Territorial / Simon Minter

09

I felt guilty for not paying much attention to my work recently. But with Simon and the rest of The Sidemen finally erased from my life, apart from Ethan every once and a while when he comes to hang on with Emily, i was able to fully devout myself to my job again.

I had been in a 2 hour meeting this morning with a potential author considering our publishing company. It was a young guy, possibly in his early 20's. We had taken interest in one of his manuscripts he had sent to us. I had taken it upon myself to read it before the meeting, so i was fully prepared for the conversation. 

His story was a tragic love story between a girl who had a life threatening disease and a boy who could not admit his love for her. She only had a few years to live and the whole plot put you on edge, hoping that the boy was able to tell the girl he loved her before she passed. It was a very emotional story and we believed that it had so much potential to be a big seller. We couldn't pass up this opportunity. 

The meeting went really well, the author had agreed to work with us. We had discussed the editing process of the publishing, i had introduced him to the editor that was going to be working closely with him over the next year or so. It was overall a very successful morning.

I was back in my office, Emily had joined me. We were both drinking coffee and discussing some business deals that were coming up. My office phone began to ring and i put it on loud speaker. 

"Hello?" 

"Hello Miss Daye, there is a young man here to see you?" I wasn't expecting any visitors today. Emily and I exchanged looks of confusion. 

"Does this young man have a name?" I asked sarcastically.

"His says his name is Simon. He is very adamant that i let him see you?" At the mention of his name, my good mood from this morning completely vanished. I had not seen or heard from Simon in months. What could he possibly want from me now?

"Send him in" I said with a sigh. 

"Are you going to be okay?" Yet again, Emily was concerned for me. 

"I'll be fine, just give us a minute yeah?" I didn't need to send Emily out. There was nothing that Simon could say to me right now, that could not be said in front of my best friend. But i was aware he was a very private guy, and what had made him come all the way here today must be very important. If i was not, i was not going to be very impressed.

Emily left the room, just as Simon was entering. He stumbled through the threshold of my office and slammed the door behind him.

"Simon, are you drunk?!" i was shocked, and a little scared, but i would never admit that to him.

"Hello to you, too" He had a smirk playing on his face, which slowly diminished when he noticed that i was, in no way, amused.

"Why are you here?" I sighed, walking around to the front of my desk, to stand a few feet in front of him.

"I had to see you" He took a step towards me and i cowered back into my desk. This did not go unnoticed to Simon, he almost looked concerned. 

"Why?" 

"Have you missed me?" His question took me by so much surprise. Why did he care if i had missed him? Had i missed him? My life was so much more simple without him in it. No one had tried to harm me. I wasn't scared to go out by myself anymore. 

"No, Simon. I have no reason to miss you. All you brought into my life was danger, something that i had not encountered before you and it wasn't a grateful welcome" My words came out harsher than i had intended them too. But him stumbling into my office, uninvited and drunk was not too appreciated. "Have you missed me?" 

I'm mentally slapped my hand to my forehead. Why did i ask him that? Of course, he didn't miss me. The last time we had seen each other, he was all over another girl. But, if he didn't miss me, or wasn't thinking about me, then why was he here?

"No, of course not. You are stuck up and annoying. You think you are too good for everyone, when in reality, you're not better than any of us" His words hurt. Mine were harsh, and i admitted that, but they were nothing compared to his. i could feel the tears beginning to well up in the corner of my eyes, why was i so upset by this? I was confused by his sudden outburst and his sudden frustration. 

"Then why are you here?!" i couldn't help the increase in the volume of my question. Did he come here just to insult me?

"I..I dont know!" Suddenly he was opening the office door and storming back out. I couldn't move my feet to walk after him, i wasn't completely sure that i wanted to. So i let him leave.

After a few minutes of just standing in my office with the door open, staring at the path Simon had just walked. Emily appeared in the doorway.

"Is everything okay?" She noticed my numb expression. 

"I have absolutely no idea what just happened" I sank onto my desk, ignoring the paperwork i was crumbling with my arse right now. 

"Do you want to leave work early?" She asked, i looked at the clock, we only had half an hour left anyway. I nodded my head. I was in a high enough position in the business to choose when i wanted to leave early or not, so no one questioned Emily and I as we began to walk out. 

The receptionist gave me a strange look. She had let his drunk guy into my office, seen him storm past her on his way out, then witnessed me leaving early. I did not begin to question her confusion.

Emily and I linked arms as we walked out of work. We began the short walk home, in comfortable silence. I was glad that she had not pushed me about the incident that had just happened. She had accepted the fact that Simon was an irrational guy. Irrational, indeed.