It's Only Temporary

Chapter 25: The Next Stop Is... (Part Two)

"I think it's time we re-established some ground rules."

That's what he had said to her that morning, as he stood on the far side of his bed and turned away. That's what he had called it. "Ground rules."

What a joke, Penny thought to herself now. What an absolute joke. Ground rules?Seriously, David? He'd managed to stick to the "ground rules" for maybe a month after that. Six weeks at most. That morning had been the last Saturday in December. By the beginning of February, the rules began to slide. She'd woken up the morning after Valentine's Day and found a new message in her inbox from her old familiar friend: dpowers80@gmail.com.

The emails were allowed within the ground rules, apparently. And so were the off-color insinuations to the guys from the Chicago trading desk....

"Hey, Penny's high powered. She works for the most respected M & A team on Wall Street!"

"Ummm, don't you mean she's sleeping with the most respected M & A team on Wall Street?"

"Hey, don't sweat it, Dave. If the temp agency sent me over a piece of ass like that, I'd keep her around too."

He'd never quite bothered to explain the finer points of his "ground rules," but she'd figured it out in the end. Sleeping with your secretary? Out of bounds. Laughing with your drinking buddies about sleeping with your secretary? Fair ball.

What a hypocrite. Forget that it wasn't true. Forget that he'd never so much as kissed her. The ground rules, it seemed, were that David Powers could say or do anything he damn well pleased, and Penelope Stewart would stick around and take it.

How had she not seen it earlier? How had she let him get away with it? She'd let it go on for years. Years! And how much longer would she have continued playing his game, if she hadn't chanced to overhear that conversation in the bar?

Now look where all his rules had left her. Two years wasted. Further away from med school now than she'd ever been. Up to her eyeballs in debt. Spending her night in an empty subway car. And it was all because of him. Because she wanted to be there for him. Because she saw the way he looked at her that morning - just before he stopped himself. Before the so-called "ground rules" kicked back in. She saw it in his face. And she'd allowed herself to hold onto the secret hope that someday, somehow, the rule book just might be rewritten.

Idiot.

Penny was lying on her side now on the hard plastic bench. The oversized sweatshirt had ridden up so that it bunched uncomfortably around her waist. The excess fabric cut into her hip. She sat upright and jammed her hands into the kangaroo pocket with an irritated jerk.

David's sweatshirt, with his scent still on it. She should never have kept it. She should have mailed it back to him. The idea that she should be indebted to him for anything - anything at all - made her boil now with indignation. She would send it back tomorrow. That would be her final stop before she left this godforsaken city once and for all. She'd pay the postage out of her tip money and drop it in the mail. She didn't care how cold she was, or that she was wearing next to nothing underneath. She couldn't bear the thought of his clothing touching her skin for another second.

Penny pulled her hands free from the pocket to zip the sweatshirt off - and it was then, at that moment, that her fingers caught on the corner of the small, rigid rectangle inside.

Penny fished it out and looked down, blinking. For a moment she didn't quite believe her eyes. It couldn't be. What could it be doing here? Here, of all places? In the pocket of this sweatshirt?

He must have put it there on purpose, she realized as she stared at it. He must have done it that morning in the rain. He'd taken the sweatshirt from the trunk of his car. He must have put this in the pocket for her to find: a 3x5 pink notecard, scrawled with her own handwriting.

917-555-2338

If you need me, you only have to pick up the phone, and I will be here right beside you. Anytime. Any reason. Day or night. Always.

But not entirely her own handwriting, she saw as she examined it. He'd taken it upon himself to edit. And what he'd written was so typically David. So supremely self-involved.

He'd crossed out her old cell number and written his own number in its place. As if she needed his number. As if she didn't have that phone number permanently programmed in her brain. And then, for added emphasis, he'd marked the final word: "Always."

He'd underlined it twice.

"He's guilting me?"

She said the words out loud, unable to contain the mounting disbelief. That was the message he'd left for her. After everything she'd done for him. That's what he had to say. A guilt trip. A reminder. She'd promised him she'd always be there. "Always." And she'd left. She'd let him down. As if he'd never let her down a million times before.

The subway car had pulled into a station. Penny stood and blindly groped her way toward the sliding train doors. She didn't know what stop it was, but she knew she was headed the wrong direction. Not to the end of the line. Not tonight. She needed to head inbound. Toward Manhattan. She wouldn't mail the sweatshirt back. She'd deliver it in person, if it was the last thing she ever did. She'd throw it in his face, along with his pink notecard - along with a few choice words of her own.

She wouldn't let him get away with it. Not this time. He could go ahead and break every basic rule of human decency, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. But it would be a cold dark night in hell before she let him get the last word, too.