Follow Me(36)
Heart pounding, I slammed the computer shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CAT
Catherine.”
Panic shot through my already rattled body when I heard Bill Hannover’s voice booming from my office doorway. Bill had requested that a memo on a complex procedural issue be on his desk by the time he arrived this morning, and I was still working on it at almost noon. I couldn’t believe I had blown this deadline. I’d never been late with work product, not ever, and certainly not when it mattered this much. If I dropped the ball on this, Bill would never put me on the Phillips trial team, let alone select me as the associate to argue in court.
“Where’s that memo?” he asked, an undercurrent of impatience belying his otherwise calm voice. “The deadline to file our motion is Friday. I need that research.”
“I know,” I said, nerves making my voice squeak like a cartoon character. “You’ll have it within the hour. I’m almost finished.”
It really was almost finished. The problem was that it had been almost finished all morning. Over the last two days, I had read dozens upon dozens of cases, plus all the applicable statutes and legal treatises, and had compiled a highly detailed outline highlighting the most relevant issues. Writing the memo itself should have been a breeze. At midnight, with all but the last section drafted, I had decided to take a break. I’d set my alarm for five o’clock, thinking that a few hours of sleep and a clear head would let me finish the memo in just an hour or two. My plan was solid. I should have handed in the memo on time and still felt refreshed for the rest of my day.
But then I’d been awakened around two o’clock by insistent banging on my front door. Half certain I was dreaming, I closed my eyes and waited for the noise to stop.
Then I heard my name.
Bewildered, I dragged myself from bed and carefully descended my spiral staircase. I peered cautiously through my peephole, almost expecting to see the apparition of Emily Snow, eyes cold, mouth sneering, face bloodied. Instead, there was Audrey, wearing pink cotton pajamas and flip-flops, hair in a sloppy ponytail and a purse strung incongruously across her body. As soon as I opened the door, she flung herself into my arms, jabbering incoherently about someone outside. It took me five minutes to get her calm enough so that I could understand what she was saying: she had awoken to find someone spying on her from the alley. I shuddered. I’d known that alley was bad news. That whole apartment was bad news. Audrey should have taken my advice and moved in with me. But I wouldn’t dream of rubbing it in, not when she was in such a state, so when she moaned that she couldn’t sleep there, I simply patted her on the shoulder and assured her the guest room was all hers.
Thinking the matter resolved, I yawned and returned to my own bedroom, but Audrey followed me like a lost puppy and sat on the edge of my bed. She twisted her hair around her fingers as she repeated how frightened she was. I sympathized; I did. It must have been terrifying to find someone watching her while she slept, and I could only imagine how vulnerable she must feel. But she was safe now, secured in my home on an upper level behind a solid door. She could rest.
But instead she rehashed the night’s events again and again, embroidering the details slightly with each pass. As my agitation grew, I remembered one night in college when Audrey and Nick had had some fight, the cause of which had long been forgotten, and Audrey had kept me awake all night, asking on a loop what she had done wrong and what she could do to win him back. My answers (that she had done nothing wrong and that she should not attempt to “win him back”) did nothing to console her. She seemed so distraught that I had prioritized her personal crisis over studying for my Biology 101 midterm the next day, and I had done so poorly on the exam my grade wasn’t able to recover. I got a B instead of an A in the class, ruining my perfect 4.0 GPA. Later, when I was rejected from Harvard Law, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been because of that blemish on my record. To add insult to injury, I’d returned from that bio exam only to find Audrey and that slimeball Nick making out in our shared room.
You’re not twenty years old anymore, Cat, I told myself. Just tell Audrey you have to go to bed.
But I couldn’t. Every time I opened my mouth to do so, fresh tears welled in her eyes and I was reminded that this wasn’t like the thing with Nick. This was my best friend having a truly terrifying experience. She needed me, and so I stayed up most of the night with her, falling asleep only an hour before my alarm went off. Now I was paying the price as I struggled to finish the memo, feeling as though my eyes were coated in sandpaper and my mouth was stuffed with cotton.
“I’ll be waiting for that memo, Catherine,” Bill said with a frown.
I nodded feverishly and turned back to my computer, fingers flying over the keys as I raced to finish it. Just as I was hitting my stride, my phone buzzed. I glanced away from the screen and saw that it was a text message from Audrey: I forgot to ask! Did you send me flowers yesterday?
I stared in disbelief at the message while resentment flooded my body. No Thank you for listening, no Sorry I kept you up, no How’s that memo going? Just Did you send me flowers?Audrey might’ve been my best friend, but she was also the most self-obsessed woman I’d ever met.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AUDREY