I looked up at him and wondered if he would still feel that way if he found out. It wasn’t a chance I was willing to take. I got in my car and left, while he stood in the driveway and watched me drive off.
Anna
I spent the weekend looking at used cars. Mine was fucked. It was going to cost more to fix it than to get a new vehicle. I found my new car yesterday and had to deal with a guy that reminded me a greasy used car salesman. I bet if I looked up the term in the dictionary, his face would appear.
So, while I was busy getting a new used car, I barely had a chance to think about Robert over the weekend. It was my first time seeing him since I was hired for the job, and even that one time had been more than enough for me. When I saw him the first time, he was at least dressed somewhat normally. But when I saw him Friday night, I was disgusted. He wasn’t anything like the man I used to know. He had that flashy sports car and his suit had to have cost a few grand at least. Who walked around in clothes that expensive? It was ridiculous. I bet his shoes cost more than my entire outfit.
I grinned as I remembered him stepping in the mud puddles in my driveway. I wouldn’t lie, I was pretty pleased when I saw that he had ruined his suit. But the one thing that bothered me was the look of disgust on his face when he walked in my trailer. I never let what others thought of me bother me, but with Robert, it was different. We knew each other from another time. He used to be the one person that knew me better than anyone else. We loved each other. When I was having issues with my alcoholic mother, he was there for me. When my dad showed up out of the blue after being absent for ten years, he took me back to his parents’ house until my dad took off. He was always looking out for me, taking care of me. But then everything changed and he was gone. I felt abandoned.
I had successfully avoided any contact with Robert for the last thirteen years. And when his parents moved away, it made it so much easier. His brothers didn’t bother to check in on me. They didn’t care. I was their brother’s girlfriend and nothing more. But his parents always worried about me, and that was a little too much to take, especially when their son had completely forgotten about me. He went off to school and never bothered to call again.
I had a shit job, and I needed a change desperately. So, when the ad was placed for an office manager for his brother, I jumped on it. I just assumed that I would be interviewing with Eric. Little did I know that Robert would be walking back into my life. It didn’t seem fair that I should have to deal with a man that I despised so much. And to make matters worse, while I had been here, dealing with my alcoholic mother, he had been out making his fortune. I felt like a loser. We were so different. Where I had once had big dreams to go off to college and find something that lit me up inside, I now found myself working for the brother of the very man that killed all my dreams.
Shaking off my negative thoughts about Robert, I walked into the bakery and smiled at Mary Anne. Once upon a time, she used to be good friends with my mom. That was before she started drinking herself into oblivion. She pretty much alienated all her friends with her drinking.
“Anna,” Mary Anne beamed. “The usual?”
“Yes, please.”
“I saw you got a new car.”
“Well, an old new car.”
“Still a new car,” she smiled, gathering up my chocolate babka. “So, what happened to the old one?”
“It bit the dust when I was on my way home on Friday.”
“Oh,” she frowned. “I hope you didn’t walk home.”
“I did.”
“That’s so dangerous,” she scolded. I internally rolled my eyes. Here it came. I was about to get the motherly lecture about safety. “You know, when I was your age, I walked home from school every day all by myself. Of course, times were different back then. We didn’t have