Betrayed (10 page)

She’s unbelievable,
he thought.

Stacks of papers were strewn all around the desk. Ethan leafed through them without seeing the words and charts on the pages. He was a mess. He rubbed the stubble on his chin, absently.

He pulled out a notepad and stared at the notes scribbled on the front page. He didn’t see them; they all blurred together. He read it three times before putting it back on the desk.

“You’re a mess,” he said, to himself.

It had been days since he had seen Kayla, but it felt like an eternity. At first, he had called her a few times a day; but lately he had cut it back to once a day. She never answered. Eventually, he stopped leaving messages, too. He didn’t want things to end that way between them, but he didn’t know any other way to get her attention without appearing desperate.

But that’s what you are, right? Desperate?

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes again. The haze of his life just wouldn’t let up.

The phone on his desk rang, loudly. Ethan jumped, startled by the unexpected call. The small caller ID screen displayed “JERRY”, and Ethan eyed it wearily.

He had been dodging Jerry’s calls all week. He knew what Jerry wanted - he wanted an update on the research proposal. But what update was there to give? The fact was that, since the semester had let out, he’d made very little progress on it. But, he couldn’t dodge Jerry forever. He had to face his fears. Jerry was his boss, after all, and there had been no confusion that Ethan’s job could be on the line.

“Ethan,” he said into the phone.

“You’re a hard man to get in touch with,” Jerry said. “But I’m not surprised to find you at the office on a Saturday.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, genuinely embarrassed.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d have assumed you were working from home all this time.”

Ethan could have been working from home. He took plenty of work home throughout the semester - as all professors with a full case load of research did. But that hadn’t worked out very well, recently.

He didn’t want to be at home. It reminded him of Kayla. He could still smell her there. The memory was haunting.

“Enjoying the break?” Ethan asked.

“Not as much as you, I’m sure. Got the in-laws flying in tonight, so my freedom has an official countdown.”

Ethan chuckled. “I guess I’m not too bad off, then.”

There was a pause of silence before Jerry continued. “Are we still on track to put that proposal together for the committee?”

We.
He said it like he and Ethan were in the trenches together. It was a nice sentiment, but that’s all it was.

“Things are going well. Everything’s on schedule,” Ethan said. He cringed, thankful that Jerry couldn’t see the lie.

“Good, because I’ve got some bad news.”

Ethan’s stomach twisted into knots.
 

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I just got word from the committee - they’ve decided to bump up all of the proposal deadlines.”

“What do you mean?” Ethan asked, immediately concerned. “Bump it up to when?”

There was a deafening moment of silence before Jerry answered.

“The first,” Jerry said.

“That’s impossible. They’re cutting off two full weeks. They know how important these things are to get right.”

“Doesn’t matter. The dean wants to put together an updated semester forecast to present to the University president.”

Ethan looked around at the piles of papers on his desk. For the first time that week, he saw what a disarrayed mess it all was.

“I can’t do it, I need the extra two weeks.”

“You just said everything was on schedule,” Jerry said. “Surely you can find a little bit of extra time to pull everything together. Isn’t that what Wall Street trained you for?”

Ethan felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He forced himself to take steady, even breaths. Some part of him urged him to come clean and tell Jerry just how behind he was - but that was unacceptable. Jerry had made it clear just how important the proposal was. Failure wasn’t an option.

“You’re right,” Ethan said, finally. “I’ll just put in the hours - I’ll get it done.”

“Glad to hear it. Sorry to thrust this on you last minute.”

Ethan wondered just how genuine he was being.

“I’ll get it done,” he said, again.

They ended the call and Ethan stared at his desk, exasperated. There was no way he was going to meet that deadline. He wasn’t even sure it was possible - especially at the rate he’d been going.

A thought entered his mind. It was impossible to get the work done by himself. But with someone else helping him…

Kayla.

