Cherry Chapstick

41

Sierra opened her mouth to respond but Leslie cut her off quickly.

“I invited her to have a girls day with us. She works too hard and needed a break from everything.” She paused before turning to her side to look at him. “Don’t you think she deserves a break? Have a little fun for once?”

She let the question hang in the air and John backed up, his face turning red.

“Yes I suppose so. Everyone needs a day off every now and again.” Pushing himself up from where he had been rested his hand on the bar, he stood up straight and straightened his tie. “I’ll be in my office if you ladies need anything?” He made eye contact with Sierra once again and winked at her quickly.

Looking over at me, he realized that this little display had not gone unnoticed and he quickly tried to deflect.

“I don’t think we’ve met before” he extended his hand out to me.

“I’m Ashley” I responded as normal as I could given the circumstances.

I didn’t like this guy. I could tell he had been cheating on Leslie for a while now and here he was kissing her on the cheek acting as though everything were perfectly normal. Even so, I took his hand to shake it. Almost immediately I snatched back as he applied a little too much pressure.

“Any friend of my wife’s is a friend of mine” he smiled with a devious look in his eyes. “Make yourself at home.”

Leslie must have picked up on his false cheerfulness because she spoke up at that.

“She will. I’ve already told them both to enjoy whatever they want to in this house.” Her voice had went cold and once again I worried that there would be trouble. I didn’t want to be here for that so I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

I didn’t have to use the bathroom so I stood there in front of the mirror inspecting myself. I was no longer flushed and I looked perfectly normal on the outside. On the inside however, was a whole other story. My heart was pounding against my chest and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath no matter how hard I tried.

Turning on the faucet, I let cold water spill over my hands and I splashed it over my face to cool off a bit. I had just barely finished using the hand towel to pay it dry when there was a sudden knock on the door. It wasn’t very loud, as though the person on the other side wanted to keep it a secret that they were there. Thinking it might be Leslie or Sierra, I eased it open slowly.

“John” I stammered out.

Why would he be here? This felt a little too strange for me. I suddenly wanted to get very far away from this man. I tried to slide past him b it he grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me back inside the bathroom. I watched as he closed the door behind him and followed it up with locking it. Now I was trapped. If I thought my heart rate and breathing were bad before, they both went into double time now. I had to get out of this bathroom any way that I could.

“John” I spoke up again “let me out of this bathroom now.” I tried to sound assertive to put some fear into him but he still stood there not moving.