Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

I take one last look at them, conveying all of my hatred in the stares I leave them with before turning and walking out of the front door.

I hear footsteps race behind me so I speed up my walk until I’m at my car.

“Harmony!” Gerry shouts as I’m about to open the door. I fight myself to get in and drive away, but old habits die hard. I look back at him, seeing the remorse on his face for the first time since I found out he’d cheated on me. “I’m sorry, I...” He wipes a hand down his face. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

Normally I would have walked back up to him and told him that it was fine, that what happened doesn’t matter, but it’s not fine, and it does matter. His woe is me act won’t work on me anymore.

“Well at least we agree on something; I never wanted you to hurt me either. Go fuck yourself, Gerry, or your whore. Either way, you’re not my problem anymore.”

I drop into the driver's seat of my car, angry tears running down my face, but I know the enormity of the situation hasn’t hit me yet. It will, but for now I’m going to try and keep my head above water and concentrate on rebuilding my life.

My muscles tense at the thought of going it alone. Being alone frightens me more than anything, but I’ll do this, I have to.

Imagine Dragons—Radioactive

R

elient K—Don’t blink

Life is full of pivotal moments, moments that can change your life forever. Veering it off the track that you were on and destroying the plan that you had mapped out for yourself, the one you thought you were destined to follow.

I always thought I had control over everything that I did and over what my life would turn out to be.

I was wrong.

When I went to college at eighteen-years-old, I thought I’d regained my freedom. Freedom from the life I had been brought up in: the dinners, the balls, the pretentious, fake lives of everyone around me. I was never interested in that though. I wanted to be me: I wanted to play baseball and hang out with the “normal” kids who lived on the other side of town.

Only the “normal” kids weren’t the kind of kids that my parents allowed me to hang out with. I was supposed to be friends with the people from my side of town; the side that was full of mansions, sports cars, and fake people who did nothing but gossip about each other.

I may have had friends for appearances on my side, but my true friends were on the other side of the tunnel that separated the two halves of the town. I preferred to be around the people who lived in the normal-sized houses, who cared more about their families and friendships than their reputation.

I managed to sneak out and hang out with them for a while, keeping it a secret from my parents thanks to my driver, Edward. He’d driven me everywhere since I was four years old and he still does, even twenty-eight years later.

He was, and always has been more of a dad than my biological one. He would ask me how my day was when I finished school, he knew all my friends’ names—both the real ones and the ones I kept for appearances. He never told my parents anything, he knew how to keep a secret, something which made me trust in him fully.

Looking back now, I can remember the one pivotal moment that could have changed it all. My life would have been so different, and although I sometimes wish that I would have walked away from it all—from the money, from my parents—I know deep down that I wouldn’t change a thing.

I hated the lifestyle and the people in it for so long after I was given the ultimatum; I hated anyone who reminded me of the decision I had made. But most of all, I hated him.

I used to think that money gave you freedom, that it allowed you to do anything you wanted, but I was wrong. So, so wrong.

It trapped me. Trapped me in a job that I never wanted: the family company I’ve been running for the last nine years. I never had any interest in software, let alone becoming the CEO of a software company. But again, I had no choice in the matter.

What goes around, comes around. I never used to believe in karma, but I do now because my father got his just deserts when he was kicked out of the company he had built himself from the age of eighteen and sent to prison for nine years.

What I really wanted to do was work with numbers. They were my thing. I loved the definite answer that a number gives you. There’s no in between with them, the answer is either right or wrong; there’s no gray area, it’s either black or white.

But I soon learned that being the CEO of a company meant that I could be a part of something bigger and do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to play with numbers in the software department, then that’s what I did. If I wanted to sit behind my desk all day and be in meetings, then that is what I did.

The first few years of running the company wasn’t smooth sailing, I had a lot of trust to build thanks to my father. Being CEO of Carter Enterprises grew on me, I started to enjoy coming to work. Then it all changed. Work no longer became work, but a place to hide away from the tragedy that happened nearly six years ago.

It’s all my fault.

I’ve changed many things in the company over the last few years. It’s no longer somewhere where I can put my stamp on things, it’s a place that I can be the me that I’ve become. The cold, distant person; the one I prefer.

My mind whirls with all these thoughts and memories as I watch the buildings go by through the car window, my elbow braced on the door rest and my pointer finger rubbing aimlessly along my bottom lip.

I should be taking a business call or doing my last bit of work on the forty-five minute drive home from the city, but I don’t. Instead I gaze out of the window and imagine what my life could have been like had I taken a different path all those years ago. I could have been one of those people fighting through the crowds on the sidewalk as they all rush out of work early on a Friday night, vying for a clear path to walk as they run for the subway. They may look rushed, but at least they’re free.