Never (12 page)

“It’s not that simple—”

“Actually,” I interrupted forcefully. “It is. Yes or no?”

She stared at me, clearly wanting to do anything but speak the truth we both already knew. She drew a shaky breath and exhaled. “The answer is yes. But...where are you going?”

I walked past her to the side table near the door where I’d put my wallet and keys. I flipped open my wallet, pulling out every credit card I had.

“Lucas, what are you doing?”

I didn’t answer, going to my desk and yanked out my barely used box of checks. I walked back to the sitting area and dumped it all on the coffee table.

“Is this what I need to do to make everything make sense? Spend until I can forget all the bad things? Max out every card until everything’s all better?”

Tears filled her eyes and I felt a twang of sadness. The twang didn’t hold a candle to the stabbing anger that invaded me. Tears didn’t change a thing.

“I don’t need the money, Mom,” I said, stepping back from the table like it was poison. “And I don’t need you.”

Her gasp followed me out of the room, echoing in my ears as I walked down the stairs and out into the sun.

Chapter Fourteen: Juliet

I drew a deep breath as I stepped out of the car, eyeballing the SAI Technology building. Every other night of the week, Mom came here after a four hour break of being on her feet and worked some more. She'd woken up, fighting through the 'just a cold' she'd had since I'd gotten home. In a span of three hours she progressed from throaty coughs and sneezing to body aches and coughs that made
me
hurt.

She had no intention of calling off, even though she looked like death warmed over and she could barely stand up without swaying from left to right like she'd tip over at any moment. She would have gone on her merry way—except I stood behind her car, refusing to let her leave.

She tried the whole ‘I've only stayed home once, and that's after I showed up and they sent me home’ defense, but that didn't make me budge. It only made me wonder how many times she'd gone in, pushing that vacuum, breathing in those fumes when she should have been recovering with a pot of chicken noodle soup and a jug of OJ. There'd been nothing I could do to help back then; but I could help now.

I'd work her shift.

At SAI Technology she was the only one in charge of three floors and no one would be the wiser.

She'd vehemently fought me on it before she had a coughing fit. While she nearly coughed up a lung, I took a fresh blue polo from her drawer and pulled on a pair of khakis, leading her back in her bedroom.

For once, I felt like I could give something back to my mom. As long as I didn’t get caught.

I pulled her lanyard over my head, her ID card dangling around my neck as I strode toward the building. I leaned toward the ID reader, the light turning from green to red and the lock disengaging.

The lobby was abandoned except for a security guard behind a big oak desk, watching a small television. He looked up briefly and my heart skittered in my chest until he went back to watching his show while a huge security breach was occuring under his nose. I breathed easy, trying to ignore the fact that I was right. I'd told my mother that no one would notice the difference, leaving out the why that we both knew all too well.

She was just a maid. She was invisible.

I looked down at the palm of my hand for the floor number. 15-17 was scrawled in pen, janitors closet on 8th floor. I punched the 8 and gripped the bar, not realizing that my hand was shaking until the metal magnified it, sending nervous tremors all over me.

I wasn't worried about being caught. Mom worked the last shift, and she told me there were rarely stragglers still on the floors when she made her rounds. But there was an indistinguishable dread churning in my belly. An unnamed thing that made me nibble on my lip as the numbers ticked away, pulling me toward the eighth floor.

I stepped out of the elevator, pointing toward the end of the long corridor. The dark brown wood of the closed doors reminded me of coffins, the perfectly etched names on the side the markers.

Geez, morbid much?
I thought, shaking my head as I swiped my badge and the janitor’s closet clicked open. I swiped my mother’s card in the time machine and turned to the back where a cart waited.

I wrapped my hands around the steering bar and reversed, the smell of disinfectant flooding my nostrils.

I pushed back toward the elevator, the squeaky wheels the only sound other than the tiny voice in my head that wouldn't leave me alone. Wanted me to admit the real reason I was so nervous.

