nevertheless~

part 58

HARDIN'S POV
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It’s the middle of the night and I’ve been walking in continous circles near the beautiful space of this fucking hotel Jonathan has booked for us. The property is spread out so far, that one can walk as much as they want and yet here I am in circles, because isn’t that the paradox of my entire life.

I was once 10, a boy in middle school, who all but wanted to just be included on the basketball team, but couldn’t get there, because the coach was good friends with the parents of other kids, and well, my father was busy drinking his years away and wasting the time he could’ve given me as a young boy to a Jack Daniel’s neck and Gin and Tonic can.

I was once, 19, in college rubbing myself off, night and day, working my ass to get enough grades to give any edge to myself, whatsoever over the kids just to be good enough in my course and there it was, again the prejudices of the school board over kids who could afford to go to the best counsellors they could find and I was there a poor boy with nothing but dreams and hopes, and 4 GPA which doesn’t help much, because for that you need to be in some kind of sport, the opporutinity of which I lost when I was 10 and I couldn’t gain any ahead because of my financial condition. Working at a sandwich shop doesn’t exaclty pay you enough to afford school alongside the money it would take to enroll one’s self into an extracurricular.

I am today, 22 and with a job waiting upon a promotion which is going to be given to boy who deserves it much lesser that I do, doesn’t have 1/10th of the knowledge I have, or the experience for it, just becaue he is the nephew of the owner of the company.

The paradox, of Hardin Scott’s life.

It’s funny the working of time. Time sure is a great comedian, because at this hour 12 hours back, my girlfriend was threatening the same man about this very topic and 12 hours later, we are both up, helpless and in search of an answer to a question we don’t know.

I can see from afar here, that in the entire building, the whole hotel is fast asleep but there is one faint light in one room on. Our room. Her room. She too isn’t able to sleep wondering just like me, the outcome of the circumstances we’ve been put.
One must wonder, how is it possible? That something like this could only happen in a person’s stupidest imaginations but, life goes beyond and ahead imagination. This is a cruel world we live in. Here this thing happens. A person can lose his job to another in a span of 6 hours, because they have networks, conncections, reach, money, a filthy surname ahead their name, power, authority. In a world where one can lose his life in the next minute, losing a job can highly be shocking to anyone.

I am walking into the cold nighty garden to try to rearrange my thoughts in a manner than help me get to the crux of this. I am searching for an answer, but I don’t know what the question has to be.

Am I going to lose?

Is this the end of all the endings that could have been to my promotion?

Should I ask someone back there to clear up my office already?

And the irony of this is that…the answer to all of this is, I simply do not know.

Who do I blame for this? Myself? Have my efforts not been good enough? Was I, not a dedicated enouh employee toward Jonathan? Did I not come to the office, give my 100 percent and then some, to get this promotion? What would I change if I had the time still?

The absurdity of this is that… I cannot not have this promotion. It has been a dream of mine, for the longest time. Getting this promotion would mean, that I would be able to pay off my house loan faster, earlier and it wouldn’t get carried down to Smith. Getting the promotion would mean that I get to live the kind of life I have been able to give Smith and Myself, for the coming years. It means that there is hope for me and Tess even in the future if by some miracle I get the girl to say she loves me too. So, the option of not getting is, is simpley not there.

But I refuse to take the promotion as a pity. I do not want any part of it, because the CEO’s nephew gave it to me, that he let me have it. Or, that I fucked my way to the promotion. I cannot do that. I cannot have anyone think that I have slept my way to the position, that I got it because it was a….an exchange consideration by Tessa to me for being with her.

I want this because I did everything in my power to deserve it. My ego is not big enough that I would throw Tessa under the bus and let false accusations go about us. And it certainly isn’t about ego here either, it’s about the blood, sweat, tears, dreams, and aspirations that I have put behind this thing. 2 years is a long time, some people can start a whole new life in 2 years time, and now imagine devoting that time to only one thing, day and night, all the working hours that you worked only with the fire to have that promotion.

Tess can’t hand me the promotion, because if she does, it makes us looks promiscuous for the whole company. It makes it as though, we as employee’s pollute the system, by being romantically involved with each other, even though we have an open dating policy, but…clearly, favourism to the nephew of the CEO is one of the angelic activites.
I can’t let Ichor have the promotion either, because that motherfucker can have that promotion only over my deadbody.

I can’t stop Tessa from giving it to Ichor, since her promotion, depends on this one.

If she chooses him. She gets promoted. I don’t. He becomes my boss. And She, becomes my bosses boss.

If she chooses me. She doesn’t get a promotion, because Jonathan wouldn’t like it if his nephew couldn’t get the promotion, why would he allows hers, and Landon who decides her promotion, will think that she did me a favour, since he knows about our relationship. I become her boss. Ichor and Tessa now fight it out for the place I leave behind. And she becomes my junior, even though she is multiple times more knowledgable than me, and has been clearly doing the job I will be given for years now and I absolutley more deserving of it than I will ever be.

“Fuck”, I let out a curse as I sit on the little children’s swing the garden. Even from here I can see the little light of our bedroom, which looks like a small star in the sky now. I stare at the light for the next 5 minutes or however long it was. The light shuts at the 10th minute, the next second I get a message from her.

T- Please come back to me. I promise I will fix this.

Oh my lovely Tess, if only you knew how unfixable this thing is. How much of a blunder it all truly is. This girl is the only person who knows how desparetly I wanted this promtion,want this promotion. She cares about my wants. She simply cares and that is the most I was given as a child and even to this day, and I value that. I value her so much that I don’t understand it until my tears hit the spot fake grass of the garden and I hear myself gasp for air.

My whole future is on the line here. Our whole future is on the line here. My housing loan is dependent on getting a raise out of the promotion, whether or not Smith continues at that school he goes to, depends on it. What does Ichor have to lose?

Which is why, the next things that follow have happened, because of her and for her. I know I'm not the kind of guy who would do this but desperate times call for desperate measures as they and so that is why, the game is on. If Ichor thinks he can fuck with me, he better be ready for this now. If one system can be rigged so can the others.