His Mistake
1040 Words
Chapter 5
His Mistake
(Slade’s POV)
I watched the door close behind her.
There was something about her. The way she looked at me.
I stared at the place where she had been standing. My chest felt tight in a way I didn’t want to analyze.
I pushed it down. I had no business feeling anything for her.
Mark rubbed his forehead. “You should not have said that in front of her.”
“She was behind me,” I said. “How was I supposed to know that?”
“She forgot her keys,” he shot back. “She came back for them. That is all.”
I did not respond. My shoulders felt stiff and uncomfortable, like someone had tied something around my ribs.
Mark crossed his arms. “You didn’t even give her a chance, Slade.”
“She wouldn’t have last,” I said. “I’ve seen her multiple times in the last few days and she’s cried every time.”
Mark let out a sharp breath. “Sometimes people cry because they are carrying too much. Not because they are weak.”
I turned away from him. “Find a different assistant.”
“She was honest,” Mark said, voice steady. “Every other candidate came in trying to flirt with you or hoping to get invited to one of your events. She was the only one who wanted the job for the job.”
I did not want to hear it. I walked toward the door.
“You could do the decent thing once in a while,” Mark said behind me.
I paused, jaw tightening.
“I am not in the business of being decent,” I said. “Hire someone else. Or I will. I don’t need someone who can’t handle a little toughness.”
I left before he could argue.
Outside the building, the afternoon sun reflected off the cars in the parking lot.
I spotted Aspen immediately. She sat in her run-down car with her forehead resting on the steering wheel. Her shoulders shook.
I felt something uncomfortable twist inside my chest.
Not again.
Not this reaction.
Not this feeling.
I stood there for a moment, watching her wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. I reminded myself that she was a stranger. I reminded myself that her problems were not mine. I reminded myself that she had nothing to do with my life.
The feeling did not go away.
She reminded me of someone, and I couldn’t let myself go there.
I got into my own car and shut the door. When I looked through the windshield, she was still sitting there. Her hands were shaking. Her breath was uneven. She looked exhausted.
Something about it hit me in a place I thought had been shut off years ago, right around the time life had taken something from me that I never got back.
Cory’s name flickered through my mind, and I shut the thought down immediately before it could grow into anything else.
My phone rang.
Dad.
I stared at the screen until it stopped. I did not feel ready to talk to him. Some days I could. Some days I wanted to. Today I could barely breathe through the weight on my chest. If I heard his voice right now, everything I was trying to ignore would rush back.
The guilt deepened, pulling my thoughts toward things I did not want to remember.
Aspen’s car pulled out of the parking lot, and without thinking, I started mine and followed. I told myself it was coincidence. I told myself I was heading in the same direction.
I knew it was a lie.
She drove toward the older part of the city. The buildings grew smaller. More worn. The sidewalks cracked. Tents lined the space behind chain link fences. This part of the city was forgotten, a place where people ended up when they had nowhere else to go.
What was she doing here?
She pulled up in front of a small house with peeling paint. I slowed the car. She opened the trunk and pulled out a backpack and a duffle bag. The weight of the bags dragged her shoulders down, but she kept walking, steady and determined.
She did not go into the house.
She just started walking.
I followed at a safe distance. She walked for fifteen minutes. Her steps were slow but sure, like she knew exactly where she needed to go.
Finally she reached a women’s shelter and stepped inside.
I waited.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Twenty.
She did not come out.
A cold heaviness settled over me as the truth hit.
Aspen was homeless.
The girl I had just fired had nowhere to live. She had walked into that shelter with her whole life on her back. She had cried in her car because she did not know what was coming next.
And she hadn’t even begged me when I fired her. She just nodded, like she understood. Like she believed it was never going to be hers in the first place.
And I had taken that chance away from her without giving her a single second to prove herself.
My hand curled around the steering wheel.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I kept only for things I wanted answers to quickly and quietly.
He answered on the second ring. “Mercer.”
“I need information,” I said. “Her name is Aspen Hart. Find out everything.”
“You got it.”
I ended the call and leaned back in my seat.
The guilt I had been trying to ignore all morning finally caught hold. It pulled at every part of me, dragging up memories I never wanted to feel again. Memories of the time when I should have paid more attention. Memories of the moment when everything in my family broke.
I shut my eyes and let out a slow breath.
I shouldn't care.
I didn't want to care.
But the truth sat heavy in the air around me.
Something about Aspen Hart had slipped through the cracks in my armor.
And I had no idea how to make that stop.
- Writer
