Burning Rancor 18+

Five

Mason left for his out-of-country business trip the very next morning. The absolute second his flight cleared the runway, I was officially exiled. I had to pack up my meager belongings into a small cardboard box. Carrying it felt like carrying a heavy box of shame as I made my way down to the main secretarial floor.

My new designated desk was located in the absolute farthest corner of the massive, open-plan room. To get to it, I had no choice but to walk down the central aisle, parading past dozens of desks occupied by the company’s core secretarial staff.

I felt completely mortified. My heels clicked loudly against the polished linoleum, the sound echoing like gunfire in the otherwise quiet room. But what caught me off guard wasn't a barrage of insults or nasty whispers. It was the complete, suffocating silence. No one was looking at me. Not a single person lifted their head. They purposely stared at their monitors, typing away, completely refusing to even acknowledge my existence.

It was a total cold shoulder, and honestly, it felt so much more gruesome than dirty stares or hissed comments. To them, I wasn't just a home-wrecker; I was a non-entity. A piece of trash they had collectively decided to erase from reality.

I felt entirely alone, the isolation hitting me like a physical blow as I finally reached my cramped corner desk. But I pulled through. I swallowed the lump in my throat, blinked back the burning in my eyes, and tried my absolute best not to get in anyone’s way. I logged into the network and diligently started on my basic data-entry work, keeping my head down.

"Complete this work," a sharp, icy voice commanded.

A heavy, thick stack of documents slammed onto my desk, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust. I flinched, my heart leaping into my throat. Looking up, I saw the head secretary standing over me. Her arms were crossed, and she was staring down her nose at me with an expression of absolute contempt.

"Mr. Brooks explicitly assigned you with this task before he left," she said, her voice dripping with venom. "Make sure it's done perfectly."

Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and walked away. I looked at the mountain of paperwork and let out a long sigh. Digging into the files, I realized this wasn't even urgent corporate data. It was ancient, backlogged archival work that wasn't necessary or immediately needed by anyone. It was just a punishment, a petty way to bury me in busywork so I wouldn't breathe their air.

But I didn't complain. I just got to work.

By the time I finally finished entering the last line of data, the sky outside the high windows had long since turned pitch-black. The main lights of the office had automatically dimmed, leaving only my desk lamp humming in the dark. I felt so utterly exhausted that I felt like passing out right there on the desk.

Ironically, because I had spent the last two years standing on my feet in Mason's office, my body wasn't used to this. Sitting in a cheap, unsupportive plastic chair all day- especially with a nervous hunch over the keyboard- had taken a massive toll. My back was aching badly, a sharp pain radiating across my shoulders, and my ass honestly felt like it was on fire from the hard seat.

Begrudgingly, I packed up my bag, caught the late bus home, and after whipping up a quick, tasteless meal in the dark kitchen, I retreated straight to my bedroom, praying my mother wouldn't hear me.

Morning couldn’t have come early enough. I felt like the sun rose the exact second I finally managed to close my eyes. My body felt heavier than it had the day before, every muscle protesting as I dragged myself out of bed. But instead of complaining, I forced myself to get ready for the office. I didn't want to linger in the house. It was a choice between the office or my mother, and right now, the office felt significantly less torturous.

I quickly stopped by a small, quiet restaurant down the street to get a quick bite of breakfast, trying to fuel my body before heading into the gauntlet.

The moment I stepped back into the secretarial office, the exact same routine repeated itself. I was instantly ignored, treated like a phantom wandering between the desks. Day two of the mental torture had officially begun.

The head secretary, true to form, dumped another massive, unnecessary s**t-ton of work onto my desk by mid-morning. Once again, I spent the entire day drowning in spreadsheets, typing until my fingers cramped and the stitches in my hand throbbed with a dull, white heat. It took until late at night to finish the final task. For the second time that week, I passed out into what felt like a short, desperate nap, waking up in a daze to the morning light of my final day in the secretarial pool.

"It's the last day," I whispered to myself as I stood in my kitchen, whipping up a simple breakfast.

