A woman knows, right?!

Episode3

"Talk then, and maybe start with who the hell that is, and why you are sleeping with her?" I'm aiming for icy derision but it comes out more like a sniffling sob.

"Fia, I didn't want you to find out this way, Claire and I, it just happened, it's never happened before, you and me were having a rough patch and I just, I felt like she understood me and I could relax with her. I never wanted to hurt you." Simons words snap me out of my pity mode.

"Oh really. She just happened to be here while you're off work sick. And you just relaxed right into her v****a?! Jeez Si, how many clichés can you fit into one sentence?! Here's a suggestion, if you don't want to hurt someone, don't sleep with someone behind their back, or in front of them, just, DONT SLEEP WITH SOMEONE ELSE!" I grab at the sheet again, pulling it from Simon and turn to storm out of the apartment when something catches at the back of my mind.

"What do you mean we were having a rough patch?"

Simon shuffles from one foot to the other, his face suddenly more guarded "Let me put some clothes on and we can talk. . . ."

"No, I said, what do you mean, rough patch?"

"Babe, you didn't honestly think things were good did you? You’ve been smothering me, changing the apartment, all the talk about the future."

"You asked me to move in! I didn't realise new sheets and a nice rug were so detrimental to your psyche!"

"I said it would be nice to be able to wake up together every day. It's pillow talk, I didn't mean move in, but then you took it and ran with it. I didn't know how to tell you it was too soon!" Simon ran his hands through his hair, a gesture I usually found irrestible but right now made me think of an immature teen.

"Well you picked a hell of a way to tell me now! And don't worry I'll be taking the sheets with me, and the rug!"

I don't look at him as I gather up the sheet and rug and walk out. I'm focusing on holding my head high, and not dropping everything. It's a little harder to pull off the strut I was aiming for when you're trying to carry that much stuff but I think I'm pulling it off. I make it out of the apartment building and am on the pavement before a wave of emotion hits me again, suffocating me, making me gasp from the sheer gut wrenching pain that comes with it.

I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe he's saying we had issues, we were perfect! I mean of course we had the occasional differences of opinion, every couple does. And yes we had different approaches to interior design but that does not excuse sleeping with someone else. How dare he imply I caused this?! I pause, waiting for him to run out of the building and beg for forgiveness, for me to listen to him.

It takes another five minutes before I realise he really isn't coming after me. I'm stuck out here on the pavement in no man's land. I can't go back inside, I'm not ready to face him, and I can't stay here on the pavement. It hits me how little I've thought this through, I have no idea what to do next. I don't have my car, it's at Jacobs. The apartment only has one parking space and we agreed Simon got priority, seeing as I could walk to my office. My office. Where I am due back in five minutes.

"Oh man" I mutter under my breath as I stand up and head back towards the office. Hopefully, I can sneak in and no one will notice I'm back late. I don't have another meeting until 1.30 and it's a conference call so no one needs to see my face, which I'm becoming conscious may not be looking it's best right now if the startled looks I'm getting from strangers passing by is anything to go off. Of course it may just be that they don't see a speed-walking woman in a fitted dress and heels carrying a rug and bedding through the city centre every day. Who's to say?!

I slow down to catch my breath as I round the final corner before my office building. It's a beautiful building, all modern glass and chrome, twelve stories tall with our offices taking up the top 4 floors. When I started as a graduate I'd been awed by it; everyone there had purpose, it seemed like a place where true professionals worked, and important stuff got done! It is all open plan, only the partners get offices. In the four years I've worked here that feeling has never fully gone away. I still feel a sense of pride every time I walk into that building. Pride that I belong there, that I'm one of the professionals who works in such an impressive place, that I'm someone who belongs there.

Right now however, I'm filled with a sense of dread. This building feels more like a castle, filled with gatekeepers I need to sneak past without getting caught. I don't want my colleagues to see me like this; sweating, bedraggled, make up no doubt smeared across my blotchy face, carrying all my worldly belongings like a bag lady.. Ok so not all my worldly belongings but still, you just don't bring your sheets and rug to the office, you just don't. The lack of a personal space or office to hide in is positively cruel, how are you supposed to deal with your world collapsing in full view of all your colleagues? Then there's the receptionists and security in the lobby, they've seen me drunk after hours a few times but this is so much more embarrassing! I'm a professional, getting drunk is fine, we all do it, bringing your emotional (and in this case literal) baggage and dumping it all over the carefully designed office interiors is another thing!

Luckily inspiration hits in that moment. I need Lacey. Lacey and I met on our second day in the graduate program. She was in tax, I was in consulting, we were both based on the eighth floor and fate sat us together at the graduate orientation. We did our accounting exams together and Friday night drinks became a regular feature. We quickly progressed from work friends to true friends. I've told her just about every detail of mine and Simons relationship, and she's told me all about her varied and frequent one night stands. We've giggled over cocktails at details of dates and she squealed along with me when I told her he'd asked me to move in. I know she can help me out here.

Lacey answers on the second ring, "hey Sofia, where are you? There were muffins at the team meeting so I grabbed you one!"

I love this girl! "Lacey, that's great, I'm outside, I need help getting in the building, Si. . "

"Hold up, I don't need to know why Si made you late", Lacey laughs as she cuts me off' "look, I'm being called into Petersons office but I'll send Adam down to let you in, muffins on my desk, love ya, bye!!"

"Lacey wait don't!" I yell into my phone but it's too late, she's already hung up. So this just went from bad to worse. Adam and I aren't exactly the best of friends. We tolerate each other for Lacey's sake, she adores him, I really can't understand why. He transferred into her department a year after we all started. He's smart, good looking, and he knows it. There was one awkward drunken encounter a couple of years ago between us which I've tried to forget but he loves to bring it up to embarrass me. He seems to live to drive me crazy, he is quite literally the last person I want to see right now.