Hold The Door, Please | ONC 2022

12. Floor: 70.5

Haylie

My heart pounds as Will joins me at the panel.

"Hello?" he asks this time.

"We're... fixed... as... can." We struggle to process the stuttering voice as they continuously cut in and out. "Don't... get... soon."

Before we can even try speaking again, the speakers go silent and the button's light turns off. The elevator shakes before the lights suddenly go out once more. I jolt and quietly gasp before tightly grabbing onto Will's arm.

"I um, might be a little afraid of the dark," I manage to squeak. Under normal circumstances, the dark is just mildly creepy. Today however, it only amplifies the stress. His arm feels strong and steady, helping me calm down a little.

"Don't worry," he reassures me. "Help me find my phone."

We blindly pat around on the floor until I hear Will picking something up.

"My battery is dead," he groans. "Could you use your phone?"

I manage to find my bag and rummage through it. It takes me a bit of fumbling, but I eventually find my phone. I angrily mutter a slew of profanities under my breath when my phone doesn't turn on. "Mine is dead too," I grumble. "Randall's stupid, useless gps app eats up battery life in the background." My phone lands with a muffled thud as I frustratedly toss it onto the floor.

I feel around until I find Will and sit down next to him with a frustrated huff.

He checks his pockets and sighs. "Any chance you have anything else that produces light?" he asks.

I'm about to say no until I remember what's in my bag. There's an awkwardly long pause before I speak. "Yes, but you can't laugh," I mutter.

"I won't."

I blindly dig through my bag until I find it and place it onto the floor in front of us. There's a mechanical clicking noise before the room suddenly lights up with rainbow coloured moving lights. In front of us sits a teddy bear with a slowly spinning disco ball in place of its stomach. It quietly plays a scratchy instrumental version of Dancing Queen through its low quality speakers.

Will immediately bursts out laughing – until he notices me glaring at him. He poorly attempts to conceal his laughter with a fake cough.

I give his arm a hard punch. "I told you not to laugh," I growl. "I needed to return it to Randall." Lola normally keeps her disco bear at his place but brought it back to mine for some reason.

Will wheezes as he wipes away his tears from laughing. "I guess you couldn't return it to him today because you were," he pauses to give me a teasing smirk, "too sick to go to work?"

I groan and bury my face into his shoulder. "I couldn't just tell him I was looking for a new job, you wouldn't understand."

"I'm sure I understand," he snorts. "I can't imagine I'd be thrilled working for Randall either."

"Your privilege is showing," I mutter and roll my eyes. "He could get angry and fire me before I've found a new position – I can't just jeopardize my job like that." Someone like Will who has basically always been guaranteed job security his whole life wouldn't be able to wrap his head around my situation.

"Yeah, I've been unemployed before. It sucks." He nods and pats my shoulder. "I get it."

The fact that he thinks he can relate pisses me off to an irrational extent. The exasperation of the last four and a half hours has been continuously building and is beginning to threaten to spill over. Will being here is doing nothing to stop it – he's acting as a catalyst in fact.

"But you don't!" I exclaim – even slightly surprising myself with my outburst. "I have next to nothing in my savings. Being unemployed means losing my apartment and car. It means losing everything." Tears sting my eyes but I stubbornly brush them away before they can fall. "I could lose my sole custody of Lola." 

I barely manage to get my words out before my eyes blur with tears and I break down crying. Years and years of built up stress and anxiety come pouring out as I bury my face in my hands. I was struggling for years before Lola was even born – how am I supposed to take care of her when I can still barely take care of myself? The overwhelming guilt is crippling.

I limply oblige as Will gently pulls me against his chest and wraps his arms around me. I'm almost certain I'm staining his expensive suit with my tears, but I'm too distraught to care. My chest hurts with each shallow, erratic breath and my entire body trembles.

"I'm really sorry, Haylie," he murmurs and slowly strokes my hair. "That was incredibly ignorant of me."

I silently bury my face into Will's warm chest. I can feel his steady heartbeat against my cheek and smell his, now faint, cologne. He gently strokes my back and maintains his firm hold around my body. His presence itself is calming, providing me with the comfort I didn't even realize I wanted or needed.

I completely lose track of time as we sit. Three minutes? Thirty? An hour? Everything sort of blurs together into a disorienting mess.

Once everything has slowed and I've recomposed myself, I peel my stiff body off of his chest. I avoid eye contact, not even wanting to know how much of a mess I must look like right now.

"I'm sorry," I whisper hoarsely and tuck my messy hair behind my ear. "You just struck a nerve that I didn't even know I had."

He holds my hand and gently squeezes it. "No, it's my fault," he insists and tiredly runs his hand through his hair. "I guess I'm more out of touch than I realized."

I release a deep sigh with a quiet hum. "The last couple of years have just been pretty rough."

"Yeah, I noticed you looking at your phone on the way up here," he says sheepishly. "You seemed quite angry to say the least."

"That was more or less our regular daily interactions in a nutshell," I laugh humorlessly and shake my head. It was more civil, if anything. "I'm just so miserable working with Randall. As risky and petrifying as it feels, I know it's finally time for me to do something about it."

I wake up and dread heading to work. While at work, I resent everything I'm doing and despise being there. Heading home is the only time I feel relief, but even after that, the guilt lingers at home. I'm just stuck in a relentless loop.

It's a depressing way to live life. I just try to ignore that fact, but you can only pretend for so long before the truth catches up to you.

"I understand now," Will murmurs. "I'm sure it took a lot of courage to come here today, but as a wise woman stuck in an elevator once told me, sometimes you have to do what you have to do to make yourself happy."

I giggle and nudge him playfully.

We sit in peaceful silence for a little while before Will softly sighs and turns towards me.

"I don't know what's going to happen once we leave this elevator, but I really wish you the best, Haylie," he says and smiles at me. "I haven't met someone as passionate and dedicated as you in a long time. I'm sure you'll accomplish great things."

Even in the stupid rainbow lighting, his expression is soft and sincere, and the tension in my body unclenches.

"Thank you," I whisper.

My heart begins to palpitate as I notice Will leaning closer to me, and I do the same. He brings a finger to my chin to tilt my face upwards to meet his. I feel his warm breath against my lips and our noses brush. We're tantalizingly close – centimeters, millimeters apart.

We're abruptly interrupted by a familiar voice coming from outside the elevator.

"Will! Are you there?"