I actually took my time getting to the office this morning. For the first time in days, I felt a tiny bit refreshed. The thought of surviving this isolation gave me a strange burst of energy. After today, Mason would be back, and I would be returned to my chairless desk in his private cabin.

It was crazy, really. As much as my feet hurt from standing all day in high heels, I realized I would much easily take Mason's loud contempt than this suffocating silence. At least Mason acknowledged my presence, even if it was only to demean and insult me. I didn't feel like a total ghost in his cabin. I didn't feel this specific, creeping anxiety every single second, wondering if someone was going to look at me or completely look through me. In a twisted way, his anger made me feel real.

With that thought providing a weird sense of motivation, I plowed through my morning work with actual energy. I knocked out the spreadsheets ahead of schedule. During lunch, I even decided to step out of the building to get a nice, hot meal at a proper cafe, wanting to celebrate making it to the finish line.

By the time I returned to the headquarters, it was already past the official lunch break. But that wasn't an issue at all because nobody cared enough to track my time. I'm sure everyone in that pool wanted me out of their hair anyway. My very presence seemed to disgust them too much, so my absence was probably a welcome relief to the entire room.

I walked into the lobby, feeling lighter, and pressed the button for the elevator. The silver doors slid open, and I stepped inside, turning around to face the front.

Just before the doors could close, a hand intercepted them. The sensors beeped, the doors slid back, and the last person in the entire world I expected to run into walked inside.

Eclipse.

The air in the elevator instantly vanished, turning into thick, suffocating ice. She was dressed in a crisp, perfectly tailored business suit, her hair immaculate, looking extraordinarily beautiful and radiant. She exuded the kind of effortless confidence that I used to dream of having.

My heart leaped into my throat, slamming violently against my ribs. I instinctively lowered my gaze, staring fixedly at the polished floorboards, my mind spinning into absolute chaos. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to do with my hands. The silence between us was deafening, the elevator lifting us higher into the building.

Desperate to break the tension, and driven by a sudden, aching need for connection, I blurted out the first thing that came to my head.

"How... how are you?"

My voice sounded small, trembling, and pathetic in the enclosed space. I looked up, my eyes wide. I really, truly wanted to talk to her. The urge to just confess everything was overwhelming. I wanted to tell her how deeply sorry I was. I wanted to scream that Mason was completely innocent, that he had never willingly betrayed her, that he was framed by my greedy mother, and that it was all because of my utter stupidity and cowardice. I wanted to give her her husband back, even if it meant I went to jail for drugging Mason.

But before I could even draw a breath to speak those words, the elevator dinged, stopping at the executive floor.

Eclipse didn't say a single word. She didn't even look me in the eye. The moment the doors parted, she practically ran out of the elevator, moving with a frantic haste as if being in the same small box as me had physically scorched her skin.

The doors slid shut again, leaving me completely alone in the mirror-lined car.

I knew I shouldn't feel sad. I kept telling myself that. Her reasons for feeling utterly disgusted by me were entirely valid. I had ruined her life. I knew that. I really, truly did. But as I stared at my own pale reflection in the elevator glass, I still felt hot, heavy tears stinging the corners of my eyes, blurring my vision.

With my shoulders completely slumped and the fleeting motivation from this morning entirely crushed, I dragged myself back to my corner desk and spent the rest of the afternoon staring blankly at the screen.

Once the workday finally came to an end, I packed up my box of things. I was officially done with the secretarial floor, but I couldn't bring myself to head home. The thought of my mother's chilling smirk, her one-month ultimatum, and the threat of being sold off to some unknown man made my chest tighten until I couldn't breathe. I couldn't sit in that dark house tonight.

Instead, I turned away from the bus stop and headed straight down the neon-lit street toward a local bar.

I needed a drink. Just one. I wanted to feel happy, or at least numb. I wanted to forget the silence of the office, forget the disgust in Eclipse's exit, and forget the terrifying reality waiting for me at home. I just wanted to disappear into the loud music and amber liquid for a little while.

What I didn't know, as I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the crowded, noisy bar, was that I was only bringing a whole new world of trouble straight to my doorstep.

~•~