He knew that his feelings for her were clouding his judgment - but she was the only one that could possibly help. She had experience on the research project already. She’d put in weeks getting herself familiar with the research, already. She could be up to speed in a matter of hours.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it was the only option. Without her, he wouldn’t meet the deadline. And, if he didn’t meet the deadline, he might as well start packing his personal belongings right then and there.

He picked up his phone and called her once again. It went through to her voicemail - just as he’d expected. There was only one thing left to do. He had considered it before, but written it off as crazy. Now, he didn’t have a choice.

He needed to speak to her. And if she wasn’t going to take his calls, then there was only one thing left to do.

* * * * *

Another day had passed, and I was nowhere closer to being done with my business plan. That was to say, I hadn’t even come up with a business idea to base the plan on, let alone actually begin pulling together the various stuff required for an actual annual plan.

Every time I thought I had a good idea, I realized that I didn’t know the first thing about that industry. I wanted to ask Dana for her suggestions, or her help. She had, after all, said she would help me out. But she was never home. Since she had gone out on her date two nights earlier, I had barely seen her. I knew she had come and gone, and I was pretty sure she was still sleeping in her bed, but she was never around when I looked for her. I didn’t know where she was spending her time, and I felt too awkward to ask. If she wanted me to know - she’d tell me.

Ethan never called the night I slept with the phone next to me. I sighed, knowing it was for the best. I would have answered the phone, and probably made a few more bad decisions after that. I missed him more and more each day, but when he had called yesterday, I happened to be in the shower. I would have answered then, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him back. He’d stopped leaving messages, and for the firs time I was upset that I had deleted the other ones he left.

I slammed my laptop shut and pushed it away from me. The guest bedroom was huge, but it was starting to feel cramped. But I didn’t have time to get out - I needed to keep working. I looked at the calendar - the twenty-second. My deadline was in little more than a week, and I still didn’t have anything to show.

I jumped as my phone buzzed. I snatched it off the desk, and stared excitedly at the screen. It read “DAD”. Part of the excitement escaped me, but I was still happy to hear from my father.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said, answering the phone.

“Hi, Cupcake,” he said. “How are things?”

“Miserable,” I said.

“Oh?” he said. “What are you having a hard time with?”

“Everything,” I said. “I can’t come up with a business for my business plan, and I still need to work on my resume and my cover letter.”

“You put too much pressure on yourself,” he said. “Take some deep breaths, and go for a job. The answers will come to you as soon as you stop forcing them.”

“It has to be perfect, Daddy,” I said. “If I don’t get into the Business College…” I shook my head. “I don’t want to let you and Mom down.”

“Don’t say that,” he said with concern. “You’re growing into a beautiful young woman; we wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

My heart turned over in my chest. He could always be so supportive, and I sometimes worried that he was blind to the reality of things. I just couldn’t let them down - not like that. They had sacrificed to bring me up with the right education, and made even more sacrifices to make sure I went to a good university. No matter what he said, or how he said it, I couldn’t let them down. Soon it would be my turn to take care of them - and I planned on giving them the life of comfort they deserved.

A long moment of silence passed as I paced slowly around the bedroom.

“What about that professor that helped you out this last semester? You were TA’ing for him or something?”

I winced. I hadn’t told my parents the whole story about what was going on - how could I? But they knew I had been given an amazing opportunity by one of my professors. And of course my dad would pick that one thing to remember.

“Daddy, I don’t want to bother him. The professors are on their winter break, too.”

“Nonsense. They have a higher commitment to the school. If he’s the hotshot up-and-comer you led me to believe, then he’s probably putting even more hours in during the break than normal.”

I frowned. He had another good point, and I had a hard time arguing against it. But it was out of the question.

“I don’t want to be an imposition,” I said.

“Kayla, listen,” he said, his tone serious. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years, it’s that you take advantage of every opportunity life has to offer you. You never know what hurdles will come up, or what obstacles you’ll have to face, and you can be sure that you’ll look back and wish that you had taken advantage of someone’s help if it were available to you.”

