky car door and crossed my arms tightly across my chest. The wind was biting, and I felt my eyes sting as I watched a flurry of snow dance around the lot and hurried toward the building with its sidewalk still not shoveled from the weekend snow. Above the grand entrance were the overlapping letters T and C in large gold lettering. I opened the heavy door and shuffled inside, stomping off the snow that had collected on the base of my boots.

  When the elevator arrived on the 5th floor, I was momentarily stunned by the intense color change. All morning, my eyes had become accustomed to the gray-scale color scheme of the world. The sky was clouded and dark, the building and parking lot muted. It hadn’t even been a week since Thanksgiving, but already the lobby of the floor looked like Santa’s workshop. Wreaths adorned every wall. Lights of every color were strung up on the sterile office walls. Stockings hung down from the front desk in vivid greens and reds and tinsel wrapped the legs of the chairs in reception.

  On Monday, “Winter Wonderland” had been playing softly from the speakers when I first walked in. I had almost bolted from the door, it had been Dad’s favorite song, and now I was starting to wish I had. I wasn’t sure if I could get myself into the festive spirit. I was convinced I was turning into the office Grinch.

  On my first day, when I walked to the front desk, a smiling woman with pretty pink lips and a snowflake-patterned sweater raised her eyes to mine expectantly.

  “Hi, my name’s Shae Reynolds. I’m from the temp agency. Sorry, I’m late.”

  “Oh perfect! I’m Tiff!” she said enthusiastically. I could instantly tell we would get along. “I’m so glad Mr. Carver decided to get some extra help. He runs himself into the ground this time of year.” A memory stirred at the name Carver, but I couldn’t think why and it was momentarily forgotten while Tiff bustled around to welcome and get me settled.

  It was apparent that the law firm did very well for itself. The main offices were decorated with floor to ceiling panels of frosted glass. Lovely, plush leather armchairs surrounded the dark wooden tables in the conference rooms. The rest of the office comprised of standard cubicles all equipped with sleek Apple computers and shiny glass tables. Most of which were occupied; men in expensive suits, some with their leather shoes propped up on their desks and their shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows.

  Thankfully, the over-the-top holiday décor didn’t extend past the front desk, and the color scheme returned to gray, white, and black. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

  As Tiff led me past large offices and rows of cubicles, she briefly introduced me to a few of the other employees and pointed out the location of the staffroom, bathroom, and copy room. Her heels were so high, and she walked quickly, I was impressed she didn’t stumble on the thick carpeting.

  “Oh! What did you think of the decorations?”

  “Hmm?” I said, still trying to take everything in.

  “I just love Christmas! Don’t you, Shae?”

  I nodded absently. I was still sizing the place up and trying to think of where I’d heard the name Carver. College maybe? Some classmate? Thinking back perhaps it was my brain trying to protect me.

  So far, I’d been met with smiles. Tiff, apart from her love for Christmas, seemed friendly and sociable. How was she supposed to know that I hated this particular season now?

  I’d been sad to leave my low-paying job at the bookshop, but this place felt adult and important. I was starting to think about the possibility of getting Liv a nice Christmas present and felt hope that the luxuriousness of the company promised a certain amount of financial security to what had become a very tight year.

  Finally, we reached an office that was bigger than the rest. The door had a placard that read “Thomas Carver” in portentous silver lettering.

  In an instant, I remembered why I knew the name Carver.

  Before I had time to panic, Tiff wrinkled her nose at me the way a mother does before giving her child a treat and pushed on the large glass door. Inside, with the back of his office chair facing the door, all I could see was the back of a man’s head with dark brown hair that was longer and slightly wavy at the top. It’s probably just a coincidence, I told myself. It’s a very common name. Meanwhile, my heart was already racing, bracing myself for when he would turn around.

  “Mr. Carver?” said Tiff sweetly.

  The chair swiveled and my breath caught in my throat.

  Staring at me from above the collar of his stiff white shirt, were the perfect gray eyes of Tommy Carver: the boy from two tables down who’d stolen my teenage heart.

  Chapter 4

  I would never have thought that things could get worse after our disaster of a reunion. Thomas Carver didn’t remember me. But why would he? We’d never spoken. I’d only ever held a conversation with him in my daydreams.

  At first, I thought I saw a glimpse of recognition, but it wasn’t to be. The moment passed and Tommy's customary coldness that I would come to know so well returned.

