Workplace Issues

3 - What To Do, What To Do

There was supposed to be a plan. At least, there was the idea of one, one that Daimen would ovbiousy have to create.

Sadly, he didn't exactly get the chance to do that - as not a week later, Buzzfeed, fucking Buzzfeed of all people, printed an article on So Random, Where Are They Now style of course and just casually included within it that Damien was rumoured to be having the first So Random cast baby.

It's still there, in bold letters, to catch the eye of everyone daring to try and scroll past it when Damien finds it and reads it several times, each more panicked than the last. He's going to be sick. No—he's actually—

He jumps up from his bed in his shitty, lonely apartment and makes a mad dash for the bathroom, falling to his knees in front of the toilet just as his lunch comes hurdling up, the bump in the way now it's been brought to attention again and practically mocking him as his teary eyes look in the mirror like those couple of days before, watching himself break down as he stares at it like it has the answers he wants.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looks at the mess in the toilet, and then looks at the article. It's like the universe is laughing in his face. He doesn't know what to do. He's never felt so alone, so trapped, so fucking hopeless. He tries to breathe, tries to calm down, but it's impossible. His heart is racing, his stomach is in knots, and his throat feels raw from the sobs he's been trying to stifle for days.

Outside, the city buzzes with life, oblivious to his misery. He tries to block it out, to focus on something, anything else. But the truth is, there is no escape. The article is like a weight around his neck, pulling him down into the depths of despair.

Of course, the keyword is rumour and he shouldn't be spiralling so hard as that is sprinkled heavily in that one line, but it feels almost like the dead weight in his belly that the baby has become over the weeks, that's just going to get bigger and heavier till it swallows him whole or gets him in over his head, whatever comes first. The seeds have been planted, his audience will most likely connect the dots. He's done for. He's done for.

Shayne would know what to do. He would. He /was/ the one responsible for Damien's current predicament. Courtney would also know, they both would, that's what made them work as a married couple. You don't just not know somebody after 4 years after all, as that's how long Shayne and Courtney dated before getting married at the courthouse.

Damien didn't fit in that, however. Didn't fit in their circle. He was just, as Shayne always put it to both him and Courtney, a friend with benefits since college and that's all he knew he would be to either of them. There were no plans for a baby. None. Nil. Zilch. Yet, there was a baby, barely there, but starting to make appearances and causing emotional chaos that Damien wasn't prepared for and now, as rumors do, he has no doubt that the article will cause a stir online, if not a few laughs at his expense and it's only so long before they find out the truth, Shayne and Courtney included.

He doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know what to do.