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He expected to have the office to himself. It’s dark out, and it’s late – the lobby is empty apart from the security guard. As Nathaniel steps out of the elevator, he sees the bullpen is mercifully deserted. His relief is short lived, though, because the next thing he notices is the glow of a lamp from the office he shares with Rebecca. The sound of sweeping string music he recognises as something from Les Mis stretches out across the office, the volume turned up higher than it ever is during the day. The pinching pain in his temples gives an extra throb in time with the jolt of his heart when he sees her through the glass door, her arms folded on the desk and her forehead resting on them.
He cancelled dinner on Mona for the third time in a row, because it’s been a bad day and he’s bad company, and he couldn’t face eating, and couldn’t bring himself to sit across a table and hold a conversation with anybody. And, honestly, because they’ve barely spoken in over a week. He knows they’re not in a good place, and he didn’t want to corner himself into having that conversation in this mood. He’s here because he wants to be alone – that’s what he told himself. But as the weight of dread that’s been heavy in his lungs all day lifts at the sight of Rebecca, replaced with a confusing, fluttering warmth, the bubble of that particular delusion pops: if he wanted to be alone, he would’ve driven straight to his definitely empty apartment. The force of his want not to be alone drives him forward before he can give it another thought. He opens the door, and she’s singing along with the music, soft and a little off key.
He feels his face soften to an actual smile for the first time all day. “Les Miserables, Rebecca? Really?”
She lets out an undignified yelp and jumps at the sound of his voice, then spins toward him, her expression accusatory.
“Sorry,” he says, not particularly meaning it. He clicks the door shut behind him. “What are you doing here? It’s late.”
“What are you doing here?” she counters immediately, fumbling to turn the music off. It falls silent mid crescendo, plunging them into abrupt silence. Rebecca winces, then continues, “I was always here. I’m exactly where I’ve been all day. Who shows up at the office at eight p.m.? And more importantly, where were you at a reasonable hour when I was fending off sixty questions from Tim about the brief you made him redo from yesterday?”
“It was garbage.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know that.”
It makes him want to laugh, but the feeling gets lost in translation and turns into prickling pressure behind his eyes. He clears his throat, his head throbbing. “I was at the LA office most of the day.”
“Oh, that meeting with your dad was today,” she says, her tone shifting too close to pity for his liking. He sits down and unpacks his laptop onto his desk. Rebecca tilts her head, trying to catch his eye. “Not a good day, huh?”
There’s that temptation to laugh again, this time at the absurdity of the understatement. He massages his forehead, logs into his laptop and opens his emails. In his peripheral vision, Rebecca watches him for a few moments then opens the file in front of her and starts tapping a pink highlighter against her lower lip.
“It was not great,” he replies delicately, after too long.
She glances up with a rueful half smile, highlights a line, then folds her arms on the desk. “I’m sorry. You okay?”
“Fine. Just a headache.”
She reaches into her drawer and rolls a bottle of painkillers and her water bottle in his direction with an eyebrow quirked.
He hesitates, then takes a couple of pills. “Thanks.”
He knows he should leave it at that. A day of constantly coming up short under his father’s scrutiny has taken a toll on his emotional resilience to say the least, and he’s made enough mistakes these past few months; he’s been enough mistakes. But it’s been a whole day of tiptoeing and cowering and posturing, and he’s had enough of that too. She’s looking at him with concern, her eyebrows pulled together, and he knows it’s pathetic, but he just wants to burrow a little closer to the warm comfort of her presence. He forces himself to shrug some of the tension out of his shoulders. “You never told me what you’re doing here so late,” he says, rolling her water bottle back.
“I did not,” she agrees as she catches it and stands it upright, her smile taking on an air of exaggerated mystery. He raises his eyebrows and she leans back in her chair, fidgeting with her highlighter and dropping the drama. “Nothing exciting,” she admits. “I had therapy this morning, and it was kind of a big one, so it hasn’t been the most productive day. I was trying to catch up. And I just didn’t really feel like going home yet.”
“Ah,” he says, a little awkwardly.
“It’s okay.” She shrugs. “It happens. Got to dredge my issues up out of the swamp if I’m gonna face them and deal with them, right? It’s just. . . some of them are – kind of ugly to look at? And then they, um. . . they don’t always get back in their box, post session, so. . . here I am. In the office at eight p.m.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds. . . rough.”
She smiles at his awkward response, eyes on his and surprisingly vulnerable. “Yeah. It’s okay, though. It’s worth it. What about you – what are you doing here? Don’t I remember you saying you had dinner plans after the LA meeting?” Her voice takes on that tone it always does when she mentions Mona – just a little more polite and measured, a tiny shift that shouldn’t crack him open the way it does.
