MY BEST ADDICTION

Chapter 7

“I’m sorry for my words and actions earlier”, I heard which brought me back from my thoughts and smiled at him.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t rational either. I’m sorry”, I said back to him and that ended our lovey-dovey moment in the car. Checking the time, we realized it was late and we couldn’t go back to the office so they dropped me off at home and continued their journey home.
After taking my bath, I fell on my bed and surfed through my phone with a smile on my face happy about the events that transpired today.
Thinking that everyone in the company viewed each other as a family I never expected what happened to me during the following weeks in the office. I had eyes following my every move and step in the office and that made me feeling uncomfortable inside. The only one who was neutral with me was Amber who still called to invite me to lunch and responded to my greeting wholeheartedly.
“Excuse me”, I heard from behind on my way to submit some documents to Marcus. Thinking I wasn’t the one addressed I walked on only for the person to call my name. I stopped and turned to find one of the interns walk towards me.
“How may I help you?”, I asked when she got to me.
“Um, we the interns have an outing during the weekend and I wanted to find out if you were free during that time and since no one has your number I had to come directly to you”, she said and looked at me expectantly.
I wanted to bond with them too since I had hardly spoken to any of them after the first day here but I had work on Saturday and I had already missed the previous weekend, so missing another one wasn’t appropriate.
“I’m sorry but I’m busy on that day”, I said feeling guilty seeing the frown on her face.
“Oh okay”
“Please excuse me, I really need to submit these documents urgently and I’m sorry once again”, I said when I saw the time on my watch. I smiled at her and turned away from her but the smile vanished from my face when I knew what I had done. I rushed to Marcus’ office and knocked on his door.
“Come in”, I heard and entered. I guess the worry was written all over my face that he even realized it.
“What’s up? Did Seth do something?”, he asked looking worried.
“No. It’s just that I haven’t had time to bond with the other interns because I didn’t go through the training with them and I have always been with either you or Seth”, I said looking away from him.
“You can hang out with them anytime. Does Seth have a busy schedule this week?”, he asked after thinking about it for a while.
“No, but who knows what might happen”
“You can be with them for the rest of the week. I’ll attend to Seth myself for the rest of the days. Is that okay?”, he said making me smile at him and thank him.
I left his office feeling happier than I was earlier but the smile left my face and a frown took over when I turned the corner of the hallway.
“What did she say?”, a guy asked.
“She said she was busy and couldn’t hang with us”, the girl from earlier answered.
“I guess working with the two bosses of the company makes her think she’s already an employee here and has no time for us”, another guy said.
“Do you think she’s with any of them yet?’
“Who says it can’t be both of them? She’s with either of them all the time that it would be surprising if she hasn’t climbed in any of their beds. After all she got the highest position any intern could get on her first day”
I heard all they said and decided to leave since I didn’t want to hear any more of what they said. I decided to use the stairs to our floor instead of the elevator because I couldn’t trust myself not to breakdown in the elevator. I returned the documents back to Seth and went to my office not even sparing a glance his way. The rest of the day passed in a blur.
“As you already know, this is Penelope Whyte, for the rest of the week she is going to assist this department with any work you will be assigned”, Marcus told them the next day. I greeted them with a smile but some looked at me with smirks on their faces while some looked annoyed with and at me.
“Are you okay?”, he whispered to me seeing the reaction of the people in front of us.
“Yeah, I will be fine”, I assured both him and myself.
He excused himself and left me alone with my seniors and colleagues. I braced myself for whatever was going to be thrown my way smiling the whole time. I was sent on errands that do not have any impact on the work of the department. I was tossed from one office to the other with their interns doing nothing to help me but rather ridicule me. During lunch I walked to the cafeteria to get Seth’s and my food.
“Did you see her face earlier? She looked pitiful but it serves her right for trying to act almighty to us after working with the boss”, I heard when I was about to enter the cafeteria.
“I feel bad for her, because she had to do all our work without resting. We even had to leave her to work when we came for lunch”, the girl from yesterday said. I later got to know her name was Emily.
“It looks like they got tired of her and disposed her off else why would she be brought to our department. As for you before you defend her did she even care about you before you spoke to her yesterday? She didn’t even know you existed”.
They continued to berate me for my involvement with the bosses but stopped when they heard Amber call my name from the entrance of the cafeteria. She realized I wasn’t comfortable with the rest and walked with me to the cafeteria for our food and left to Seth’s office leaving them to wonder if I had heard them or not. I knocked and entered his office when he called me in.
“I thought you were going to eat with your new friends”, he said when he realized I was the one who entered.
“I brought your food”, I said and placed his food on his desk. I entered my office and ate my lunch feeling sad and felt a few tears drop on my face. After eating, I placed my head on my desk and tried to compose myself for a while before I left the office.
“See you later, sir”, I said and tried to leave but stopped when he spoke.
“What is wrong?”, he asked.
“Nothing, sir. I’m just feeling a little under the weather”, I said trying to smile at him.
“You know you can talk to me right?”, he asked instead when he realized I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to talk to him, I wanted to tell him everything, even if not him Marcus was also a good friend to me but I didn’t want to bother them with such trivia. I wanted to endure it since it meant what they thought of me was wrong and they were just making a fool of themselves, but it hurt because some of what they said were true, I wanted our boss and I wanted him very bad.
“Yes please. Excuse me sir”, I said smiling as best as I could and left his office to continue enduring whatever was brought my way. I was happy he didn’t take it against me for moving to the other departments without telling him directly so I wasn’t going to bother him with such little things.