The Forgotten Love of the Cruel CEO

THE MOMENT WHERE A CYCLE CLOSES

The smell of alcohol fills my nostrils. I complain, furrow my brow, and let out a slight groan. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, and when I open them, the bright light is uncomfortable and slightly painful, but I manage to open my eyes completely.

“Thank God you woke up, Barbara, are you okay?”

Miranda’s face appears in my field of vision, and I take my time to respond to her.

“Am I okay? No, I’m not. But I will be.”

But right now, I am broken, I am bleeding from the wound. I feel like a discarded garment under the bed in a desolate room. I feel displaced. I feel forgotten.

“I’m fine...” I finally reply. “I think not having breakfast affected me more than it should have.”

“That, and the nerves of meeting Mr. Reed.”

I remain silent.

The doctor examines me with a small flashlight while suggesting some recommendations and tests to figure out the cause of my fainting, suggesting that I may be anemic. I don’t speak, I pretend to be interested and that I am listening because I am not anemic. I am heartbroken and that, in some cases, causes the fainting that I experienced.

When I was depressed, I had many episodes like this. And I wasn’t anemic, I was struggling with a mild case of malnutrition, but I overcame that.

“If I could handle all of that while being pregnant, I can handle this. I know I can. I just need to process everything.”

“Barbara, is there anyone you can call to come get you, or someone waiting for you outside?”

I shake my head, forcing a smile.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take a taxi to my apartment, Miranda.”

I get up from the examination table and thank the doctor for offering me his hand. I straighten my skirt and decide to ask her something that I know will taste like ice in my palate.

“And Ce... Mr. Reed? Did he say anything about me?” I gulp.

“He carried you here and left you here,” she replies nonchalantly, unaware of the reason behind my question. I don’t say anything. She approaches so that the doctor, who is jotting down some notes on a sheet, doesn’t overhear us. “He did a lot by carrying you, Barbara. Mr. Reed doesn’t have physical contact with his employees.”

“I was the one who passed out in his arms, not the other way around. He chose to have physical contact with me, Miranda,” I murmur.

The human resources manager, who has been my only guide today, chuckles softly as she approaches the doctor to receive the instructions he has written down. I thank her with a slight smile when she hands them to me.

“Come on, I’ll accompany you to catch a taxi.”

The two of us leave the infirmary, and although she is talking to me very animatedly, indicating where we are and what each office we pass is, I remain silent. I am submerged in my own thoughts, taking in everything that has happened.

I still feel his hands holding me in my arms. The burning sensation they left on my skin, what they caused, and the mark they have left, like hot iron that burned and left me with a searing pain. A pain that will take time to ease.

“I think Mr. Reed did the right thing in asking you to go home today, Barbara...”

“He didn’t ask me. He fired me,” I interrupt. “I suppose.”

“You were very upset, but I understand. You came from another city for this job, you came from having the best boss in the world to one who is a bit...”

“Demanding, yes. I know,” I finish.

“Go home, rest, and come back tomorrow more relaxed, with more energy, and ready to show Mr. Reed that he is mistaken. You are a professional, and you will make that clear with your performance. According to Aarón, you learn quickly and adapt well to any situation, so I believe him and trust that tomorrow you will give your best.”

I can’t help but show her a slight smile because despite this bitter madness, she is seeing the situation from her perspective, which gives me a little encouragement. But only a little. At least enough to smile back at her.

“I would like to accompany you home, or even drive you there myself, but I am still on working hours, and after Mr. Reed’s reprimand in the infirmary, I don’t want...”

“Go back to your office calmly,” I quickly interrupt her with sweetness. “I’ll wait here for the taxi, Miranda. And thank you for being with me.”

“I promised Aarón that I wouldn’t leave you alone, and I hope that eventually we can become more than just coworkers.”

I don’t know why I do it. Maybe I’m too sentimental, but I hug her anyway, even though I barely know her, and I say goodbye, promising to come back tomorrow to give my best, although it is a lie. I will come tomorrow, but to resign and apologize for not being able to continue.

This overwhelms me, and I don’t feel ready to face it. I still have so many questions in my head.

Miranda leaves, returning to the building. I stand there, waiting for a taxi to pass by so I can go home. I know I should raise my hand, keep my gaze fixed on the cars, waiting for a taxi to pass in front of me, but I don’t. I simply hold onto my purse tightly as I stare at a nonexistent point, not knowing what to do.

I think of Caroline, and I can’t help but wonder if she knew, if she always knew. I know I shouldn’t blame her because it was me who created a distance between us, even though she didn’t want it. I was the one who drew the line, I was the one who made her promise not to talk to me about him, not to mention me or my child to Cedric.

I did it because when you’re young, you think you know many things, you think you know it all, and I, a young woman in love, a hopeless romantic, believed that he would remember me. I focused on my mental health, yes, but I never stopped waiting for that call from his mother or at least one from him because inside my stupid heart, I believed the Reeds, I believed like a fool that Wanda would call me, that she would look for me to introduce me to him as she promised, but I was just a young woman who thought she knew everything, and in the end, I know nothing.

I raise my hand to discreetly wipe away my tears. I don’t want anyone from the company to label me as Barbara the crybaby. I’ve had enough with fainting in the executive office. I’m sure that by the afternoon, everyone will know that the new girl fainted because she was scared of her boss.

I take a deep breath, lift my head, and decide to cross the street, because now that I remember, I have to take the taxi on the other side and not on this one. I hurry to cross as quickly as I can, and when I stop on the sidewalk, I turn to begin flagging down a taxi.

