Boss I Love to Hate: An Office Romance(10)

“We’re only readers because she has five sisters; otherwise, we’d be in the wedding,” Ava added. “We’re kind of like her sisters outside of her family.”

Sisters, my ass, I thought vehemently.

Carrie was a backstabbing, evil wench. I’d never forgive her for this.

“I don’t care.” I knew I was acting like a little child. But no one knew heartbreak like I did.

Jeff had ended it over eight months ago, but the wound was still fresh, the hurt very much present in my everyday life. Everything reminded me of him. His scent still lingered in my apartment, and every hand-holding couple reminded me of his absence in my life. Maybe I could fake illness on the day of the wedding or go on a mission trip to Africa or on a mandatory work trip. That would be perfect.

My forearm covered my eyes, and my glasses pressed against my face. Maybe if I could force myself to feel nothing, but everyone knew that it didn’t work that way. Because, when I closed my eyes, he was there. His blondish-brown hair, his green-as-emerald eyes. His smile and that dimple in his cheek. And, now, he had her. There was no way I could show up, dateless. Might as well paint a red Loser sign on my head.

“I-I can’t,” I rushed out. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly pretend that him being with another girl didn’t affect me. Why else would I be stalking her on social media?

Apparently, she was an ad exec at Mogul Media. Beautiful, blonde, booby. The three Bs that I was not. Maybe she was a bitch, too. That would make me feel better.

I hadn’t even known she was Jeff’s type. He and I had shared a love of food and Netflix and Harry Potter movies. I was skinny as though I still had to go through puberty and had glasses because I was legally blind without them.

His new girlfriend and I had no similarities. What did he see in her? Is that why he’d dumped me?

I flattened my limp brown hair and chucked my nerdy glasses to the side, my insecurities eating at my insides.

“You have to move on, Sonia.” Ava’s voice was calm and relaxing, but it didn’t do anything to the tightness in my chest, the shortness in my breath.

“Easy for you to say.” My voice shook with heavy, sullen emotion, an emotion I felt every time I thought of him. “He was it. My heart skipped for him. I didn’t walk when I was with him; I skipped. Can you imagine that? Skipping into his arms because you’re in love? That’s the kind of relationship we had.” I choked back tears threatening to escape. I hadn’t cried about Jeff in a long time, yet thinking about seeing him in person with another girl gutted me. I could handle hearing that he’d moved on, but seeing him with another girl, holding her hand, kissing her, dancing with her—things that he had done with me—I wouldn’t be able to handle that.

“I know it’s hard.” Ava’s voice lowered to a soft and soothing tone, one my mother had used to console me after a failed track meet, a bad grade, a bad breakup. “I’ve been through heartbreak before. But, eventually, you have to move on. It’s been six months.”

“Eight,” I corrected her, feeling even more pathetic.

I had counted down the days since I last saw him, the days since our breakup conversation. Every day, I thought the ache would lessen. Time heals all, they said. But, for me, unfortunately, it hadn’t.

“Okay, eight. Which proves my point even more. It’s time for you to move on.”

I pushed myself off the couch and headed to my fridge. I’d eat my misery away in a pint of Baskin Robbins. The good thing about looking like I still had to go through puberty was that I didn’t gain weight, and I could eat whatever I damn well pleased.

“How could Carrie do this? How could she do this to me?” I whined. I tore the ice cream carton open with my teeth. I jammed a spoonful of Jamoca Almond fudge in my mouth. “She’s one of my best friends. She couldn’t even ask me if it was okay to invite him? I mean, she doesn’t even have to ask me because she knows I would have said no.”

I stuffed more ice cream in my mouth. Maybe a brain freeze would hit, and I could stop thinking for a minute.

“This is your own fault, you know,” Ava said.

“I hate you.” I knew Ava was right, but I didn’t want to own up to that fact.

“Well, it is. You wanted Jeff to be friends with everyone. You wanted him to get along with everyone. Now, look. After jamming him in our throats for years, he and Tim got close.”

I pushed at my temple, finally feeling a brain freeze coming on, but it did nothing to all the thoughts running through my brain.

Why did Ava always have to be my voice of reason?

Then, it hit me. I lifted my head from the carton. “Did they double date? Have Tim and Carrie met the new girl?”

Ice filled my veins. That would be the ultimate betrayal and mean the termination of our friendship.

Ava’s silence only confirmed it, and I left the ice cream carton on the kitchen counter to mope again.

“This is grounds for quitting her wedding.” I was being absolutely serious now. Dead serious. I didn’t care that we were weeks away from her wedding and that we had eight years of friendship behind us.

“Sonia …” I could hear the pity in her tone. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not sure if they double dated.”

“Who cares?” I stabbed the spoon into the ice cream. “She’s still invited. After all I’ve done for that little wench. I introduced Carrie to Tim. How could she?” I paced my apartment back and forth and forth and back. It didn’t take me that long to get from one side of the room to the other, given it was only seven hundred square feet from end to end. My bedroom wasn’t even a room, more like a closet, but it was in downtown Chicago, so I was proud of my closet.