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The Swerve

Some relationships are meant to stay off course.

By Brynn ImaniPublished 6 years ago 14 min read
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I wake up that morning to Cee-Lo singing about being a "Fool for You" and take it as a sign that today is the day. The first thing my eyes see, through my lashes, is him, like they have done every morning for the last few years. I scan his relaxed, sleeping boyish profile, his short sandy blond hair rough from a good night's sleep; and then his face from his thick eyelashes to his perfectly parted mouth. My stomach still flutters at the sight of him. Just like I do every morning when I lay eyes on him, I feel a rush of love.

Careful not to disturb his peace, I get out of bed, make my way to the bathroom to turn on the shower. As I wait for the spray to warm up, I catch my reflection in the mirror. The puffy-faced, blood-shot eyed creature reflected back at me is exactly what I expect. It has been a while since I have had a proper night's sleep. Eager to get away from the image, I step into the comforting steam to wake myself up. I feel my knees wobble and steady myself as quietly as possible. I cannot let my nerves get the better of me today. I had made up my mind in the small hours of this morning; I am going to have to hurt the one person I love the most today.

I walk, drenched by the heavy rain outside, into the expansive glass and steel lobby of my office building. I follow the smell of freshly ground coffee directly to the building’s cafe and flower shop to grab a chamomile tea to calm me. I peruse the cute little notice board as I wait for my order, and take down a little note advertising a room in a shared flat. I fold it neatly and put it in my bag; along with the others I’d liberated over the last two weeks. The very first time I saw the advert, it had been typed attractively and with care; stating the many amenities available and contained great detail about the apartment. The care taken over the advert had deteriorated over time with its latest incarnation reduced to two lines.

Large en-suite bedroom to rent in Hampstead. Caleb ext. 5645

DO NOT REMOVE!!!

The note writer was clearly getting frustrated with the advert’s repeated disappearance from the pin board.

“He is going to lose his shit when he finds out, you know. He was here last Friday accusing girls and I of taking it down to spite him.”

I smile guiltily at the shift manager, Gabby. She reaches out and places her palms on my shaking hands.

“Don't worry, we didn't say anything.” She winks at me and gives me my tea. “Why do you keep taking it down? He piss you off? Because… well, get in line.”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve been thinking of going for the apartment. I’ll sort it out today.”

“That's a shame. We have had an entertaining couple of weeks watching him replace it,” she giggled.

“Really? I feel a little awful.”

“Don’t. The girls aren’t fans.”

I thank her for the tea and make my way across the vast reception area to the bank of elevators that service the building's forty floors.

I have always loved the way the lights flicker on as I step out of the lift onto the 22nd floor; home to Ivory Bow, the International Marketing and Communications Agency I work for as a senior project director of global events. It’s a fast, busy, fun, and noisy office so the silence that greets me when I am the first person at work is the highlight of my workday. No one to make small talk with, no distractions, and most importantly, there is space to think. I walk past the white desk banks, sit at mine, and switch on my iMac. My diary, event projects, and task emails start presenting themselves. I scan them for any urgent tasks and then settle down to prepare my update briefing for our daily 10 AM meeting. My department is responsible for creating strong, memorable, luxurious brand experiences for our clients all over the world and if you showed up at 'The 10 AM' without memorable, creative and luxurious updates or ideas around the event projects you were working on, it was never a fun experience; so I get to work.

“Ariella Mason! I swear one of these days we are going to find out that you're secretly living here!” A Scottish accent declares loudly followed by laughter.

Lara is in. I take quick stock of my work so far. It’s almost finished, so I have time. She announces her arrival at my desk by shaking my messy bun and then sits on my desk with one perfectly Jimmy Choo'd heel on the floor and the other swinging in the air.

Lara is what most people would call a bombshell. She stood at five ten at least, with wild, curly, red hair, perfectly lined eyes, and full lips. Today, those lips were blood red—she’s had a good weekend. While Lara fit the Ivory Bow employee visual perfectly, she, at the same time, broke all the generic beauty rules. Most of the employees here were worryingly slim, extremely manicured, juice dieting, perfectly polite, fitness freaks that always turned up perfectly made up, blow-dried, and styled. Lara was a beautifully feral looking, confidently curvy, hourglass-shaped, junk food eating, perfectly made up, blow-dried representation of perfection. Her language also made sailors sound like choir boys.

