34

“Where are you going?” Chad had the audacity to ask as he followed behind me while I headed down the steps.
I glared at him and shook my head at his sense of humour. He must have thought of me as more of a dummy than I had expected.
“Nikki.” He held my wrist to stop my movement. With an angry frown, I stared between his hand and his face.
“Okay for one, never hold me down just because you want me to listen to you. Every single time, you do that stuff. You think you can just tke control of every fucking shit because you are supposedly the boss of me but let me warn you, those fucking days are over, cunt!” I was making no moves to conceal my anger. He had gone over the board this time, and there was no going back for me.
“Nikki…” He let go of me and scratched the back of his neck, ‘okay, truth is I did end my relationship with Rebecca when we were at the hospital but it’s not the first time and she always 'resolves’ our problems but I meant it and…”
“Oh so now you can tell me that?” I scoffed at him, “What does it matter anyway?”
“Nikki, I really don’t understand why you are getting mad at me. Are you really expecting me to start a relationship with you when I literally just ended one?” I knew what he had his own point.
“Can we stop talking about this?” I frowned and continued to head out of his presence. In no time, I was by the door and my mind wouldn’t stop traveling to what had just occurred between us.
I turned the door knob and the nurse was apparently just about to come in. She widened her eyes, clearly surprised by my unexpected presence. I pushed her aside, ignoring how rude it was.
I knew she was watching me as I stormed away in anger but I couldn’t care less. She was the last thing on my mind.
I was surely done with Chad this time.

***
Sitting on my couch and filling my face with popcorn, I tried my best to get him off my mind. I had concluded things with Cornelius and we had agreed that we would be resuming work by next Monday.
I made my mind up that I’d be leaving my apartment in the meantime. I couldn’t help but think that Chad was coming for me in one way or the other.
I picked my phone up and surfed through my contact list to see if I could get anyone to stay with and it was at that moment that I realized how dry my life really was.
“Who am I kidding, sheesh.” I rolled my eyes and tossed my phone back on the seat beside me.
It rang just a minute after and I buzzed a little before picking it up and as if to make things worse, it was Tom. The lack of interest in making a conversation with him was the total assurance I needed to know that I was emotionally done with Tom.
“Hey,” I tried my best to bring the enthusiasm to life but it was a total fail.
“You’re a bitch.” He snapped at me in anger.
My eyebrows connected reflexively and I couldn’t help but stare at the screen a second time to figure out whether or not he was talking to me.
“What are you talking about?” I frowned at him. I was already pissed enough and I didn’t want him making things worse by adding fuel to the fire. “Look, if you have anything specific you have to say to me,justy go ahead and do it. If I made you mad or something, can we just talk about it later?” I said.
“I always knew there was something going on between you and that man. I mean, you saw how protective he was of you that day in the office when he thought I was trying to take advantage of you?” I knew by his reference that he already had an idea about Chad and I. I sat up straighter and cleared my throat.
“What are you talking about?” I repeated, knowing it was safer for me to act dumb.
“Nikki, if you didn’t want things to proceed between us, you could have just told me.” He said in the most disappointed voice and I felt myself go sad when his voice began to whimper. I was literally fucked up. On the one side was my stupid boss that thought I was too low in class in comparison to him and the other hand, I had someone who was going to cry because I was being such a disrespectful bitch in our relationship.
“You didn’t have to lead me on and goodness, I literally can't believe I thought dating someone older was supposed to come through for me.” He sniffed. I knew the only person who could have the effrontery to go this far with informing Tom about my waywardness was Rebecca and I could only say she was the dumbest human I knew for thinking I was supposed to feel affected because she told him. I was sad because I didn’t even feel guilty regardless of his hurt and I was the worst for that.
“I'm sorry…” I began but he cut me off. Although we didn’t officially announce it, I knew the relationship was over.
I put my phone beside me with a sigh and buried my face in my hands. I felt like a mental battle was going on in my head with no way to solve it.
I needed a safe place to think, a safe place to start over and I knew just where to go.
I hurried to dial Cornelius and he answered, I put the phone up to my ear, cleared my throat and wondered. “Hi, I'm sorry, it's me again. I just wanted to know, do you people have a staff quarters?”