When I opened the door, Kellie held up a bakery bag. "I brought muffins."
I opened the door to let her in. "You don't have to worry about me. I'll be alright." Eventually.
"I know." She made her way to the kitchen. "I smell coffee. Can I have some?"
"It has caffeine in it. Isn't that bad for the baby?"
She frowned. "I'll have tea."
A few minutes later we were sitting at my dining table eating muffins and drinking coffee and tea respectively.
"Ryan and I feel terrible about having gotten you in the situation,” she said, dunking her tea bag in the hot water.
I looked at her. "It's not your fault. It's Hunter's fault."
Maybe that wasn't exactly true. He didn't arrange the articles in the paper and magazine any more than I did. But still, it seemed more accurate to blame him.
"I know you left your job, and you probably don't want to come back, but Ryan says we can find something else for you if you wanted. "
"I didn't even want to do this first job. You know that."
Was she really going to harp on me about getting a job again? Granted, I couldn't rely on her and Ryan to support me, but I could find my own job.
"We just want to help make this right. Do you have any plans?" Kellie asked.
"Well, it's only been a day. So no, I haven't made any plans yet."
Kellie reached out and put her hand on my forearm. "I'm sorry to sound like such a mother. I just want to make sure that everything's going to be okay."
I nodded, letting her know I understood. "As it turns out I'm actually pretty good at this marketing thing, unless Hunter was lying about that. So, I'm thinking of looking at some of the freelance sites. Maybe I can start my own little side hustle."
Kellie's gaze lifted to my covered art studio. "What about your art?"
I looked down into my coffee mug. "Hopefully, the desire will come back again, but right now I just can't."
"I'm so sorry, Natalie."
At that point I couldn't help the tears. As I cried, Natalie moved her chair over and put her arms around me. I didn't always like her being like a mother hen, but in this moment, it was nice to know she was there.
When she left to go to work, I spent a little time on the Internet looking for opportunities to make some money on the side until I figured out what I was going to do. Finding a freelance site, I signed up and started filling in the profile, but eventually my energy petered out. I saved the profile and then went back to bed.
I woke up and checked my clock, and discovered it mid-afternoon. It took me a minute to reorient myself to my life, but then it all came back to me, and crushed me again. This time when I got up, though I was determined that I would move on. I took a shower, got dressed, and then moved my furniture around a little bit, I made a makeshift home office, and finished my online profile. With that completed I did some research on current job openings, and was discouraged by how dull most of them looked, but went ahead and submitted my profile for consideration. After all, beggars couldn't be choosers.
I was considering getting out of the house to go for a walk. Just as I was grabbing my purse to go, there was a knock at my door. Checking my watch, it seemed a little early for Kellie to be showing up again, but I knew she was worried.
I went over and opened the door, and saw Hunter standing there. Anger erupted like a volcano. But instead of giving him an ear full, I simply slamed the door in his face.
I strode back into the apartment wondering what it meant that he was there. Had Ryan sent here to apologize and beg me to come back? That wasn't gonna happen and Kellie should've told him that it wasn't going to happen.
"I've come here to apologize," Hunter's voice came through the door. After a slight pause, he added, "And to grovel."
Grovel? Now that was something I wanted to see.
I went back to the door and opened it just enough to see him. I was surprised to find him leaning against the door jam, his face up against the door.
"I'm listening," I said, determined not to be swayed by anything he said.
"I'm an asshole."