Page 108 of I Hope This Finds You Well

“Caitlin, what the fuck? They’re going to lay you off anyway. Just leave. You’ve got other obligations.”

Her voice cracks. “Kyle, please calm down. My colleagues will hear—”

“Are you with another dude?”

“Oh my god, no. Can’t you see I’m at work?”

“Never know with you anymore. Can you blame me? I apologized a hundred fucking times, even sent an apology to your office, but still you’re ignoring my texts. Now you won’t even come home!”

“Just stop,” Caitlin hisses. “I told you I forgave you.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Kyle replies. “This feels like you’re still mad at me, and you’re trying to make me suffer—”

“You’re right, okay? I was being dramatic. I’m sorry. Can you please pick me up tonight?” Caitlin sucks in a sharp breath.

“I need to get dinner sorted now, so figure out your own ride. And if you’re home too late...”

The air in my lungs starts to burn. My bones twist tighter in my body as everything comes into sharp focus. I pull up Caitlin’s emails, heart pounding, running on pure instinct and adrenaline. I search his name in herdeletedfolder as I think of the incessant phone calls, the texts, even the gifts. I scroll quickly and find one in an instant, but it’s benign enough. I click on another he sent over two months ago, before I had email access. And it’s enough to know for sure that I didn’t mishear—what I already knew in my gut.

From: [email protected]

To: Caitlin Joffrey

Subject: Wow

Blocking my number? So tired of playing these stupid games. I can do so much better than you...

I click it shut and pull up another from March:

I’m sorry. I picked up your favorite wine. Love you.

It’s like the final deflation: Kyle is fucking abusive. It shouldn’t surprise me. It doesn’t. Kyle made my life hell for years, and he’s still a bully. All the time I spent watching Caitlin... I just didn’t properly look. I didn’tsee. All her recent anxious moments shine differently, in a way I know too well.

I didn’twantto see.

Silence seeps from the boardroom for far too long. I think maybe I should go check on her, but I don’t know what I could say. My throat scratches each time I swallow.

After fifteen minutes, she finally emerges. I watch her hand linger on the doorknob as she registers that it wasn’t completely closed. She looks devastated and so small. It’s like she’s looking for permission to exist. An impossible thing to find.

Then she takes a deep breath, pushes her shoulders back, and it’s gone. Like she’s compartmentalized away everything that happened in the span of a few seconds.

She glances at me and catches me watching. Her eyes widen—she must know I heard. Then her eyes narrow into slits. “What are you looking at?”

I can’t keep up with the change of vibe. Whatever she did to switch gears so fast, it’s a skill nobody should need to have.

Caitlin needs to get away from this man. I need to do something.

“Are you—” I begin to say, but she drops into her chair and cuts me off.

“Can we not waste time talking? I’d like to get out of here before daybreak.”

It’s like a part of me has shut down. I watch as she clicks her screen awake, the glow of her monitor casting a stark white light across her face, highlighting the shadows under her eyes.

I turn back to my computer, but I can barely see the screen.

It’s almost midnight by the time we both finish our halves of the grid. Caitlin’s mascara is smudged from rubbing her tired eyes, and we’re both sallow from the unnatural amount of hours spent beneath the fluorescents. My breath is sour from too much unauthorized Coffee Club coffee.

No more words were exchanged after her call with Kyle. The only human interaction I’ve had since then was a text from Cliff, asking me how the project was coming along.Slowlywas my single word response.