“I cancelled them,” he says, then clears his throat, trying to dispel the tightness there. “Again.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He watches her quickly shifting microexpressions for a few seconds as she flounders for a response. He knows he should help her out, but he doesn’t know where to begin. Idiot. He turns back to his laptop, jaw clenched. She hesitates, watching him, then she uncaps her highlighter and goes back to her file.
For a while, they work in silence, and he starts to feel a little better. His headache reduces to a dull throb. He settles in, starting to sit more like a person than a mannequin, gradually feeling more relaxed until he glances at his phone and sees a text from Mona: I think we need to talk. Just that – no Nat, no kiss, no emoji. There’s a leap of adrenaline, a flutter of panic in his throat, and a shameful wave of relief. It’s going to be over.
There are a hundred reasons to stay with Mona, and he’s spent these past few months trying to immerse himself in them. But he was struggling already, starting to realise he was never going to feel the way he wanted to about her. Today’s aggressive questioning from his father about whether he was taking his relationship with her seriously brought the last of it crashing down. His father wants him to settle. Settle down, or settle for – they don’t sound much different to him.
“Hey, are you okay?” Rebecca says. He looks up at her guiltily, and she tilts her head, squinting at him. “Feel free to take this the wrong way,” she says, “and like, get really mad at me as a way to avoid your own issues or whatever, but you seem really rattled tonight. Should I be making you go home? You know there’s nothing your dad can be mad about that can’t wait until the morning, right?”
“I’m okay,” he says, feeling a little winded. “I’m uh – I think I’m breaking up with Mona.” As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he feels like a colossal dick. “I’m sorry, this isn’t – I shouldn’t be talking to you about –”
“Dude. Take a breath.” He drags a hand over his face, and she adds, “No, I’m serious. You’re like five seconds from hyperventilating.”
He sits up straight against the back of his chair, rests both hands flat on the desk and forces a slow breath, flashing her a tight smile. “Sorry. Thanks.”
She gives him a little answering smile of recognition, then looks down and inspects her fingertips for a few seconds before meeting his gaze again. “Okay so, you’re probably right. I’m probably not the best person to talk this through with. I mean, the therapy hangover actually does leave me very reflective, occasionally bordering on wise,” she says with a hint of a playful smile, then her eyebrows pull together and she adds, “but I’m not gonna be objective.”
His mouth feels dry suddenly, and he says the thing he knows he shouldn’t. “Why not?”
Her eyes fall shut and she shakes her head the tiniest amount. “Don’t,” she whispers. But when she looks back at him, she folds her arms on the table and leans forward, drawing his eyes magnetically to the dip of her collarbone into the neckline of her dress, and the air between them turns to warm liquid all at once. She answers in a low, honeyed voice. “You know why.”
The back of his neck prickles, his body suddenly painfully aware of her, his hands aching to reach out and pull her into his lap. Her eyes dip to his mouth and back, and he sees her cross her legs under the desk. They’re on an all too familiar precipice. He could end this conversation here and he knows she’d be on board – he could tangle their bodies together on the sofa and crawl inside the twisted comfort of another last time then brush himself off and walk away. That would be safe.
It’s painful how much he wants to touch her. But it’s more painful how much he doesn’t want to hear her say the word mistake tonight. He breathes slowly through his nose, trying to tamp down the mingled anxiety and arousal coursing through him, fogging his brain and making him stupid.
“I don’t feel the way I want to feel about her,” he says eventually, the honesty of it tearing at his throat. “I’ve tried, and I can’t.”
She frowns and leans back a little, her forehead creasing with confusion. “Then why haven’t you already done something about it?”
He catches his hands starting to fidget on the table and folds them. “Because I’ve been afraid, I guess.”
“Of?”
He thinks about it. The whole pathetic truth has layers, and the more he peels back the worse it looks. “There’s no answer to that question that doesn’t make me sound like the worst person in the world,” he says eventually. “I don’t think either of us would benefit from me going into the details right now.”
She exhales the suggestion of a laugh. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I can relate.” They sit in silence for a few moments, not quite looking at each other. Guilt, for everything, especially for dragging her into this after a bad day in therapy, builds steadily in his stomach, but when she speaks again her voice is even and calm. “Well, in that case,” she says, “I think I can give you better advice than I thought. And I think I mean it for real, as a friend – if you want to hear it, I mean. I’m trying this new thing where I don’t interfere in people’s lives unless they ask me to, so. . .”
“I want to hear it.”
