Love, Inherited

Ch.27 "I Gotta Know"

Hayden stared at the ceiling letting her body meld with the mattress. The peaks of spackle and plaster giving it the appearance of tiny mounds. She almost missed the mirror up there. It was always easier to give yourself a pep talk after a visual of yourself being a lumpy mess.

Her heart hurt. Not in the grab a jacket and head for the emergency room way, but enough that she wanted to pluck it out, lay it down in a mound of glistening white snow and let it deep freeze into a painless lump for a while. Maybe the restarting process would make it forget the moments up until now.

She wished she could call someone who got her. Someone not affiliated with the resort, someone who didn't know anything about her failures and inability to keep her life together. Was there a support group for people who sucked at running their own lives? Or maybe a world record for the number of times someone could realize they screwed up?

I'm not boss material. That's it. Mason was right. I haven't even been able to make a single change. The staff thinks I'm a cute mascot, and Angie thinks so little of me she just hired someone without even consulting me.

A small piece of her wanted to get mad and go in guns blazing and take back what she lost, but she felt drained. An elastic balloon without any air but so stretched out so it wasn't pretty enough to be reinflated. She rolled herself over and realized she was even too tired for tears.

She watched the numbers on the clock until her eyes couldn't focus and soon the ding of a text pulled her into a sitting position making the world spin a little. Great, I can't even sit up without it being dramatic.

The text was from Austin: DINNER?

She glanced toward the bathroom and wondered if she could drag herself in there and get herself presentable without screwing that up. She was hungry, and Austin was great company. Maybe a dinner away from the resort would be a good thing. He was a friend who didn't work at or for the resort so maybe it was fate answering her plea.

Me: YES. GIVE ME TWENTY?

Austin:  I'LL BE THERE!!

She got into the bathroom and fixed her bed head. It was nice to have a plan to get out of the building in the day. Wallowing had never suited her well, and even if she had reasons, it would lead her to places she didn't want to go.

She went down to the lobby and still had ten minutes to spare. Mike looked at her unusually happy and with a wink. It was unnerving. Couldn't he see what a mess she was making? She strutted up to the desk and looked him straight in the eyes.

"What's up Mike?"

He looked around while fidgeting with the empty message pads lined up across the desk.

"Nothing Miss Hayden. Nothing's up. Why would anything be up? I'm just here doing my job. How about you? You got something up o should know about?"

She didn't know what, but something had Mike acting like a puppy who just shredded your favorite boots and knew he was going to get caught. She stood her ground and kept her focus on his jet black eyes. Noticing the deep crease line between them was increasing by the second.

"Anything we should chat about Mike? Friend to friend? Boss to employee? Man to woman?"
She threw it all at him. Something already had him squirming and she just needed to find the crack.