I snatched out my earbuds and popped them in my ears, putting the music playlist on my phone on shuffle. My Katy Perry mix shouted down everything else and I bobbed my head and tapped my foot as the elevator stopped on the fifteenth floor.

I pushed inside the first office, taking out the feather duster. I started with the blinds, giving them a good sweep before I went to the bookshelf beneath the window, carefully dusting the baubles, gently skating over picture frames, over the top of the books, then down the spines. I tried to just get in and out without paying attention to the person that worked in the office; the person that sat behind the desk from 8 to 5. And then I saw the stuffed lobster.

I picked it up, smirking at the unnaturally glittery length of its plushy body. Beneath it was a stack of construction paper, brightly colored strokes of crayon turning dashes into trees and squiggles into people. There was one thing that needed no imagination to understand.

I love you mommy.

Tears rushed to my eyes.

You know exactly why you were so nervous. The same reason you made sure the parking lot was deserted and dashed into the elevator.

I was still in denial even though the truth flooded my eyes and made it difficult to read the words again. I was nervous because I didn’t
want
to be seen, and definitely not to be seen this way. To have ‘Custodian’ stitched on my shirt. Ashamed to do the work my mother had done my whole life. Cleaning up behind other people.

Maid.

I put the lobster down and swiped my eyes, trying to get a grip. I wouldn’t break down here. I couldn’t. But it was getting harder by the minute. Hard to deny that tiny voice that had been whispering from the minute I took her ID card. I thought I was too good to be doing this. I'd regretted the offer as soon as it came out. I loved my mother...but I thought I was too good to walk in her shoes for a few hours.

I finished dusting, moving quickly as I grabbed the vacuum cleaner. The hum of it dulled the music blaring in my ears and the shame clenching my heart. It didn’t help that I’d looked at the picture of the woman who worked in this office.

While Mrs. Executive was fixing dinner for the child that scrawled out those three words on construction paper, sitting on her expensive couch in her expensive house, my mother was dusting her desk and vacuuming up the crumbs of her day. As other people’s days winded down, my mother donned another uniform. Dinged another time clock. Another shift spent cleaning up someone else’s dirt.

I turned off the light, wheeling the janitor’s cart to the next office.

How did she do it? I knew it was a dumb question, one that didn’t need asking because I knew the answer. It brought a whole new wave of shame over me.

She did it for me.

I paused in the hall, a fluorescent glow shining from an office a few doors down. The uncomfortable flash of nerves settled in my stomach. Mom told me that it was unlikely, but every now and then one of the staff would burn the midnight oil, still huddled at their desk when she made her rounds. I was supposed to go to their office, knock lightly on their door if they were so engrossed that they didn't even look up, then ask if they'd like for me to tidy up. She said that usually it was so awkward that they'd just tell her it was okay and have a good night, but something in her voice told me that not everyone was so kind. Every now and then she must have had a person that told her to work around them, watching eagle eyed as she dusted and vacuumed like they were paying her personally to clean up their mess.

I crossed my fingers as I pushed the cart closer, giving up on the hope that someone just left the light on when I heard the steady tap of fingers on a keyboard. Who would I get tonight? Some embarrassed, overly gracious person who pitied me as they rose from their desk and hurriedly stuffed papers in their briefcase or barely looked at me when they said 'Not tonight'? Or would I get the Lord of the Manor who raised their chin and made me work around them, ready to point out every speck of dust missed?

I stopped in front of the door, my eyes on the blue carpet, counting flecks of gold, wishing they'd see me and put me out of my misery. The keys didn't stop clicking, each tap making red spread further until every square inch of me showed proof of my discomfort. I released the cart and slowly raised my chin. My mouth opened and instead of excuse me, a gasp dropped from my lips, along with my heart.

The tapping stopped—and he looked up, those familiar blue eyes crashing into me. Taking me under. Drowning me.

"Julia?"

I gripped the cart to keep from swaying. I didn't say a word. I couldn't say his name. It was behind my lips, the two syllables venomous.

