Arranged to Him

Forgiveness

I finished signing the last document for the chip acquisition for which I had worked so long. Having enough chips to mass produce my devices was crucial, and I also needed them at a reasonable cost to keep the government interested.

"It's getting late. Thanks for getting this arranged for me." I told Susan that once the attorneys had left, the large conference room beside us was empty. She smiled and shrugged.

"It's literally my job. Even if it wasn't, I would do anything for you." She said, her tone softening in a way it never did when we weren't alone. Her thick hair was a bit messy with the late time, and her shirt wasn't perfectly aligned like it usually would be.

Somehow, between the late hour and her disheveled appearance, I felt my guard lowering as she walked up. She sat down on the table directly in front of me, waiting for me to take the bait.

"We can't do this. I'm married. Happily so." I said, but I felt like maybe I had made a mistake. Perhaps what I wanted had been here the whole time, and I had been too busy to see it.

She moved carefully, watching my expression as she sat on my lap, her arms curling around me, leaving no room in my mind for what she wanted.

"So? Divorce her. Give her a ton of money and marry me. What are you holding out for with her anyway? She's just a mindless maid from Turkey. What can she offer you for companionship that I couldn't? She doesn't even know how to spell her own name, probably." She said with a laugh.

"She's everything you will never be."

She let her hand trail down my shirt, playing with the top button challengingly, waiting for me to take the dare. I growled at her, annoyed, but she took it the wrong way and leaned in to kiss me instead.

I shoved her away and off of my lap all at once. She gasped, almost falling on her face, shocked and hurt. I rejected her. I didn't have time to explain. My phone rang, and the caller ID was for the police station.

"What was that? Why would you push me off you? You were definitely into it." She snapped at me, grabbing her papers and storming out without giving me a chance to explain.

I was numb as I answered the call. The call no one wants to get. They explained she had been in a horrible crash and she was getting transported to the hospital.

It was like the world stopped, and I couldn't remember to breathe. My heart started racing, and I struggled to stand up, realizing how horribly I fucked up. She was fighting for her life while I was hanging out with some random coworker like a teenage boy. I had never felt more shameful or terrified. The guilt I would live with if she died. I should've been home, then she wouldn't have gone out.

My thoughts raced as my driver took me to the Presbyterian ER, where he let me out at the front, and I raced in, hopeful I had made it in time.

"Anaya Bramer," I told the large, sloth-like reception nurse, who looked her up as slowly as possible.

"Oh yeah, her. Didn't look too good. She's in the back about to be rolled into surgery. Hey...wait! You can't go back there!" She yelled at me as I ran full force to the back, slipping in as a nurse ran out.

She was in a partitioned area, and there were doctors and nurses all working on her, yelling things at each other I didn't understand. She was covered in blood and unconscious. She had only recently started seeing the bruises fading from her arm, bruised fully again.

I felt sick but approached her cautiously, doing my best to stay out of everyone's way. She looked like a sleeping angel that someone had murdered in cold blood. Her lips were perfectly white, and yet despite the severity of the injuries, she didn't have a single cut on her face. Everywhere else was a bloody mess.