Officer Pinter walked me to the front of the building and held his hand out for my badge.
“I don’t have it,” I said.
But then I thought they would get angry with Kaitlin so I had to make up a story. There was no way I was going to let Kaitlin get in trouble for letting me onto the unit.
“I lost it last week. If I find it, I’ll mail it back to you guys.”
“Fine, but if you don’t find it, make sure and call me so I can get the codes changed. I don’t want some random stranger having access to our units.”
“Because people are trying to break into our treatment center all the time?” I laughed.
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
“So, I’m fired?” I questioned, just to make sure I knew what was happening.
“Technically, I can’t fire you. But Mr. March will call you in the morning and do it or he might ask you to come in. You know if you fight it and say you two were just talking, he’ll take your word and let you off with a warning.”
Officer Pinter was a nice guy, and I appreciated him giving me an out if I wanted to keep my job. But there was no way I was going to stay if I had to lie and there was no way Mr. March could keep me on staff if he knew what I had done with Erik. This was my final moment in the treatment center. There was no way around it.
“Thanks, and I’m sorry for giving you so much trouble tonight.”
“It’s okay. Take care of yourself, Cassidy. Let us know where you land when the dust settles.”
“Will do,” I said as I turned to leave.
I had no idea what I was going to do or how I would explain things to my family, but I didn’t feel all that badly about losing my job. Maybe this was exactly what I needed to push myself into finally going to college.
Life happened in mysterious ways, and I was just going with the flow until I could figure out what was next for me.
After I walked into my house, I went straight to bed. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning. But I felt a little relief that I was going to get to sleep in for once in my life. My parents weren’t going to be happy about it, but I was pretty damn excited about not having to run off to work in the morning.
I had planned to sleep all morning long, but my mother woke me up when she realized I had missed the start of my shift.
“I don’t work there anymore,” I said through a yawn.
“Why not?”
“I got fired for sleeping with Erik,” I said without hesitation.
I was over lying to people and trying to trick people. The truth was the truth, and I’m sure my parents weren’t going to like it, but at least they could respect me and the fact that I wasn’t going to lie right to their faces.
“What?” she yelled.
Her loud scream brought my father to the doorway of my room, and they both stood there staring at me.
“I slept with Erik at work. He’s leaving today for California. It was my decision and my mistake. I know it’s not anything you two would approve of, and I’m sorry. Now can we please talk about this later? Because I want to sleep all day long.”
“We will talk about this later,” my father promised me as he stormed off down the hallway.
He was a man of his word, and later that evening, we spent a good hour discussing my poor decisions. I understood where he was coming from. If I looked at the situation from his point of view, I had made a really bad decision. But I could only look at things from my point of view, and it was done with and over. I actually didn’t care all that much that I got fired.
Luckily, I lived at home with my family and knew I wouldn’t starve to death. Plus, leaving my job really did force me to move on. I might never have actually gone to college and now I really had a reason.
The days and weeks traipsed by and I expected Erik to call at least once to check in with me. But then again, I had told him to take six months to get his recovery going. I thought about picking up the phone to call him but didn’t want to be one of those girls who latched onto a guy after a fun fling.
If all we had was a fling, I was all right with that. It didn’t cheapen the events of those weeks for me, at all. I still thought Erik was great and I still thought that someday we would connect again and reminisce about how we met.
My life went back to normal, although I felt there was a bit of a hole in is as I moved on. I started to work out regularly at the gym – it was a great way to blow off steam and the empowerment I felt was hard not to love. First, I could run for five minutes at a time and then ten. Soon, I was on the treadmill running for up to an hour at a time, with an incline.