Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

[ 47 ]

Leaning my body over the bathroom basin, I let out heavy breaths as I reluctantly stared at my reflection in the half bodied length mirror that hung still against the white titled wall. My heart picked up its pace as I tore my gaze from my reflection to turn my attention back to the empty sink.

Right now, everything seemed to be falling apart.

The fight with Marcus several days ago made our relationship seem like it was on the rocks, my boss is clearly trying to break the boundaries of our professional work relationship, Michael's annoyance has slowly found its way on my nerves and now, this drug scandal investigation is pretty much something that has been keeping me up at night.

Since I spent most of my time at work, I was unfortunately stuck in a room full of people I hardly wanted to have any interaction apart from when I only really needed to. Daniel has been asking me questions but of course I just shrug those off and pretend that nothing's going on. Bella and Olivia have tried to speak to me but I just tell them the simple I'm fine. And Kyle, well Kyle's just being his own usual self which nobody can actually do anything about. But really the only thing I wanted was to have Marcus by my side to let me know that everything was going to be alright which I knew wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

I felt ashamed for saying to Marcus what I said last week, I mean he had every right to be angry with me after I didn't bother to send him at least one text message. I worried that I might have given him the impression that a breakup was on the table for us which was crazy because I was truly in love with him and the thought of being without the man that I love was heartbreaking. Taking a sigh, I grabbed the white bottle that sat in front of me and curled my fingers around the cold and tiny container. I paused for a moment and slipped a tablet in my mouth, allowing the cooling sensation of the water rush down my throat. It was stupid that I had resorted to something like this but honestly, right now, all my options were worn out and I needed something to help me concentrate on the investigation.

As I tightened my grip on the basin, I let out another sigh as I overheard a voice calling out my name. My body froze as my eyes trailed on the opened bottle of the tablets and felt my head starting to ramble with a million questions.

"Shit." I muttered softly to myself as I trembled to close the lid of the container and carefully store it away to ensure nobody else finds out about it before making my way out to the living room and the front door were I saw a more serious looking Abby Gilmore standing outside. Opening the door, I greeted her as she just sighed and stepped right through, confusing me with her initial reaction.

"Is everything alright Abby?" I asked her, wondering why she was acting weird this morning.

"We need to talk, like right now." Abby said sternly as I just stared at her, suddenly feeling slightly irritated about her arrival.

"Isn't that what we're doing right now -"

"Scarlett." She sharply injected as I just sighed and tried to avoid making eye contact with her. I knew she could tell that something was up with me, I knew everyone else could too. It wasn't that hard to read someone like me, who was nothing more than an opened book who rarely had any secrets to hid, rarely.

"What is it that you want me to say Abby? I swear to god, if this is about Marcus then I already made it quite clear about what my feelings are. I don't need to continually wear my fucking heart on my sleeve just to prove to everybody that I'm trying hard to work out the issues we both have in our relationship."

"Right now, I couldn't care less about him. As harsh that might sound, I didn't come here to talk about him. I fucking came here to talk about you Scarlett, just to talk about you and only you." Abby yelled as I just groaned in annoyance.