13- Something Real

Casandra left her little brother with the neighbor and walked to work. It was already very late, she had failed, losing her punctuality streak and she hated herself for it, she checked her wallet once more hoping to find some money folded among the papers, but no, it was still empty. He couldn't take a cab, not even a bus and he still had about 20 more minutes of walking to do.

As she trudged along, trying not to limp too much and thinking about what excuse would be the best to explain why she was late, she passed the door of the hospital where she spent most of her life because of her father and then her sick little brother. She paused for a second looking at the entrance, feeling her insides throbbing begging to be healed. She had rinsed all over, but still the pain persisted.

"Maybe I could go in and be tended to" He mused. But then he thought about the huge debt he owed the hospital.

"No, I can't go further into debt" She frantically denied hugging herself and continuing on her way. "Time heals everything" She said to herself trying to convince herself of that, she just had to let a few weeks pass and everything that happened would be just an ugly memory, nothing more.

He finally arrived at the office, and trudged up the marble steps to the entrance, his heart in his mouth and his breathing labored.

As soon as the doors opened at her sides all the employees running back and forth in the great Hall stopped to stare at her in silence. Helena felt as if time had frozen and she was the only protagonist of a story in which she had not asked to participate. More than ever she wanted to be invisible, to be seen by no one.

She walked uncertainly, covering her body with her purse and dodging the penetrating and brazen stares.

She began to hear whispering behind her back and quickened her pace, unable to face anyone.

-You look like you've had a long night," sneered a girl.

-Did you see his dark circles under his eyes? They're gigantic," muttered another.

-When Sebastian sees her, he's going to throw her out on the street," exclaimed another girl with amusement, looking forward to it.

She almost ran to the elevator, demanding more than she could from her bruised body.

As soon as the metal doors opened she darted out hiding inside, the doors closed, she leaned against one of the mirrors and took a shaky breath hugging her purse even tighter as if it were a shield and hid her face against the leather material dodging the treacherous reflections of the four mirrored walls.

The elevator sounded the alarm that she had reached the top floor, where her desk was, but also her hated boss, who was surely waiting for her with the letter of dismissal.

With stealthy steps she began to walk down the long hallway trying not to attract anyone else's attention and not to let the CEO know of her arrival, at least until she could regain her composure.

But no sooner had she rested her bag on the table and without even giving him time to sit down in his chair to rest after the long marathon to the company, his phone rang.

With a trembling hand she picked up the tube and said:

-Industrias Aller how can I help you?

He heard on the other end a low, heavy breathing that made his blood run cold.

-Hello?" he asked with a broken voice.

-Come to my office right away," she hung up.

The presidential secretary froze in place, still with the phone to her ear and the high-pitched beep informing her that the call was over. She looked all around and found the peering eyes peering over the cubicles of the other employees, who were curious to know what was going to happen next, anxious that the boss would fire Helena and the Secretary's position would be vacated just as Katlyn had promised.

Helena adjusted her clothes and took a deep breath before heading towards the largest office in the place.

Sebastian, tapping his fingers anxiously against his desk, heard the sound of his office door, a timid and almost inaudible sound. He settled back in his seat, looking more serious and powerful, straightening his back and lifting his chin.

-Come in," he ordered dryly, pretending to read something interesting from the stack of papers in front of him.

-Good morning, Mr. Aller," exclaimed the redhead, feeling tiny in her boss's office.

-You mean good afternoon," he corrected her with irony.

Helena did not answer, embarrassed she hugged herself as a defense mechanism, waiting for the sentence of her dismissal.

Sebastian looked up, he was about to yell at her to sit down like a normal person when he saw her:

Something about her had changed and not just her appearance, something in the air around her told him she was no longer the same.

The woman had her hair tied back in a low, bland ponytail, she wasn't wearing her wild hair in the wind as was her custom, that tangled hair that bothered him so much but that over time he got used to. He was wearing wide and long pants almost to the floor, and over them a brown pullover that covered his almost non-existent figure and underneath the coat the company's shirt.

But it was over 25 degrees! It wasn't coat season, that struck her as odd, but even stranger was the little pink scarf that was tied around her thin neck for no apparent reason, "Perhaps the reckless one had caught a cold last night?"

"After having been half-naked dancing with other men" The cruel voice of her subconscious told her.

