point of telling her.
Am I fucking angry?
Yes, but not with her. I’m upset at those assholes because they can’t let people be happy. I fucking swear, if I discover that they were the ones who lost those applications, I’m going to fuck them all the way to hell and make sure none of them practice law again. I don’t care if they are my cousins—or my mom.
I could ask Nyx to do this for me, but the less she knows, the better. When I left, I asked Mom to put her in charge of my department. Hopefully, she’ll make her a junior partner early next year. She’s so close to getting that promotion that I can’t tell her to leave the firm just yet. There’s a lot of stuff going on at Bryant, LLP that could damage her career, but as long as I keep a watchful eye on her, she should be fine.
She’s not thrilled that some of our clients have left the firm. It’s my fault, though. The moment I quit, I began to see that place from a different perspective, and it is fucking scary, to say the least.
I owed it to them to give them the best service. Part of that was referring them to another firm because I don’t trust my family. They’d be better with me, but I can’t take them as mine. My grandfather made me sign a non-compete agreement.
He explained to me not once, but five times, that if I ever want to come back, I’d have to start as an associate and work my way up to the top. He implied that I am no longer eligible to run the firm after he and my mother retire.
The kicker is that Leyla told me several times to leave the firm. She said I seemed unhappy working for my family. I didn’t see it that way, and every time she mentioned it, I got angry at her. In my stupid mind, I thought she was just saying that because she didn’t like them. There were too many things in place that pushed me to behave stupidly, starting with having to please my mother because I hate when she’s unhappy.
It’s now, when I’m thirty-four years old and almost divorced, that I realize it’s not my responsibility to make her happy. She always implied that my behavior affected her mood. I have to say, Nyx’s sister is a good therapist. Who knew I should’ve gone to a counselor years ago?
When Leyla told me about the new things she’s doing to get better, I wanted to say that I started seeing a counselor too after my younger brother said he goes to therapy.
I started it because of that competitive shit we have had going on since we were younger, but now I see that it’s all for me. Not even for Leyla.
“Ready,” she says as she slides into the passenger seat.
“We should be there soon. I’m not sure if the house is ready, but there’s a place for them in the barn,” I announce. “Are you sure you’ll be fine on your own for the next week?”
“Yeah,” she answers, not sounding okay.
She bites her lip while closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Blaire is nice,” I assure her.
“It’s fine. You should stop worrying about me,” she says with a yawn. “I’m just too tired. Unlike you, I’m not used to waking up at five in the morning anymore.”
I work hard not to grind my teeth. I’m sure there’s a lot more to that statement. We have to stop telling each other lies, half-truths, and bullshit. I understand I started it. Maybe I need to be the one who stops it. At this point, I don’t even know what we’re pretending. That I don’t love her, that I am not upset by how she is trying to make me pay for what I did, or that I don’t want to let her go.
Some days I want to ask her, how much longer until you are satisfied that I’ve paid my dues?
I know that I deserve more than her not signing my freedom and pushing my buttons when she finds those perfect moments.
She’s not even cruel to me. She just knows when to piss me off. I get it. She needs time to let me go, and then there’s that I don’t want her to fucking let me go.
Why can’t I be just as important as that child she wants?
She’s fighting hard to get it, isn’t she?
Because