So he and Zander go way back, huh? I guess that’s why he’s been bolder than the rest of the guys who work here as far as hitting on me, because if it’s true what Zander says, all of his men want to take their chances with me at some point.
Although I still find that hard to believe.
“Hey, Jen!” I say cheerfully as I open the door to the HR department, but for some reason, as I step inside, I see a girl I don’t recognize sitting at my desk. She looks up at me, a sheepish look on her face.
“Hi…”
“Hi,” I reply. “I’m Ali, who are you?”
“Um…my name’s Martha., I’m—”
“Ali.” Jen comes into the room from her office, a tablet in her hand and a smile on her face, but a smile I can tell is hiding something serious. “Good morning. How are you?”
“Fine,” I say. “Is…something wrong?”
Jen looks at Martha, who could not look more awkward right now, then looks back at me. I feel like I’ve just walked into the middle of something.
“Ali,” Jen says. “Why don’t you sit down? There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Fired!?”Mel blurts out, sounding more shocked than I feel right now. “You have got to be kidding. Why!?”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?” she repeats. “What the fuck? The son of a bitch didn’t give you a reason?”
“The ‘son of a bitch’ wasn’t the one who fired me. Jen fired me,” I say, feeling absolutely deflated as Mel pours us both a glass of red wine.
We’re back at her apartment now, where I came immediately after Jen gave me the bad news. Mel was working but made up something about feeling super sick all of a sudden so she could be there for me. She’s a real one.
“Couldn’t even do it himself.” She shakes her head. “What an unimaginable asshole.”
“Right?”
“So what did Jen say the reason was?”
“She didn’t say.” I shrug as I replay the terrible moment in my mind. “You could tell she didn’t want to do it either. She just gave me some standard legal jargon about corporate restructuring and how they were no longer doing the internship but that other opportunities would arise that I’d be illegible for, and they’d be contacting me in the future—”
“Yeah, bullshit,” Mel scoffs.
“I know, right?” I sigh, taking a sip of my wine. I still haven’t even developed a taste for wine yet, but Mel has, so I just go along with her for the moment. Besides, I need something to do besides just sit here and wallow in my misery.
I can’t believe I fell for it.
I really thought he loved me. I really did.
But at the end of the day, I was just another girl that he was playing, just like Kendall, who he probably ran the same game on.
“You know what I think it might be?” I say.
“What?”
“This guy Brian.”
“What about him?”
“Well, he was hitting on me in the breakroom yesterday when I was getting coffees,” I explain. “And I kinda got outta there and made it pretty obvious I wasn’t interested. And then he was coming onto me again this morning, and I had to like blatantly tell him off and threaten to go to Zander if he didn’t stop.”
“Good for you, girl!” Mel laughs.