She's wavering. I can see it in her hands wringing, her breath hitching, her nose wrinkling. "Why is this so important to you?" she asks. "Really. Why can't you just let me go?"
Because your hands on my chest last night woke something in me that I thought died the day Sage got hurt, and I'm not ready to let that go.
"Because I need you," I say instead. "The project needs you."
"Right. The project." She laughs and shakes her head. "Always the project."
"What else would it be?"
She looks hard at my face, like she's hunting for something. "I don't know. For a second there, I thought maybe—" She shakes her head. "Never mind."
"Tell me."
"It doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
Erica's eyes widen slightly, and I realize I've leaned forward without meaning to, closing the distance between us again.
"No, it doesn't," she says. "Nothing about me matters to you except how useful I am to your precious project."
"That's not true."
"It's not?" She cocks her head to the side. "Then tell me something about me that isn't work-related."
"What?"
"You claim I matter to you? Prove it. Tell me one thing about Erica Jones that has nothing to do with spreadsheets or presentations or project timelines."
I open my mouth, then close it. Because the honest answer—that I know she takes her coffee with caramel syrup and drinks it from a ridiculous Garfield mug, that she kicks off her heels under her desk when she thinks
no one's looking, that she hums off-key when she's concentrating, that she
once spent her lunch break in the lobby comforting a crying child who couldn't find her mother—would reveal how much I actually watch her, how much attention I pay to the small details of her life.
And I can't say that. That would be crossing a line I didn't even know existed until this moment.
"See?" She nods like I've just confirmed her worst suspicions. "You can't, because you don't. I'm not a person to you—I'm a resource. A very useful,very expendable resource. But guess what, Andrew? I am a person. And as a person, I have a life and feelings and dreams and good and bad days and…and limited time."
There's something in the way she says "limited time" that sends warning bells ringing in my head.
"Jones… what's really going on here?"
"Nothing. It's nothing."
"Something's wrong." She laughs, though it sounds more like a sob.
"What could possibly be wrong? I have the job of my dreams working for the man of my nightmares, making barely enough to survive while watching him get richer and richer off my work. Living the American dream, right?"
"That's not what I meant and you know it. Yesterday, you were fine. Today, you're falling apart. Something happened in between."
"Maybe I just finally realized what everyone else already knows about you."
"Or maybe something happened that has nothing to do with me, and you're using our little confrontation this morning as an excuse to run away from whatever it is."
Her face goes white. "You don't know what you're talking about."
I'm pressing now, following an instinct I don't fully understand. "What happened yesterday, Jones? What changed?"
"Stop."
"What happened?"
"I said stop."
"What are you running from?"
"I'M GOING BLIND!"
The words explode out of her like she's been holding them under pressure, and the silence that follows is so complete I can hear the HVAC system humming in the walls.
She's breathing hard, her chest rising and falling. Her hands are shaking.
"I'm going blind," she repeats, quieter now but no less desolate. "Ninety days, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, and then it's lights out forever. So excuse me if I don't want to spend what's left of my sight getting
lectured about why bringing donuts in the morning is a crime against humanity."
Silence.
More silence.
More grinding, chugging, awful silence.
"… Jesus Christ, Jones."
"Don't." She holds up a hand, and I can see tears budding at the corners of her eyes.
"Don't you dare look at me like that."
"I'm not—"
"Yes, you are, and don't insult me by pretending to deny it, either. I can see
it in your face." She rubs at her eyes angrily.
"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you. I don't need your sympathy, Andrew. I need my dignity. That's why I'm leaving. I have eighty-nine days left to see the world, and
I'm not spending them being Andrew Simon's punching bag or his charity case."
"You're not… " I start, then stop. There's no world in which finishing that sentence does either of us a bit of fucking good.
"So that's that." She moves toward the door. "I'm done. With this conversation, with this job, with all of it. Find someone else to be your 'necessary resource.'"
"There is no one else."She pauses with her hand on the doorknob. "Then I guess you have a problem."
"So do you. And I have your solution." I notice her hand stays still, doesn't turn. Not yet. "You need more than a million dollars. You need health insurance, don't you? You need it a hell of a lot more than you need your pride."
"I'll… figure something else out."
"Will you? On sixty-eight grand a year? Do you have any idea what vision loss treatment costs? Ongoing care?"
She flinches like I've slapped her. "That's low, even for a miserable bastard like you."
"It's reality. And reality doesn't care about your feelings."
"Neither do you, apparently."
"You're right. I don't." I clear my throat. "I'm offering you a deal, a good one. Call it a devil's bargain if you want, but if it ends with both of us getting what we want, then that's just good business."
She's still fidgeting, nervous, uncertain. "I… I need to think about it."
I nod. "Think all you want. I'll give you the night."
Then she's already walking away, leaving me alone in my office with the ghost of her perfume and a strange fire in my chest.
I watch her through the glass partition as she moves through the outer office, her shoulders straight, her chin up... until the elevator swallows her up and she disappear from my sight.