She froze, her breath catching. The anger on her face seemed to fold in on itself, turning into something softer and strangely hurt.
“Before, whenever I came home late, you’d call me nonstop,” she said quietly. “You’d leave the lights on and wait up for me. Now you don’t even look at me.”
She took a small step closer, her voice wavering between defensive and pleading.
“Nothing is going on between Hudson and me. I was just helping him because he’s a junior. If you don’t like it, I’ll transfer him to another department tomorrow.”
I looked at her, and all I felt was emptiness. I had cried, argued, and begged her for a sense of security. Yet, she had always found me annoying.
Now that I no longer needed any of it, she was offering everything as if it were nothing.
But my flight was already booked for two days later.
And as for her, I felt no desire to hold on anymore.
Everything she was suddenly willing to give meant nothing to me now.
...
In the following days, Arianne changed overnight, almost as if she had become a different person entirely. She actually did transfer Hudson to another department.
Her new assistant, Harper, was a woman.