Jerk

Finally, he tilts his head. “You really think I treat you so poorly?” Then he sighs. “Never mind. You’re not fired. I’m too lazy to do any paperwork today, let alone lose the only voice in the room willing to speak up to me. Go on, then, Prisha,” he says with a gesture of his mug at her. She turns to him, eyes wide. “Take the floor. Present us with your ideas. I know that notebook in front of you is filled with them.”

Prisha, after one last glance at me, clears her throat and wastes no time. I smile inwardly as she shares her brilliance with the room.

For the first time in a year, I feel like I’m taking a step in the right direction.

The challenge is to keep stepping in the right direction.

It seems like a blink of an eye later when I’m slipping onto the elevator, my day of work done. Quite frankly, I’m ready for another night of retrospection and tea-sipping. As it turns out, I’ve developed a taste for hot tea over the past week. Imagine that.

Prisha slips in after me. “What was that about?” she asks.

The elevator doors close. We slowly descend. “What was what about?” I ask coyly.

“You basically cut off your figurative balls in front of everyone, I hope you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

She smirks at me. “And still he didn’t fire you.”

“I’m basically a cockroach.” I half-turn to her, all the humor leaving my tone. “It was the right thing to do, Prisha.”

She doesn’t respond to that, but her eyes remain on the side of my face. I feel that same softness in her that I felt the last time we shared an elevator ride, like she’s looking for the old me.

Maybe it’s more visible this time.

We arrive at the first floor, and as I step off the elevator, she stops me with, “You want to grab a smoothie before heading home?”

I give her a surprised look. “You aren’t going into Jesse’s Fitness today?”

She rolls her eyes. “You mean uselessly walking on a treadmill for an hour? I’ll get enough exercise walking to our favorite smoothie joint.” She hesitates. “Assuming it’s still your favorite.”

I smile. “Of course it is.”

She smiles back.

It’s a strange feeling, talking to her again. It’s like not a single day has passed since the last time we chatted so openly. Yet everything is different. I’m not the same person I was. And despite the snide remark I made to myself about Prisha not changing in the least, it’s obvious she actually has done a lot of growing of her own this past year.

I find myself very interested to hear all about it.

The moment we’re out of the building, we’re confronted by a frantic face: Jonathan’s. “Dude, I’ve been calling you every day. Why the hell aren’t you answering my texts? I swear, you cast some kind of spell on me last week when you asked if I missed ‘Jonty’. I’ve been messed up in the head. I couldn’t go through with that woman that night. Something felt off. Something felt missing. Something felt …”

He draws silent the moment his eyes lock onto Prisha, stunned by the sudden awareness of her existence. Whatever was in Jonathan’s angry eyes is gone.

“I, uh …” He lowers his voice. “S-Sorry. I got a little carried away. Or something. Hi.” He extends a hand, then suddenly drops it. “Sorry, that was weird. Are you a friend of, uh, Romeo’s …? I’m Jonty.” His eyes flash when he realizes he used his old nickname. “Sorry. I meant Jonathan.”

She gives him a look that can best be described as a visual representation of WTF. “Prisha.”

“Prisha. What a … a beautiful name.” He leans into me at once. “Who’s this babe??”

I eye him. “My friend and coworker, and we’re grabbing smoothies together.” I give him a pat on the shoulder. “Sorry for the radio silence. I’m just going through a thing. But for now, a drink with my friend Prisha is in order. I’ll call you later, buddy.”

As I walk off with Prisha, she glances over her shoulder at him. Jonathan is watching us walk away, as if the cartoon version of himself still hasn’t picked his jaw up off the pavement. She smirks and calls out at him, “I like ‘Jonty’ better. Suits you.”

I have no idea what Jonathan does with that piece of information, because soon Prisha and I round the corner, and off we go.

It isn’t much longer before the two of us are sitting by a window, sipping our respective smoothies. Strawberry banana for me, ginger plum for her. Only small talk has been tossed back and forth so far over this tiny table separating us.

Then comes the good stuff. “What went wrong, Rome?”

I’m stirring my smoothie with the thick straw, pondering. “I ask myself that all the time. What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I find a guy for me? I decided I needed a change. I would ‘learn from the greats’. That is: all the assholes I dated previously who made me feel weak. I decided I would never again feel weak. I took control of my life. I decided: I was the only one who could choose how other guys made me feel. Was it really any of my exes who hurt me? Or was it myself, for being so ‘nice’, for putting myself in those situations? Nice isn’t good, I decided. Nice is the naïve thing you do to make others comfortable. It means nothing. ‘Nice’ is as great a lie as cheating.” I consider my remaining smoothie, thinking on all the men that passed through my bed. “Maybe that’s what makes the bad guy good: the way he approaches the dating world with honesty. I decided I’d never lie to myself again. I’d never lie to others with another ‘nice’ act. The nice guy in me was dead.”