Her eyes find his, her expression soft and guarded. She chews at her thumbnail. “You have to figure out what kind of person you want to be, and which fears are standing in your way,” she says, dropping her hand back to the desk. “Then you face them. You’re not gonna win every round, but you need to show up to the fight or nothing ever gets better, you know?”
Her words land hard and solid in the centre of his chest, and he pulls in a breath around them. It’s probably the most settled and confident he’s ever heard her sound. It’s hard to imagine this Rebecca bounding around the office brandishing her pawn shop engagement ring and calling Josh Chan the man of my dreams. It’s been months since they’ve had such an honest interaction with all their clothes on, and he’s surprised at how far she’s come without him noticing. “And that’s what you’re doing?” he asks quietly. “Facing your fears?”
“Yeah,” she says, smiling, picking the highlighter back up and fidgeting with it, clicking the cap on and off. “That’s what I’m trying to do, at least. I’m not always sure I’m making the right decisions – I mean, sometimes I definitely am not making the right decisions – but I really am trying. I’m not where I want to be.”
“Then keep going,” he says, and she meets his eyes with a surprised smile. It undoes him a little, a heady mix of understanding and guilt and regret and affection fizzing through him all at once, making him feel bold and jittery. “I mean it, Rebecca. I don’t, um – I don’t want to stand in your way. I’m sorry if I have. I mean, I know I have.”
Her eyebrows raise a little, her eyes widening in surprise. As she opens her mouth to respond, a fresh stab of pain shoots from his temple to the centre of his forehead, and he can’t suppress a wince, pressing the heel of his hand between his eyebrows. “Nathaniel, have you eaten anything today?” she says, her tone shifting, suddenly business-like.
The of course is on the tip of his tongue, a reflex he’s had for as long as he can remember, but he doesn’t want to break whatever tenuous honesty bubble they’re creating here. “I. . . haven’t, actually.”
“Mm. Well, that’s why you feel like shit,” she says, matter-of-fact in a way that stops his automatic objection in its tracks. His stomach aches in acknowledgement. “You want to get dinner together? Or if you’re, um. . . worried about Mona,” she says, not quite suppressing a wince, “we could get something delivered here?”
He looks at her for a long moment with possible responses flitting at lightning speed through his brain, trying to catch one that isn’t coloured with desperation or fear. He can’t, so he seeks clarification instead. “Is this. . . What is this?”
“I don’t know,” she says quickly. “I don’t know what it is. But I know the conversation we just had is healthier than all the other. . . conversations. . . we’ve been having lately. I’m glad we’re talking, and I don’t want it to end yet. And you need to eat.”
He nods slowly. “Okay. Yes. Let’s get dinner.”
She smiles, shy and nervous. “Okay.”
She starts packing her things into her purse, and he saves what he’s been working on and closes his laptop, sliding it into his bag. She stands up, coat over her arm, looking at him expectantly.
He hesitates, not quite trusting himself to say what he wants to say once they’ve left the low light of their office behind. He rolls his shoulders back a little. “Rebecca?”
“Yeah?”
“I am going to break up with her.”
She takes a breath, eyes closed, white knuckling the back of her chair.
“That isn’t – I don’t mean –” He shakes his head as he stands, shaking off all the useless reassurances he’s tempted to give and forcing some calm control into his voice. “I’m not doing this for you,” he says. “I’m doing it because I want to make better decisions. And that’s where it’s going to start. When we were together, you made me think I could be a different kind of person, and then I thought I lost that when – when you ended things. But I don’t think that was right. I see how much better you’re doing, and I just. . . I want to do better too. So – thank you. I’m not asking anything of you, I swear.”
“I wanted you to wait for me,” she says, her voice tiny, her eyes still tightly shut.
It knocks the breath out of him, clenches a fist around his heart and twists, and it takes him a minute before he can pull enough air into his lungs to tell her the embarrassing truth. “I think I knew that. I was. . . mad at you.”
She nods. “I thought so.” Her eyes open and flit to his for a second then down to her feet. “I know it wasn’t fair of me. I don’t know when I’ll be ready, or how I’ll know, and you had every right to move on, but I just wanted. . .” Her voice cracks and she bites down on her lip, wrapping her arms around herself.
The sting is back behind his eyes, guilt crawling up his throat and solidifying. He can’t imagine a single thing in the world he wouldn’t be willing to give her, now that his stupid ego has already ruined everything. He clears his throat, gripping the strap of his messenger bag tight with both hands to stop himself from reaching for her. “I was so stupid. I’m sorry, Rebecca. Really.”
She exhales slowly and looks up at him, reaches out and slides her hand into his. “I know you are,” she says. “Come on. Let’s get dinner.”