But I couldn’t be her.
So I threw the file up on the highest shelf in my closet, one that was so high that it was clearly meant to keep things you never wanted to see again.
And I tried to move on.
I got permission from Andrew to paint my walls, with the strict orders that I would need to paint them back before I moved out.
‘Back.’
As though faded-by-time-white was an actual color.
But whatever.
It gave me something to do. Take my car to the home improvement store, hem and haw swatches until my eyes started playing tricks on me, get supplies, then coming home and watching Youtube videos on the spotty wi-fi that came with the apartment buildings since I couldn’t get hooked up myself for another week on how to paint a wall.
Yes, I needed to Youtube that.
When I was poor, spending money on paint was frivolous and unnecessary. And when I had finally ‘made it,’ I figured it made more sense to hire someone to paint for me.
It never occurred to me before how little I knew how to do for myself.
I had needed to ask Andrew to help me bracket my TV to the wall, to help me fix my toilet that had a tendency to run for no reason. I had to look up how to find a stud to hang a shelf, how to use communal laundry machines, to pump my own gas. All this little life stuff that had never really been part of my reality before was suddenly something I had needed to figure out on my own.
It was enough, here and there, to keep me occupied, to keep my mind from wandering, to keep things locked down as tight as I wanted them.
It was at night when it happened.
When my defenses were low.
When my desires were high.
When my body wanted me to remember.
When my heart wanted me to as well.
My dreams were fraught with one of two things – nightmares about Rodrigo Cortez… and vivid dreams about Gunner. Both made me wake up sweating, heart pounding, twisted in the sheets. For very different reasons.
I woke up exhausted, frustrated or scared, or a mix of both.
It was only three days before I couldn’t take it anymore – the having no focus. There was only so much sketching I could do before my hand started to hurt, only so many books I could read before my eyes went swimmy. Only so many failed attempts at baked goods before I lost my enthusiasm to try.
It was time to get a job.
The options weren’t exactly ideal. I mean, this was not the fashion capital of the world. There was nothing even resembling a high demand for designer handbags. Not that I could really go into that business again anyway. But I was hoping for something similar.
The only options Jules had found even remotely in my field were in fashion retail.
I hadn’t worked in a store since I was a teenager, and even then, only fleetingly.
But I had to work.
I didn’t just have one resume, either. I had three separate ones to choose from – one geared toward different sorts of jobs from office work to retail. I chose the one most suited toward retail, went in for an interview at a local big box store, and got a job.
Not in fashion.
In fact, I didn’t even get to work in the clothing department for the first few days at all.
But I did get to work in electronics. And the garden center. And home goods. And the register.
Everything felt foreign to me, from learning how the system worked to knowing what the difference was between 4k and 4k Ultra, to the short lunch breaks, to the bathroom breaks that were actually limited to clocking in and out.
My feet hurt.
I used to spent ten, twelve, fourteen hour days in heels at my office. But even that hadn’t prepared my feet – my sneaker-clad feet – for what it would be like to work in a store for a simple eight-hour shift. Blisters upon blisters. An ache that moved up my calves to my behind to my lower back.
I went home with every part of me feeling like it was throbbing, with headaches from the harsh overhead lights, hungry because my lunch break wasn’t long enough for me to finish even half of my food, drained from having to smile and be pleasant to customers who were rude and irrational.
It was draining in a way I didn’t know existed.
And then, oh yeah, I got to meet my manager.
The funny thing about men like him is, you get a vibe. Even before they come your way, before they rake their eyes up and down you, before they open their mouths.
Their presence makes you feel slimy, makes you look around to make sure someone is within screaming distance. Something within you just recognizes something within them.