Jared.

My ex.

It had been a little under a year since we'd seen each other, but all the things that drove me away, the things he'd done, cut just as deep as if it had happened moments ago. Memories of all those eyes on me. The whispers. My friends dwindling down to none in five minutes flat. Running to his frat house.

The sky opened up, dropping bucket after bucket of rain onto me. My clothes were so heavy, weighing me down like God himself was trying to tell me that my destination was the wrong one. That the last thing I needed was to hear him admit what he'd done.

The door swung open, the smell of stale beer and some cheap air freshener invading my nostrils and turning my stomach. One of his friends opened the door, holding a can of Budweiser and an all-knowing smirk. If I wanted confirmation and my friends’ looks of disgust and shame weren't enough, his smirk was. The way he drank in my body like he knew it personally should have made me slap the smile off his face, but I didn't budge.

"Where is he?"

"Back for more, huh?" His friend threw his head back, guffaws ringing in my ear as I shoved past him.

Even with the tears blurring my way I knew where to go. Up the flight of stairs, avoiding the sticky bannister, past the gross hall bathroom, second door on the right.

Jared was kicked back on his bed, watching ESPN, not a care in the world. Why should he care? The video made him infamous in the best possible way. He'd get claps on the back, props for a job well done.

Me? I was ruined. To everyone, I was just some kinky girl that let her boyfriend tape our sexual encounters.

"You asshole."

He turned to the door. For the briefest moment I saw a flash of humanity. Guilt. When he got off the bed and towered above me, it was gone.

"I thought you said it was best if we took some time apart." He gave me the half smile that used to make me tingle, loving that it was for me. Just like all those moments in bed that I thought were for us. The moments he'd recorded without me knowing and shared with everyone.

I saw his Louisville slugger propped against his dresser and not thinking, swiped it and advanced him.

His aqua eyes bulged as he backed up. "What are you doing?"

"You taped us," I said hoarsely, squeezing the wooden shaft, anger turning everything red.

"I don't know what you're talking about—"

"Tell the truth!" I shrieked, my voice foreign, this guy I thought I knew a complete stranger to me.

He licked his lips nervously, eyeballing the bat. "Just put it down—"

I reared back.

"Alright! I did it!" He confessed, back against the wall. But I relaxed too soon and he snatched it away from me. "But I only sent it to Mike. He sent it to everyone else."

A lie. But what did it matter? He'd been lying from the moment I met him.

“How are you, Julia?”

I blinked at him, his words coming back in tune. Lying even now, pretending like he cared how I was doing.

He rose to his feet. His golden hair was cropped now, accentuating the lines of his angular face. I'd hoped the next time we saw each other his drinking would have caught up with him, souring his perfect complexion, settling on his gut. No such luck. His skin was as clear as his eyes and even in a polo and slacks he looked like some male model.

"You look...well."

My nostrils flared as I stood a little taller. "You work here now?"

"Not technically. Internship," he explained. He gestured at me. "You work here?"

"No," I said quickly. "I'm covering for my mom."

"Oh, okay."

We stood there, neither of us saying anything but the words left unsaid so loud that I wanted to cover my ears.

"I just want you to know how sorry I am," he said finally. He stepped toward me, expression conciliatory, voice brought low. "I had no right to do what I did. I don’t even have the right to ask your forgiveness, but I hope someday you'll forgive me."

My chin trembled as I looked at him. For months after our confrontation I'd waited for an apology. Not an explanation or excuse, just for him to look me in the eye and tell me he'd done it and was sorry. I wasn't sure what I expected to happen when I got it. Maybe that some lost piece in me would be found, that I'd feel a weight lifting off my heart.

He’d finally done it. He was sorry...and it didn't change a thing.

"Would you like me to clean up your office?"

He blinked, confusion flushing across his face. "What?"

I repeated myself robotically, the words coming out like a pre-recorded message. "Would you like me to clean up your office?"