Everything comes back to you -J.MARIANO

[3.03]

𝓐 month passed after the intern's event and for every day since, Taryn had wondered whether she had done the right thing in the way she had acted. She kept it professional throughout the evening and hardly even looked at him, though her eyes did feel somewhat magnetically drawn to his. Jess, unbeknownst to her, had spent the evening secretly observing her in her element. He admired how she talked to her interns and gave them advice without ever putting their choices down. Most of all though, he had loved hearing the sound of her laugh again. His coworkers had joked about how he was still completely head over heels for her and he had of course denied it profusely, so much so that he had managed to convince them the lie was true.

With the busy and hectic lifestyle that she led, Taryn made sure to keep something regular in the week to give her time alone to sort out her thoughts and get a break from her apartment. Since Tas finished work early on a Monday, Daisy stayed at theirs for dinner so Taryn could run. She took a silenced phone with her and an emergency dollar in change in one of her pockets, just in case something was to happen. For the year that she had been running, she had never needed to use either of them as she always kept to the same route and was usually only gone for an hour or two.

This time though, something changed. She had left with a pickled mind and found the first forty minutes of her run was mostly angered stomps. She knew it was an overreaction but she simply could not figure out one of the pieces for her newest collection. Nothing looked right, no matter how much she drew it or what she changed. She desperately hoped this wasn't the designing rutt that C had warned her about when she graduated. Too deep in her thoughts, Taryn didn't cross over the road and only her usual loop. Instead she continued along the path and managed to run for a further hour before she realized she had absolutely no idea where she was or how to get back home. She could only retrace her steps so far as she ended up at an area where four roads met and hadn't a clue where she had come from. She pulled out her phone, metaphorically slapping herself on the head when it displayed only four percent battery. With the way her phone took phone calls, she only had the battery for one. So she clicked the first number in her speed dial and hoped that Tas would pick up.

When he didn't and her phone became a useless paper weight, Taryn decided to run until she found a pay phone. It took all of fifteen minutes and she smiled as her fingers wrapped around the plastic of the phone. That smile fell when her fingers went to dial the number. Tas had recently gotten a new number because of an influx of spam calls on the old one and her parents were away on holiday without their cells. There was no way of contacting Tas or anyone else for that matter. She couldn't ring for a cab as she didn't know any numbers. Panic rose in her throat, thickening something in her stomach. As a random person walked past, she found herself clutching her open purse in fear of it being taken. In doing so, she dislodged a picture of her and Ri and spotted the folded corner of a specific person's business card.

She had no other option so Taryn pulled it out and dialled the number, hoping to god that the line would be clear enough that she could understand. 

"Hello?" Jess' confused voice came through the phone and she couldn't help but feel the tension in her shoulders relax as she could understand him.

"Jess?" she responded, wanting to double check it was him before she fell completely into the almost shame of admitting what had happened. For a second, she wondered why he didn't greet customers with the name of the business, as he assumed any person would on their work phone. It never even occurred to her that it could have been a personal number.

"Taryn?" Jess replied, his voice lowered as if he didn't want someone to overhear.

"My phone died and I couldn't remember any actual phone numbers and your card was still in my purse," she explained quickly, beginning to play anxiously with the metal cord of the heavy phone.