An Unfinished Business

Episode 7

A week after the incident, our boss finally told us about the party and surprises of surprises, invited us. It was a fund-raising party for the hospital. This was the one thing I never could figure out. How are hospitals always so poor despite not one room being empty? There’s always shortage of money but never of customers (patients!). And now the party seemed like another hurdle I had to cross. Ryan would be there which meant that I’d have to keep myself hidden from him for one whole night. But obviously all that came after. First I had to know if he would come. He hadn’t confirmed he would, had he? He had said he’d surely come if I’d come with him as his date; and that seemed highly unlikely now.

 My boss had called me the other day to hear Carter’s response and I had given an assuring yes. To be frank, I wasn’t thinking then. The purpose of the entire encounter had somehow obliviated through my mind but when it did catch up with me, I had said yes. How stupid of me. If he didn’t come, my boss would kill me. Now it was suddenly my esteemed responsibility to get Carter to the party and spend it all on running away from him. How beautifully I had crafted this crap. He’d probably send me to his home in the middle of the party to bring him. That would be so infuriating…. Or interesting?  Ughh! No, no, no! I have to prevent myself from going back to that night.

That day as I reached home, it was well past midnight. Now that the party was 2 days away, every floor had to be sparkling, every paper filed and every department properly equipped. It had taken me 8 hours to file all the papers and forms and another 4 to distribute them to all departments and listen to their worries. I was tired as fuck and all I wanted was to crawl in my bed and sleep till eternity. I quickly gathered my things and jumped out of the car.

I was locking the door when Ryan came out of the dark, “Park!” he yelled. I slammed my forehead on the car. The evil was finally upon me.

I turned around and there he was, standing in front of me, so proud, unabashed. In the weak light that filled the sky, I could only see him faintly.

“Hi.” I muttered, confidently.

“Hi Park, how come I haven’t seen you in forever?” he was dressed in a t-shirt that said “forever young” and knickers.

“I’ve been busy. It’s been a lot of work in the office. I just came in and if you’d excuse me I’d like to sleep.” I tried to not concentrate on the way his lips moved or the way he licked them with his tongue before saying anything.

“Oh and I thought you have been avoiding me. Well I had come to ask, to tell you actually, that I’m going to be there in that party whether you come with me or stay at home.” He said and flashed a great smile. Oh thank god! I was feeling hugely relieved but surprisingly, a little disappointed because there was a slight chance I could have been sent to his home in the middle of night and now there was none.

“Well, in that case I’d just go alone then.” I said, adding too much honey, “Goodnight Ryan.”

“Goodnight princess. I’ll be here at 6. In that flashy car there.” He said and pointed to his rusty Volkswagen. I did my best to not follow the direction he was pointing at and stared straight at him.

“In your dreams Carter, in your dreams.” I said and walked off to my home, running the last few steps and quickly going inside. I shut the door and waited a few minutes before peeking out from the window, in case he caught me watching him. He was going back. Strolling in that lazy manner, with his hands in his khaki knickers pockets. I heaved a breath. Nice escape, girl.

I kept all my stuff away and laid on my bed. Now that the bed was under me, sleep was somewhere else. I tossed and turned for a million hours but couldn’t manage to sleep. Knowing that I had an early morning tomorrow was no help. I sat back and took my phone, scrolling back and forth.

The collision with Carter brought back all the memories that were already threatening to resurface. This situation was so weird that I couldn’t make any head or tail of it. I had promised to not be the sleep-with-anyone kind of girl but that stupid almost-kiss was making me so vulnerable. I felt ashamed and weak. I didn’t know what to do so I thought about Kate, my best friend.

 Kate was a local news anchor in Charleston and had crazy work hours. It was years since those days when we used to stay together for hours, do summer projects and live a life that always had her presence. But yet, even though I saw her once or twice a year, everything felt the same around her. We still were those teenage girls calling each other and pouring all our miseries to each other or having heated arguments and promising never to talk. God, I missed her.

I picked up the phone and called her. No answer, as expected. I tried two more times and got the same response. The stupid person didn’t even have a voicemail. I sat down on my couch, exhausted and tired of all this running and hiding I’ve been doing all these days.

 Now that I was awake, I thought about dinner, which was cold ice cream that I had fortunately kept in my fridge. It was 2 am and the darkness outside maybe got inside me and made me mad at Kate more than ever. I was annoyed at her job timings and how she seemed too busy in her work to have stupid problems like me. After a minute of senseless anger, loneliness and desperation crept in. I had to tell her everything so desperately that my fingers started to itch. When I couldn’t handle it anymore, I logged into my Gmail account. We had this thing of emailing rather than texting, which when you thought about it, seemed stupid but oh well. I started typing,

Hello Ellen Degenres, hope you’re killing it in that stupid job of yours. I tried calling you a thousand times but as always you did not pick up, the awesome friend you are. That’s sarcasm by the way, which means I’m not fine in case you didn’t get it. Well I did the hard work of emailing you at 2 in the morning because my life has, as usual, got into a mess. Remember that lawyer neighbour I have, Ryan Carter? Yes the same one who unfortunately makes me weak in my knees or you know somewhere else. Yeah well a lot of things happened between him and me in the last month that I’ve been trying to put inside but can’t. I can’t tell you here because you won’t read it and I don’t want a virtual friendship. So YOU WILL HAVE TO CALL, BITCH.  I know I’m not making any sense but you’ll have to call me to make any sense. And YOU WILL. Because that’s strike 100 now of you being an asshole friend. To summarise though; he came to meet me, he yelled at me, we met again, we not-kissed, I embarrassed myself and now I’m avoiding him like the plague until today when he caught up with me and asked me to be his date again. Fortunately enough, my brain didn’t betray me this time so I was able to run away. But I don’t know what else to do now. I can’t avoid him forever, he’s coming to our hospital’s charity gala and as you’d have learned by now, he’s my neighbour so yeah a 10 metre radius is a very dangerous zone to be in. Call me as soon as you read this. I don’t care what work you have. I need you here so bring your ass from that teleprompter to my telephone. Call me.

I sent her the email and tried to go back to sleep. Our conversation kept running in my mind. How long will it take till the eclipse quit to stalk?