“Babe, you are really going to need to start making an effort. What’s going on with this bun? Also, a little bit of makeup isn’t going to kill you, you know,” she teases, giving the bun on my head one last poke. I know where this was going. Lara has been trying to give me a makeover for as long as I have known her.

“Someone has got to break the mold around here,” I smirk

She laughed, “I thought that was my job!”

“You wish! I like to think I take it to a whole new level.”

“I concede. Your daily rejection of any diversion from your jeans and oxford shirt game shows unparalleled commitment.”

“That’s how I roll.”

Lara is my best friend at work and always manages to make me laugh at the beginning of the day. She was popular in the office, scary to some, funny, unapologetic, and brash. She was always up to some form of mischief and had the most delightfully dirty laugh. We were total opposites. I was pretty quiet at work and mostly kept myself to my projects. I hoped I would become more outgoing when I joined the company, but I found the whole permanently upbeat, unwaveringly enthusiastic, and work hard, play hard culture a little intimidating. I ended up retreating into a shell. Lara and I started at the same time and while she took to the company like a duck to water, forming friends and internal relationships quickly, I found myself drowning and retreating. I’d always been terrible socially. If Lara hadn’t forced her friendship on me, stalked me into submission, and generally dragged me everywhere with her in those first few months, it would have been a pretty isolating place to work.

What I lacked in social status, I made up for with hard work. In my twenty months at Ivory Bow, I’d already been promoted three times, taking on more projects and taking responsibility for more team members each time. The last promotion had been the most uncomfortable, effectively making me Lara’s boss. Not that you could tell. I went through a week full of worry before I told her because I was convinced I would lose the only friend I had. When I eventually did, I waited for our relationship to deteriorate. If anything, it brought us closer together which wasn’t always celebrated among the other members of the events team. Or myself at times.

“Good weekend?” She pokes my arm

“Yes, thanks. You?”

I know that the next ten minutes are going to belong to Lara so I settle in. Lara worked with the music accounts that fell under my purview and was always at a festival, gig, concert, or party. She worked hard, long, and late; with a limitless capacity to recover incredibly quickly from logistically challenging events, usually coupled with the consumption of extraordinarily high volumes of alcohol.

“The festival was awesome! I wish you could have come! The music was amazing, the clients were on their best behavior, VIP and backstage were packed with the coolest people. I barely did any work!”

“Sounds fantastic!” I flick my eyes at the digital clock at the bottom of my screen. Yeah, that document is going to remain unfinished.

“Don't lie, I know it would have been your worst nightmare!” She laughs and rolls her eyes. She isn’t lying. This was what I loved about Lara. She knew, loved, and accepted me for who I was. It would have been too big, too noisy, and too busy for me, which was ironic considering the industry I was in.

“... and I assume you were on your best behavior Lara Scott?”

Lara looks around, moves closer, and drops her voice to a whisper.

“Define good behavior...”

“Oh crumbs. What did you do?” I cover my eyes with my palm. Lara was always treading a very fine line. It was another of the things I admired about her but it also made me very nervous for her.

“I may have been seduced...”

“Nothing new there.”

“Crime Spree may have...”

“Lara. Please tell me you didn’t cross the only line you are not meant to cross, with the client you were supposed to be working for, while you were working for them. You’re supposed to be keeping him out of trouble! And he’s engaged! And he’s creepy. And you’re gay. And... goodness I can’t!”

“I love your whispery, admonishing, meltdowns.” Lara looks at me and starts laughing.

“You’re joking?”

“I didn’t sleep with Crime Spree.”

“Thank goodness. He’s always sniffing around you. That would have been really bad. I still remember that song he sang at your desk when you became his account manager.”

“You're every man's bad idea; I know that's what you wanna hear; Maybe in the future you might care; That being next to your sexy body does things to me over here...” Lara sang.

“Wasn't that when he grabbed his crotch?” I ask recalling the performance in the office. We get them all here.

“Yeah!” Lara and I burst out laughing

Relief floods through me. She didn’t mess with her client.

“Okay, so don’t freak out. I slept with his fiancée.” Lara bites the edge of her lip guiltily.

“Okay Lara. You need to leave my desk.” I start to pat the side of her round bottom lodged on my desk to shoo her off. She can’t keep doing this to me. I hold on to enough of her secrets. This one is too much.

“I know, I know... but Aari, she is beautiful. She is clever. She is tough, angry, and sexy. She is just...” Lara sighs and I’m not buying it.

“Different? Haven’t met anyone like her? You’ll be bored, trying to get me to fence your calls in a week.”