  I calmed myself quickly enough. It had been seven years since I’d seen him last, and, to be fair, I looked completely different than I had in high school. My hair stayed baby blonde well into my late teens, and I’d been skinny and shapeless. I clung to my uniform of oversized t-shirts and blue jeans like a child that couldn't bear being away from her worn baby blanket. When I graduated, I still looked like someone’s visiting younger sister or the dull girl next door, one without an ounce of fashion sense.

  It was only after high school, during the summer, seemingly overnight, my hair darkened and my chubby cheeks thinned to reveal a hidden bone structure I never knew I had. In comparison, my skinny, block-shaped body developed curves. Granted they weren’t luscious or sumptuous, but I enjoyed the small change. I’d barely recognized myself—so it was ludicrous to think he would. I’d changed even more since Dad had passed, and those changes had only made me look older still.

  Even though I’d gotten over the s
ting of being forgotten, it didn’t take long for things to get worse. Much worse.

  I was waiting anxiously next to the coffee maker staring at the clock. I’d already been told off twice for giving him his coffee too cold; I wasn’t about to let it happen again. Though I wished he preferred frappuccinos, iced-coffee or the trendy new cold-brews, it would’ve made my life a little easier, I thought with a smile. I was becoming a master of creating cold coffee!

  As soon as it finished, I poured the almost boiling water into his mug and barely let the liquid settle before I picked it up and sprinted out the break room door.

  As I was rounding the final corner, Rodney, one of the consulting attorneys in the office, emerged from his cubicle. In a comically awful collision of flailing limbs and near boiling water, we crashed to the floor. Rodney had avoided the scalding coffee and mercifully the accompanying stains but was rubbing his head in confusion.

  “Where did you come from?” Rodney asked.

  My skin was on fire. I hadn’t avoided the scalding water. Better me than him, I thought though. I didn't need another nemesis in the office. The coffee had spilled all over my blouse and on to my forearms, and my skin was red and starting to sting.

  “I'm so sorry,” I said to Rodney.

  “Just watch where you are going next time,” he replied with a huff.

  Tiff rounded the corner and kindly hid a laugh behind the back of her hand.

  “I don’t miss the coffee runs,” she said. “Come on let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Rodney faded back into his cubicle, and I shamefully followed a giggling Tiff back to the break room.

  Fifteen minutes later, I stood next to Tiff in a spare, green sweater, decorated gleefully with the words, “Have a Very Merry Christmas” and a large sequined Santa hat.

  Apparently, she kept a spare holiday sweater in her bottom desk drawer year round. You know, for all those festive emergencies.

  We were rinsing out the coffee stain that dominated the whole left side of one of my only white work shirts. What was worse was that my part of my stomach and arm had developed splotchy red burns that smarted every time Tiff’s sweater brushed past it. Still, it was fun to have someone to laugh with. She’d seen the entire episode, and we’d both dissolve into stifled giggles every time we looked at the horrible stain.

  “Thank god we’re the same size at least,” Tiff said while I showed her the marks from the burnt part of my arm.

  Tommy entered the room, and I wiped the smile from my face as soon as I saw him.

  “Glad to know you finally figured out how to make the coffee hot,” he sneered. “But I’m still waiting for an actual cup. Shall I just make it myself? It might be quicker.”

  I swallowed the huge lump in my throat. Tommy would fire me for sure if I couldn’t even make a simple cup of coffee. “I’m sorry, I’m on it. It won’t be a moment.”

  His eyes bore into mine, communicating his impatience. He dug his hands into his trouser pockets. “Last chance,” he declared before leaving the room.

  Tiff rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s always grumpy this time of year, and it's to be expected considering...”

  “I don’t know why I keep screwing up. I need to snap out of it,” I interrupted.

  Tiff smiled and squeezed my hand. “You finish washing that out while I make the coffee. Just promise me you won’t sprint it to him to again.”

  “Promise,” I said with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Tiff. I owe you one.”

  This time I managed to get the hot coffee and myself to his office in one piece though when I arrived he wasn’t even there. I left the cup on his desk and returned to work.

  When I got back to my desk, overheated in the thick, wool sweater, I found a copy of the company’s dress code still warm from the printer.

  Underlined in red pen on the first page it said, “employees shirts must be free of writing or obvious brand names.”

  I groaned and crumpled the sheet of paper then lobbed it into the recycling bin. I had to accept that just maybe this job wasn’t going to work out the way I thought it was going to. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him to fire me. I needed the money; I reminded myself.

  However, whenever Tommy spoke to me, it was always to make some rude remark about how I’d done something wrong. It didn’t matter that it something so small it barely mattered, like how I’d gotten him blue pens from the stationary cupboard instead of his preferred black ones. It was petty, and I was starting to reach my limit.