I thought about it for a while. What frustrated me the most was that he was right. But it was simply out of the question, wasn’t it? There was no way I could go back to Ethan and ask for his help after I’d stormed off on him the way I did. I couldn’t go back to him after I’d avoided all of his calls.

“I’ll think about it, Daddy,” I said. He was silent for a long time before he responded.

“That’s all I can ask,” he said.

We made some small talk for a few more minutes before I reminded him that I needed to get back to work. I hung up the phone and stared at my laptop for a few long minutes, unable to bring myself to open it again. It felt like I was beating my head into a wall. But my application wasn’t going to get done unless I sat down and did it.

I thought about Ethan again. My hands went cold and trembled at the thought of seeing him again. He brought out the some other side of me that I didn’t dare trust. He had a raw connection to me. My soul was laid bare to him, and I was too afraid that I’d get hurt again.

No, there was no way that I could call Ethan and ask him for help. Even though my body was telling me otherwise, I had too much pride to break down and make that move. Daddy had told me to leverage every opportunity that presented itself, but this was one that was going to have to remain out of the picture.

* * * * *

The laptop stared back at me for a solid five minutes. It never brought itself to open up or do my work for me. I couldn’t bring myself to open it, either.

I walked around the apartment for a bit, hoping the blood flow would help my motivation. Daddy had suggested going for a job, but that was ridiculous. He had a point, though. I needed to do something to take my mind off of everything. There was too much clutter, and I couldn’t get anything done.
 

I turned on the television and flipped to a random channel. I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes, hoping the background noise would lull me into some peaceful state. After five minutes trying to ignore an episode of
Maury
, I finally turned the television off. It wasn’t working.

I wasn’t hungry, but I thought about poking around in the kitchen. After all, I had promised to make Dana dinner one night before she left. It would be good to know what I had to work with.

The kitchen was large, and she had a wonderful selection of pots, pans, and utensils. I opened a cupboard and found neat stacks of fine glass plates. I pulled one out, and admired the simple gold pattern that ran along the outer rim. It was elegant.

Another perk of the finer things in life
, I thought to myself.

I put the plate back in the cupboard, and resumed my search. That was when I saw the drawer hidden beneath the oven. I reached down, and it creaked when I pulled it open. My eyes widened when I saw the assortments of bake wear hidden in there. A few dishes still had store labels stuck to them - never used. Then, a thought occurred to me.

I raced over to the pantry and threw the door wide. There were boxes of fiber cereals, oatmeal, bagels, sugar, and flour inside. A few jars of spaghetti sauces, and dried pasta were mixed in. I pushed past everything and searched the back of the pantry - and that’s when I found exactly what I was looking for.

I threw open the refrigerator door and drew out a half-gallon of milk along with a couple eggs. I set them on the counter next to the box of Betty Crocker Instant Brownie Mix. Normally, I wasn’t a fan of using the pre-packaged stuff; but, it would suffice in a pinch. It had been far too long since I’d spent any time baking in the kitchen - and it was the perfect thing to take my mind away from everything that was troubling me.

I ripped into the box, and tore open the plastic bag with the chocolate brownie mix. I let myself get a quick smell of the chocolate. It smelled like the best thing on Earth. I blew out a long sigh and plastered a goofy smile on my face.

It was going to be a good day, after all.

Twenty minutes later I was setting the timer on the oven. I loaded the baking pan with the still-gooey chocolate brownie into the oven, and gave it one last smile before I shut the oven door. Part of me wanted to sit there and watch it while it baked, but I knew better than that. It would be done when it was done.

While it baked, I pulled out a pad of paper and began jotting down some notes. A run to the grocery store would be necessary if I was going to make dinner for us, and I never went without a list. I scribbled down the first things that came to mind. Before long I had a long list of things to buy, and the timer on the oven was dinging.