Page 5 of Worth the Fall
I gently set my phone down and swept my arm across the countertop. The endless products, the hairbrush, my two-hundred-dollar perfume, all clattered to the ground in a satisfying heap. I was still breathing hard, but I had to admit the destruction had made me feel a little bit better.
I knelt on the floor and began picking up the products.
My perfume’s glass bottle had shattered, unsurprisingly, and now the bathroom was overpowered with the lavender smell.
Oh well. In all honesty, every time I used the perfume, all I could hear as it spritzed was, “two hundred, two hundred,” as if it was hissing at me.
My mother would be appalled that I even owned something that expensive.
When I had calmed down from my tantrum, I finished brushing my teeth, climbed into silky pajamas, and laid my head on the pillow at exactly 9:44.
Chapter Three
The ringing in my ears had finally subsided. The only sound left was thethump, thump, thump, of my tennis shoes hitting the pavement, followed by the predictable rhythm of my breathing. I looked out across the lake as I ran past, the golden rising sun hitting the water so still it looked like glass. I smiled tomyself. Despite the effort it took to get up so early every morning, the views, the way it made me feel, and the time it gave me to think, it was all incredibly worth it.
I knew I shouldn’t have thrown everything off my counter. I knew the perfume bottle was going to shatter, and maybe that’s why I did it. But, whether or notit was on purpose, I knew that wasn’t how I should’ve handled my anger. The person with control, the control I so often bragged about, would’ve handled her stress with a yoga session, or perhaps a nice evening walk. She would not have thrown a tantrum that cost two hundred dollars and seeped my bathroom with the smell of lavender regret.
I turned my final corner and stopped at the street in front of my apartment building, sleek and gorgeous as it was.
Martha was standing at the entrance holding two cups and a brown paper bag. She smiled and waved one of the cups erratically when she saw me.
“You’re up early!” I called as I crossed the street.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t let you leave without makingsure you were properly packed.”
I smiled, but the last thing I wanted was to chat with Martha and pretend this was going to be the trip of a lifetime. “And you brought breakfast?” The green smoothie I had waiting in my fridge would have to be lunch.
She wiggled the bag. “Bagels! You’re going to need your strength.”
My mother would throw a fit over the saliva that filled my mouth at the thought of a bagel. I laughed uncomfortably. “You’re just too sweet.”
“Shall we?” She said, holding open the door to my apartment building.
I couldn’t help but admire Martha. Though I will admit we did not immediately hit it off.
My first day at the office, Mr. Sterling showed me to my office, which I would share with my team. The perfect empty desk I was itching to sanitize and organize was across from a tornado. Martha’s desk had sticky notes and loose sheets of paper covering every unoccupied inch. She had three almost empty coffee cups, two styrofoamtake-out containers, and an endless array of sugar packet wrappers. Her desk plant had been dead for more than a few months, by the look of it, begging for someone to put it out of its misery as its crispy leaves shed on the carpet.
I was practically growling inside at the thought of sitting across from that mess.
Martha was leaning back in her chair, talking too loudly on the phone. Mr. Sterling introduced me as her new partner. She hung up the phone, without explaining to the person on the other end of the line why, andjumped up. Her hand was stickyas it shook mine.
She apologized for the mess and kept as much as she could on her own side of the desk. I kept to myself most of the day, giving a half-hearted chuckle at her bad jokes, or a polite “no thank you” to her offers of gum, sugar packets, or whatever else she was currently eating.
Lunch time came, and she watched in horror as I pulled a salad from my lunch cooler. She shook her head with a grandmotherly smile and stood, saying she was going out and would be back in an hour.
Seconds after she left, a short man with a big gut pulled up a chair beside me. It took him all ofthree seconds before he had his hand on my thigh, slowly moving higher. Before I could slaphim and storm out, Martha was there between us. She shoved him back and yelled until she was blue in the face. The man was horrified, though we didn’t stay long.
She picked me up by the elbow and dragged me to Mr. Sterling’s office, where she told him everything that had happened. Mr. Sterling assured us he would take care of the man, and Martha dragged me out of the office.
She paid for my lunch, a salad and a water, despite her interjections about how amazing this restaurant’s hamburgers were, andgave me a big hug before we went back to the office.
Martha never knew that as soon as we got back to the office, I cried in the bathroom for ten minutes and wondered if that’s what it felt like to have a mother.
From that moment on, I stayed late to help her with projects, and we went to lunch two or three times a week. She was the only person I could call a friend.
She practically led the way to my apartment, having beenthere enough timesto earn her own key, and I unlocked the door.
“I hope I don’t smell too bad,” I said, cringing as the words left my mouth. “I’m a little sweaty.”
