The Boy Who Has No Hope (Soulless 6)

I wasn’t just hurt by the way he’d torn me apart. I was hurt by what I’d lost.

The man I adored was no longer here.Whenever Derek took it too far, he apologized. Last time he had an outburst, he reflected on his actions and apologized entirely on his own.

But the apology never came.

I used to enjoy my job, but now I dreaded it. We sat in the car together in absolute silence, and whenever I had paperwork that required attention, I tried to take care of it as much as possible just to avoid speaking to him. I started to reject him as much as he rejected me.

It took away all my joy. I used to love serving him, making his life easier, getting to know this man even better.

But now he was just a ghost.

Ronnie pulled up to the building so Derek could get out and go into his penthouse. Derek returned his papers to his satchel and put his phone in his pocket in preparation to depart.

We hadn’t spoken in days, not once since he screamed at me. I decided to say something and hoped it would smooth things over. “Have a good night, Derek.”

He flinched at my words, just for a second, and then he opened the door and got out. He ignored me…like always.

Ronnie pulled away from the curb and drove me home. “Fucking asshole.”

Derek’s behavior was disappointing, but I still stuck up for him—like always. “He’s not an asshole. Just going through a hard time…”

“He’s not the one crying every day.” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror, telling me he’d noticed the redness in my eyes, the puffiness in my cheeks.

It’d definitely been a rough week.

When Ronnie dropped me off, I went to my apartment. My mom was teaching Lizzie how to cook, and the two of them stood in the kitchen preparing dinner. Mom grabbed a bottle of olive oil and poured it over the chicken. “You’ve got to keep your meat wet. Otherwise, it’ll burn.”

Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest. “When I asked you to show me how to cook, I meant tacos or something…”

I set my purse on the table and headed down the hallway without saying hello. There was so much weight on my shoulders that I couldn’t carry it anymore. I had tough skin so I could deal with Derek treating me so poorly, but the fact that we used to be so close was the hardest part. It was like we broke up, even though we were never together.

I was stupid for assuming the dust would settle. I realized I only had one option.

Quit.

Maybe he was purposely being a dick so I would do just that.

I grabbed my laptop and wrote an email to my old publisher, asking if it was possible for me to have my old job back, or if there was something else available similar to my old salary. It was humiliating to grovel for my old job, but I needed something quick.

Lizzie peeked into my bedroom. “Mom?”

I kept my eyes on my computer. “Hmm?”

She stepped farther inside. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?” I finished typing the email and closed the laptop.

She crossed her arms over her chest, not having an attitude like usual because she seemed to believe something was troubling me. “Well, you always look at me when I talk to you…”

Guilt swept through me.

“You’ve been down all week. I know you think I’m a kid, but I notice this stuff.”

Sometimes I forgot how quickly she had aged. She was still a child to me, but I remembered how I was at that age. Lizzie was a million times smarter than I ever was as a preteen. I sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard. “It’s just been a hard week at work.”

She came to my bed and lay beside me, cuddling with me. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

My arm wrapped around her, and I pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Having my little girl in my arms quickly chased away my pain. Losing Derek even when he had never been mine was so hard, but I had something much more important to cherish. If he was this upset by my daughter’s existence, then I didn’t want to be with him anyway. “I’m feeling better already.”After I brought lunch, I stepped inside his office so I could check my email and eat. When I glanced out the window, I saw Derek grab a bag of chips and a sandwich and plop it on his plate before he returned to his workstation. He ate and worked at the same time, no longer interested in sharing his meals with me. He was upset that I’d lied to him, but if he could forget about me so easily, then he’d never really cared about me to begin with.