Chapter Five - The Call
1004 Words
I call him from my apartment.
Not from the office. Not from my car. Not somewhere public where I might have to hold it together for an audience.
From my kitchen. At my table. With a cup of tea I don't intend to drink it.
On my terms. For once. On my terms.
* * *
It rings twice.
"Maya."
His voice.
I have spent three years trying to forget that voice.
It sounds the same.
"You called my CEO," I say. No hello. No warmth. "That was a mistake."
A pause. Recalibrating.
"I didn't think he'd — I just wanted to make sure you were—"
"Don't," I say. "Don't tell me you were worried about me. You lost the right to worry about me three years ago in a clearing in front of twenty-two people, when you looked past my left ear and said I wasn't worthy of you."
Silence.
"Maya—"
"I'm going to talk now," I say quietly. "And you're going to listen. Because I've been waiting three years to say this and I am not going to rush it."
He says nothing.
Good.
"I drove south that night with one bag and enough money to last me three months if I was careful. I didn't know anyone in the city. I didn't have a job. I had a degree and a shattered bond and a decision."
I pause.
"The decision was this: I was going to become so good at what I do that no one would ever be able to look at me and find me lacking again. Not because I needed their approval. But because I would know, myself, that I was extraordinary. That nothing you said was true."
"It wasn't—" he starts.
"I'm not finished."
He stops.
"Three years later, I work for the most powerful company in this city. I found a four-month-old discrepancy on my first day that a whole team missed. My CEO assigned me to lead a major acquisition audit after forty-eight hours." I paused. "Not because he felt sorry for me. Because I earned it."
I hear him exhale.
"I know," Lucas says quietly. "I heard. That's why I—"
"That's why you called," I finished. "Because you heard I was doing well. Because the alliance with Ashford fell through and your father is unhappy, and suddenly, the woman you discarded is doing exceptionally well and working for an Alpha more powerful than you'll ever be, and you thought — what? That I'd be glad to hear from you?"
A long silence.
"The Ashford alliance—" he starts.
"Failed," I say. "I know. News travels. Your father must be furious."
Another silence. Longer.
"Maya." His voice had changed. Softer. More like the boy I grew up with and less like the Alpha who dismissed me in front of our entire pack. "I made a mistake. I know that. I've known it for three years. My father—"
"Don't blame your father," I say. "You made the choice. You said the words. You chose the alliance over the bond. That was you, Lucas. Not your father."
He is quiet for a long time.
"You're right," he says finally. "I know you're right. I'm sorry, Maya. I am genuinely sorry. I have been since the night it happened."
And there it is.
The apology I spent a year waiting for.
The one I drove south without.
The one I rebuilt my entire life around, not needing.
I wait for it to feel like something.
It doesn't.
Not because I'm still angry.
But because I have been fine for so long — genuinely, actually, fundamentally fine — that his apology is like rain after a drought that has already ended.
Too late.
And not what I need.
"I accept your apology," I say. "And I need you to understand something."
"Okay."
"I'm not the same person I was in that clearing. I'm not the girl who stood there counting her breaths and refusing to cry. I'm someone else now. Someone I built entirely on my own."
"I know," he says. "I can hear it."
"Then hear this, too: don't call me again. Don't call my CEO again. Whatever we were — it ended. I'm not angry anymore. I'm not hurt anymore. I'm just done."
A pause.
"Is it him?" Lucas asks. His voice has changed again — the softness gone. "Voss said. Is that what this is?"
I almost laughed.
"This is about me," I say. "It has always, only, ever been about me. That's the part you never understood."
I hang up.
* * *
I sat at my kitchen table for a long time afterward.
The tea has gone cold.
I drink it anyway.
Outside, the city does what it always does — moves, breathes, continues entirely without reference to the fact that I just closed a door that has been standing open for three years.
I feel lighter.
I feel strange.
I feel like a woman who has been carrying something for so long she forgot she was carrying it, and now her arms are empty and she doesn't quite know what to do with her hands.
My phone buzzes.
Internal message.
Forty-second floor.
I assume the call happened. I won't ask unless you want to tell me. But for what it's worth — whatever he said, I imagine it was considerably less than you deserved to hear. — D.V.
I read it twice.
Then I type back.
It was more than I expected. Less than I needed. But I'm all right. — M.A.
The reply comes immediately.
Good. That's all that matters. Goodnight, Maya. — D.V.
Not Ms. Adkins.
Maya.
I set the phone down on the table.
I look at the city through my window.
And for the first time in three years, I let the warmth in my chest exist. Without fighting, it. Without naming it. Without deciding anything about it.
Just warmth.
Just that.
For now, just that is enough.
- Writer
