Last on the List (Wait With Me #5)(83)

“Well, I let you believe that it was mental therapy, but in reality, it was physical therapy.” My heart pounds at the memory of those awful couple of months when my body didn’t feel like my body. It was like an alien had taken over my left hand and would do whatever it wanted instead of what I wanted. It took nearly three months for me to get it to a place where I could feel secure in its movements. I inhale a deep breath before stating the truth out loud, “I had a stress-induced stroke at Christmas time last year that paralyzed my left arm.”

“Are you serious, Cassandra?” Max snaps, shoving his wine aside and leaning across the table. His eyes are the most severe I’ve ever seen them, and I feel slightly terrified at the reality of my truth being displayed back to me. “An actual stroke?”

I nod and force myself not to cry. “It’s rare at my age, but it can happen. It happened at my corporate job that I mentioned to you.”

His eyes swim with fear as he watches me, barely even taking a breath as he inquires, “Jesus Christ, what happened?”

“Stress,” I respond with a garbled laugh that feels pathetic. “Loads and loads of stress.”

“What did you do at your last job? What was your position?” Max asks, his face taut with shock.

I sigh heavily, feeling horrified at the thought of recounting everything but knowing that he needs to hear it all to get the big picture. I inhale deeply and force myself to be professional. “I was in asset management, managing a large portfolio of industrial and commercial buildings scattered throughout the United States. I started right out of college, so I was only nineteen in the beginning, but I was twenty-five when I finally hit my breaking point, so I had been there for six years.”

Max nods knowingly, likely very familiar with the corporate hustle and bustle. He has a company jet after all, something I would have appreciated instead of taking commercial flights four out of seven days a week every single week.

“When I originally started with the company, it was new and very entrepreneurial. Everyone wore a lot of hats. I was always someone who picked things up quickly, so I was given a lot of responsibilities that I was never really qualified for, but I liked it. It forced me to learn and grow quickly, which felt good at the time because I was so young. Plus, I’ve always liked a challenge, like you.”

I offer a wobbly smile to Max, hoping he can see a glimpse of himself in me. Like somehow, I need him to see my potential, which is insane because I want nothing to do with corporate life anymore.

“My coworkers were all young, not as young as me, but it was definitely a work hard, play hard environment. I was always kind of a quirky book nerd in school and wasn’t super social unless forced, and given that this was a small company, and we were together a lot, all my coworkers became my close friends. They would sneak me into bars at nights and on the weekends. I even dated a guy there semi-seriously. It was nice.

“The company I worked for always ran lean. They were all about making as much money as possible and doing it with the least amount of people, often forcing me to do jobs that weren’t a part of my job description. If you complained or requested more money, they basically told you that if you think you are worth more, then go out and look for another job.”

“Such bullshit,” Max interjects, shaking his head in disappointment. “A company should always know the value of their employees. That’s what annual reviews are for. Did they do those?”

“No,” I reply with a laugh, picturing my old boss sneering at me when I proposed a schedule of performance reviews for the staff. If I scheduled everything out, I thought it would help him say yes. It didn’t. It was a complete and utter waste of time.

“I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, so what I was earning seemed like more than I ever dreamed I could make,” I add, recalling the proud look on my parents’ faces when I told them what my signing bonus was. “So even though I thought I was worth more, I still didn’t think I could start over somewhere and make as much. Not to mention, I was so busy that I had no time to job hunt, let alone update my résumé.”

I pause and take another sip of my wine, feeling my body resist the emotions that place elicits, but knowing I want to power through this. I have to.

“My mental health really took a toll about a year ago when the company started to grow. They wanted to stay lean still but operate like a big corporation. So a lot more protocols, more reporting, more steps to basically everything, which meant even more work. I had to run every little thing by our CEO. He was busy and didn’t get back to me quickly, and then things wouldn’t get done, and I’d be blamed for it. I started to feel like I wasn’t even doing the job I was hired for, and I began questioning my ability and my purpose for even being there.”

My eyes well with tears, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “I questioned everything about myself…even down to the clothes I wore to work every day. I had zero confidence. I wasn’t eating. I was miserable all the time. But I kept showing up every day because all my ‘friends’ were there, and it felt like we were all in this together.

“I started having anxiety attacks where I couldn’t see. I’d wake up in the middle of the night after having another nightmare about work, and there would be black spots in my vision. The first time, I called 911 because I didn’t know what was happening. The doctors got me on some meds that helped, but it didn’t take away the stress I was still under.”