-Sit down- he ordered chasing away her thoughts that made his blood boil, just imagining her in the dirty arms of another man infuriated him even more.

As soon as he exclaimed those words the woman jumped in her place and hurried to obey.

Now that he had her closer he could see perfectly her freckled face that looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes were almost black under her blue eyes that were now darker than usual, her lips were pressed together with discomfort and her hands were hidden in her crossed arms.

-Mr. Aller, I can explain..." the woman tried to say without deigning to look him in the eye.

-I don't give a damn what you do when you're not in the office," he denied with annoyance.

-Sir, I don't...

-I don't want to know what you did last night, I have enough to do with the gossip of the other employees' riffraff.

Helena opened her bulging eyes wide.

"What things had they been saying?" "Maybe they had useful information to reconstruct the puzzle of the night" She thought hopefully.

-I don't know what they might have told her, but....

-But you're not like that, are you?" he interrupted her, "You're different," she exclaimed sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

No woman was special to Sebastian, for a moment he had thought Helena was, but he had simply let his guard down with her and he wouldn't do it again.

Helena looked down embarrassed and grabbed the fabric of his pants tightly, Sebastian took advantage of this to look at her even more, noticing that underneath the pullover that had been lifted just a little from the sleeves, peeked, on the pale skin of his secretary, some purplish marks almost green, it seems that the redhead noticed his curious look because she quickly hid her hands in her pockets.

He wanted to ask her what it was and if she was all right, but his ego was bigger than his concern for the woman and he kept his mouth shut and was indifferent.

-Sir," she exclaimed with a lump in her throat and looking up with tears in her eyes, "Are you going to fire me?

Sebastian swallowed nervously, feeling unable to hold his gaze for long in those sad eyes and for a moment he didn't know what to say. He felt himself weakened by those crystalline eyes, but he shook off his thoughts and before falling into their trap he exclaimed:

-Go away Helena- he ordered dodging the gaze that burned him.

The woman rose from her seat obediently, heading for the door in defeat, but before leaving she turned around and with what little courage she had left she begged:

-Sir, please don't throw me out, I have nowhere else to go.

Sebastian rose imposingly from his desk, with the sunlight on his back giving him a golden backlight that made him look like a deity, in contrast to the demon of his younger brother, and walked slowly towards his secretary.

He expected to confront her face to face, to annoy her a little, like the first time they had met, because he was amused by the clumsy and naive Helena, but as soon as he was a few steps away from the woman, almost invading her personal space, he noticed the sudden change in the redhead, who looked like a walking ball of nerves backing up with every step he took.

-Helena," he said in his deep, intense voice, causing the woman to close her eyes tightly and two tears to fall down the sides of her cheeks.

Sebastian stepped back in bewilderment, he had never seen her so frightened, not even the time he almost ran her over in the street.

-Helena, I'm not going to fire you," he said from a distance, "but don't let it happen again.

The woman opened her eyes in confusion and found that her boss had stepped out of his bubble and was now looking at her with an expression that looked like... concern?

Concern? Was her boss worried about her?

She didn't understand.

-I'm-sorry," she said before rushing off leaving the CEO completely bewildered.

After the awkward encounter with her boss, which almost made her go into a panic attack when he wanted to approach her, Helena hid in her place, she had never felt like this before, but now a little voice in her head was screaming warning her, to protect herself from men.

"From everyone Helena, no exceptions."

The hours passed and everything was going well, it seemed like everything was going back to normal as she kept behind her screen trying to ignore the other employees.

Until he began to hear the gossip going up and up in volume, a familiar tune began to play on the speakers of the other desks. It was a catchy song, one of those hits that are usually played in nightclubs and that everyone knows. The music was upbeat, party music, but it made Helena nauseous.

The laughter and astonishment of the other girls began to fill the atmosphere, who shamelessly turned to see her and laughed in her own face.

She didn't understand what was happening, but she knew something was wrong, she began to sweat and feel the repercussions of wearing such hot clothes on a day of over twenty degrees, she wanted to get up and confront the women, scream in their faces what they were laughing so much about, just when she got an email.

Anonymous and without subject.

He opened it with his heart pounding hard in his chest, he didn't know what he was going to find, but something told him it was not good, especially because of the expectant smiles of everyone around him.