“I’m seriously thinking of handing over The Crime Spree account to someone else.”

This is new.

“Lara, she is engaged. She is engaged to a client. A client that you are meant to be looking after professionally. One that chooses to call himself Crime Spree. And makes his living encouraging people to believe that is who he is.”

Lara inspects a long, red nail and waves my concerns away.

“Oh please. His real name is Cyril Bertrand Neville, he lived at home until last year and he is gluten and lactose intolerant okay? I am pretty certain serving at the pleasure of Her Majesty is his worst nightmare.”

“You're unbelievable Lara.” I cross my arms

“Don't get me wrong, I do really like her, but no one is running away into the sunset together. I like her enough to maybe see if this might be going somewhere but I am also aware that this shit could get me fired. It was stressful enough hiding from Crime Spree all weekend. We almost got busted yesterday morning, I had to pretend I was looking for someone.” I stare open mouthed at Lara, this is a whole new level of crazy.

“So, I was wondering...’

“Oh, no Lara. I am not babysitting Crime Spree.”

“It will only be for...”

“Nope. Break a leg. Get hit by a bus. Have a killer hangover. I’d happily cover. This however, no.”

“Go on, please?” She pouts at me and I ignore her.

“Pout all you like. I’m immune.” I wave her off. Her little tricks don’t work on me. It doesn’t stop her from trying through. Repeatedly.

“Fine. I’ll figure it out. Anyway, what did you do?”

My weekends were always snooze-fests compared to hers and I didn’t really know how to begin to tell her what was on my mind all weekend.

“Well, Jasper was working...”

“Jeeze! Again?! Sorry, sorry... you know I love that boy; he's the last of the absolute decent ones left, but a weekend without working wouldn't kill him Aari.”

“It's fine. I went riding on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon working out some recipes. It was too late to do anything on Saturday night when he got back but on Sunday we went to his parents' for lunch and went for a walk. It was nice.” I force a smile.

“He is so lucky to have found you. If it was someone else... shit! It's almost ten! I haven't done my report!” Lara gets up abruptly, taking my pen pot with her. She scrambles to the floor and picks the mess up.

“Lunch at one?” She pops the pot back on the table.

“As always!” I smile. I can’t help it.

“I’ll have a solution by then, naturally concocted behind your back so you have plausible deniability, don’t you worry.” She walks quickly back to her desk. I know this for sure. Not only will she have a solution, but will end up getting pretty much everything she has decided that she wants.

The morning goes by with me swallowing my anxiety and keeping it together in front of my colleagues as I stare obsessively at one of three glass domes in the office figuring out how to approach the conversation of wanting the room. Aside from having to pop to the bathroom periodically to run my sweating palms under the cool running tap, I kept a tight lid on the mess I was inside.

“Are you pregnant?” Lara sneaks up and makes me jump.

“No! Gosh! Why would you say that?”

“You’ve been in and out of that bathroom all morning and it was the most polite question compared to the alternatives.”

Lara manages to make me chuckle.

“Seriously Aari, what’s up?”

I feel unwelcome tears welling up and try to blink them away.

“Come with me.”

Lara grabs my hand and pulls me into the bathroom. As soon as we are in there she pulls me into a warm hug and I let my tears fall.

“I know you can be a secretive cow, but are you okay?”

“Yes. I just need to do something that scares the living daylights out of me.”

“Look at you, taking risks. You’d be a perfect fit for looking after Crime Spree. He’s always giving out free merchandise you know!” Lara attempts to lighten the mood.

“No thanks,” she proposes and I break into a smile.

“Want to come to lunch?”

“I might skip coming down today if that’s okay?”

“Sure. I’ll bring up some crisps and M&M's for you so you don’t starve,” she suggests.

“Seriously, you have the diet of an eight-year-old.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, wipe your eyes and stand tall.” Lara gives me a tissue and attempts to straighten my t-shirt. “Bit of advice: When you do whatever you need to do, do not be afraid to look it in the eye and stare it down. You’ll find that once you confront it, it becomes really easy to conquer whatever is scaring you.”

“Thanks Lara.”

“I’m heading to lunch. Let’s catch up at the end of the day okay?”

“Okay.”

With that she gives me a kiss on the cheek and leaves. I needed Lara’s courage. Now it is time to face the music.

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About the Creator

Brynn Imani

I write to keep my sanity. I write because it’s fun. Even though sometimes my words may be plenty, it gives me immense joy bar none.

Ps: I do this to be better.

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