The sound of a car captures my attention. I see it stop in front of the company. It’s a white sports car, and a slender woman steps out of it, wearing a tight red dress, her hair flowing in abundant waves, and sunglasses. I stare at her because, honestly, she catches my attention.

She walks around the car, and when I realize who comes out to greet her, I freeze.

It’s him, Cedric.

He takes a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket and puts them on while looking at the woman. When she arrives, it’s immediate, he puts his hands on her neck and plants a kiss on her lips, which she doesn’t refuse. A few seconds pass, and she moves away, handing him the car keys, and like a true gentleman, he approaches to open the passenger door for her, closes it, and after that, he goes around the car and approaches his own door to open it and get inside.

Without expecting it, he turns in my direction and looks at me through his glasses, and I immediately avert my gaze. I feel the weight of his gaze on me, but I don’t turn around. I grit my teeth, pretending to look at the passing cars, and when I hear the sound of the engine being revved up, noticing from the corner of my eye that it’s moving, I breathe.

I start walking as fast as I can, walking without looking to either side, without caring if I bump into people with my body, without caring if they notice that tears are streaming down my face.

I walk without looking back, without thinking about the distance, without thinking about my feet wearing these high heels. I walk until I reach that building that I haven’t seen in five years, enter the elevator, and press the floor without caring if people give me strange looks. When I finally stand in front of that door, I stand there, feeling my heartbeat pounding strongly in my chest.

I search with my trembling hand in my purse, open it, and in the zippered pocket that I never dared to open until now, I take out the small key to the door not knowing if I am about to commit madness, a crime, or murder my own heart.

I insert the key, turning it slowly, and as I hear the lock being undone, I shudder.

I open the door, remove the key that I once asked my mother for and kept to forget. Until today.

I close the door behind me and look around as if nothing ever happened. Everything is just as I left it on the day of our wedding.

“You also forgot our home, Cedric...”

I approach slowly and look at the photo we took at Christmas, both of us wearing reindeer costumes. I don’t dare take it. I leave it as it is. I feel breathless, and I know my mother will scold me for coming here, but I need to do it. I need to see this, see what our life was, what we lived, and what no longer exists because I, deep inside me, need to close this damn cycle that has been torturing me for five damn years.

I need to end this because every night, I waited for him to call me, to look for me, to remember me!

In two steps, I reach the photo we took the first time we met at that bar. He took it, then sent it to me later. When we started telling our love story through photographs, it was the first one we hung on the wall.

I hold it tightly, touch it, and see how much he has changed. That sweet smile is no longer there, that sparkle in his eyes is gone. He no longer embraces me.

“You never looked for me, Cedric... You never remembered me, Cedric!” I shout, filled with pain.

I forcefully throw the frame, and the glass shatters upon impact with the floor. The photo remains face down, revealing his handwriting and the note he wrote before putting it inside the frame.

“The day I met the love of my life, my future wife, and the mother of my children.”

I shake my head, bringing my hands to my mouth, and like a burning flame consuming me, I turn to ashes. My judgment is clouded, and I begin to throw every photograph on the wall with pain, with anger, with uncontrolled rage, letting out everything I’ve held inside for so many years, everything I couldn’t shout or express because I was pregnant.

“It was all a lie! All of this was a damn lie! You didn’t look for me! You didn’t remember me! You don’t love me anymore!”

Helplessness blinds me, the overflowing emotions wreak havoc on me, causing me to destroy everything in my path.

Every memory, every object with meaning, every gift that he gave me to decorate our home, I destroy each and every one of them.

The apartment was bought by him, but it is as much mine as it is his, and right now, I have every damn right to destroy each of the things that once bound us because I am his wife.

I am his wife!

I end up on the floor, crying with my hand on my chest, releasing myself in the midst of a heartbreaking cry that burns, hurts, and slowly kills me.

And so, I remain until there is nothing left to cry about, until there are no tears left to shed. Without moving, without speaking, I stay thinking about everything that happened, what Wanda and Ryan Reed did to me. The harm they caused me and the intentions behind their false promises.

With my head tilted, looking at each picture on the floor, some broken, some not, I think about everything they did to me, and a smile devoid of happiness appears on my lips.

To Wanda and Ryan Reed, I was always the villain who wanted to tie down their son for money. They saw in me an ambitious girl, a Tennessee peasant who only wanted to secure her future. They only pretended to love me, accept me, and give me that blessing, and that’s alright. I have just overcome it now.

I will gladly accept being the villain in their perfect high society story, but only so that they can tell in due time in which chapter they themselves created me.

I take a breath. I get up from the floor to get out of here. And feeling a strength that I had not felt before, I open the door, close it again, just as a chapter in my life has just closed. I lock it and with my head held high, I move through the corridor, without looking back, without crying, without feeling miserable.

I enter the elevator, letting out a breath.

Right now, I feel that little pain in my chest when you make a decision that you know will break you into a thousand pieces, but deep down, you know it’s for the best. That’s how I feel.

It will hurt to see him every day, but I no longer plan to cry. I no longer plan to remain with questions, without answers, with an unfinished story. Unfortunately, for me, I learned the hard way that sometimes being good is not a reason for someone to love you. Only to use you at their whim, and the Reeds did just that. They made the eyes that only wanted to see their son happy cry. They lied to my face, they deceived me like a foolish girl just because of my weakness, and that was my love for him.

But no more. They will pay for every tear shed.