  I couldn’t understand where the animosity was coming from. All day I ran around the office making coffee and filing papers and answering forwarded calls from the front desk, doing my best to make his work day that little bit easier. Yet each day, the stack of papers Tiff plopped on my desk got higher, and higher and I stayed later and later.

  Tommy’s condescension worsened by the day, and my old teenage fantasies shifted from the high school variety of romantic gestures to more violent urges, like him getting hit with a bus or drowning in a pool full of tepid coffee. It was during one of my more satisfying fantasies (that involved a rogue lion making tatters of his fancy suits) that Tommy knocked on the side of the filing cabinet. Its metallic rumble made me jump.

  I’d been kneeling to reach the lowest drawer, and my skirt had risen well past my knees exposing a run in my last pair of pantyhose. I quickly bent to pull the skirt back down and caught him looking. I straightened up.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “I need you to stay late tonight.”

  “Oh, I was hoping I could leave early or at least on time—I promised my sister I’d help her with her project for—”

  “I wasn’t asking,” he interrupted. “I told Tiff to put the paperwork on your desk, I need to you to write up those reports before tomorrow, we just got a new case in, and I can’t do it all.”

  I glared at him in response, hands on my hips. At this point, I didn’t even care if he fired me for it. “Will I at least be getting overtime?” I demanded.

  And then something weird happened; his eyebrows abandoned their constant scowling. His face relaxed and, for the smallest of moments, he looked as if he was about to say something pleasant.

  Instead, he lightly tapped the cabinet with a clenched fist, and his eyes flashed playfully.

  “We’ll see.”

  He turned and left me standing there speechless.

  That night, my neck ached from staring at my computer for so long. I said goodbye to coworker after coworker and watched as the sun set and darkness descended outside. The cleaning staff came in smelling of bleach and wearing vacuum cleaner backpacks. They ignored me, and I continued to whittle away at the pile of work that sat before me.

  There was something profoundly unsettling about an empty office building. About being bathed in fluorescent lighting well after the working day was over and the moon has risen. The room felt eerie without the shuffle of papers, ringing telephones, and stifled coughs. I almost missed the echoes of Tiff’s Christmas music wafting in from the front lobby.

  All I could still hear now were the low timbers of Tommy’s voice on the telephone through the walls of his office. A part of me reveled in the fact that we were alone, the stupid nervous part of me that was still hung up on a school-girl crush. Despite his mild hostility, I caught myself daydreaming about him, every so often wondering why he’d asked me to stay late, wondering if he would make amends and come out of his office to speak to me.

  My nerves escalated every single time he called through on the intercom, but he just wanted a refill of his coffee mug, and each time I brought it to him I waited—almost expected—for something to happen. For him to show his motivations as to why he wanted me there. He stayed behind his desk, not moving, only glaring at me on each occasion I entered his domain.

  Deflated and back at my desk I noticed that my phone screen was dominated with missed calls and texts from Liv. I shot her a quick message back telling her I wouldn’t be too long now. At 10:30 pm, as m
y eyelids were starting to give up the ghost and the last of my energy was waning, I finally closed the last file folder and shut my computer down. I grabbed my coat from my locker in the break room and made for the door.

  Enough was enough. Tommy could get his own damn coffee if he wanted to stay here all night!

  Outside, it was freezing. The ground had frozen, and my shoes slipped on the pavement. The tall streetlights illuminated the large parking lot. It was empty except for my Jeep near the abandoned middle and his BMW—fresh off the forecourt—in its designated spot near the doors. The air was so cold I could feel it through all my thick layers. Beyond the scope of the lights, blackness extended out in every direction. I stifled a yawn behind a gloved hand and braced myself for the cold drive home.

  I was insanely proud of my old blue jeep; I had kept it all through college and put in hours upon hours of work on it with Dad. There was a picture of the two of us hanging from the rearview mirror. It had many dents, and it rattled, but I treasured it the way most people loved a family pet.

  However, with the onset of the below freezing temperatures, the engine of my car managed only a raspy squeal when I turned the key in the ignition.

  Shit.

  My hands had turned numb, but I tried the car a second time. This time the engine only made a slightly stronger choking sound but remained lifeless. I looked at the tall office building just as Tommy exited the large entrance doors. His long, black wool coat was turned up at the collar, and his shoulders hunched in the cold. His hands were buried deep in his pockets, and he had a burgundy scarf wrapped around his neck.