As I lock the door behind the last customer, I sigh; thankful that the day was finally over, and I still have a job. I'm sure if either of my bosses had been there that day, I wouldn't still be here, but seeing as I was the one in charge today, I feel safe for the moment.
No one had escaped my wrath today, as both customers, and employees alike had felt the sharpness of my tongue. If I could just get through the cleanup, and closing without completely losing it, I was pretty sure I would still have a job tomorrow.
Luckily, the three remaining employees were not inclined to test me anymore, and were all busy with their tasks.
I walk over and close the registers, counting out the deposit, and placing it in the safe. By the time I'm done, everyone has finished, and is waiting quietly for me to let them out.
Being Sunday, I need to stay a bit longer and send in the payroll and weekly sales figures, and am going to need someone to stay behind. They all know this, and are looking at each other to see if anyone will volunteer. Before I can open my mouth, Kimberly says, "I'll stay, with Chris; you guys go ahead."
The others visibly sigh, and move out of the way so that I can unlock the door, and let them out. Once they are out, I lock up again, and head upstairs.
There is no reason for Kimberly to follow me, the company policy only requires there to always be at least two people in the store at all times, but she does. I'm not sure if I'm glad or not that she volunteered to stay.
On one hand, she is the one person that I normally got along with the best, and she had noticed my bad attitude before anyone else, giving me plenty of space, and trying her best not to upset me.
On the other hand, she is a woman; and right now, I'm not really endeared to the gender. Why? Well the reason is also the explanation for my bad attitude.
The previous night, I had found out that my girlfriend of three years had cheated on me; again. I say again, because she had already cheated on me two years earlier, and I had forgiven her then. What made this time worse was that it hadn't been a onetime thing like the previous time; she had been cheating on me for three months.
She had broken down in tears, and begged me to forgive her, and give her another chance. She had played me pretty good, and almost had me; until, in her sob filled apology, she had said that she had cheated because I hadn't been paying attention to her. It was at that point that I had nearly lost it.
I spent almost every waking hour with her, doing whatever she wanted; at the expense of my own interests, and friendships. The only time I hadn't been with her, had been when I had been working, or at home sleeping.
But rather than explode, and scream, I had silently left her there, crying; without telling her if I forgave her or not.
So here I am, alone with a woman, seething with anger at the entire gender for being able to hurt me like they have, and trying not to explode and lose my job.
I try to ignore her, as she watches me silently. I know that she knows something is wrong, and that she is trying to find a way to start a conversation. I send in the payroll and weekly sales figures, without a peep from Kimberly, but she decides that now that that is done, it would be a good time to talk.
"So, are you going to tell me what's bothering you? Or do I have to start guessing?" She says.
"I don't want to talk about it." I reply, turning around from my desk, to see her sitting on the conference table in the middle of the room.
"Well, that's evident." She says. "But I think after the way you were acting today, that you at least owe me an explanation."
"No. I don't." I say, standing up, and walking over to stand in front of her.
"Chris...I thought we were friends." She says, dropping her head. "Maybe I was wrong."
*Why are women so good at manipulating me?* I think. "You weren't wrong, Kim; we are friends." I reply, my voice softening a bit. "I just don't feel like talking."
She looks back up at me, and says, "I didn't feel like talking about what happened with Mike, a few weeks ago, but you wouldn't give up until I did; and I felt better afterwards."
That little reminder is all it takes to break through to me, and I find myself wanting to talk all of a sudden. After all, it had been almost a month since she had come in for a night shift, looking like she had been crying, and I had gotten her to talk about what was bothering her. It turned out to be that her boyfriend of one year, Mike, had cheated on her with one of her friends. If anyone could relate to what I was going through, it was Kimberly.
I sigh, and say, "Mindy's been cheating on me."
"Oh. I thought it might have something to do with her." She replies.
"Yeah; she told me last night." I say, turning to lean against the table next to her. "Well, it's more like, I found out, and she confessed."
"I'm sorry to hear that." She says, brushing her hand across the back of mine. "I know how it feels."
We sit there is silence for a few minutes, before I say, "I should have seen it coming, though; I mean she cheated on me two years ago."
"Really?" Kimberly asks. "And you took her back?"
"Yeah." I say, with a harsh laugh. "And that's not all. It turns out that when we started dating; I was actually the other man, and didn't know it until last night."
"You're kidding me?"
"Nope. She was cheating on her boyfriend with me, and broke up with him after we had been going out for about a month. I didn't know at the time, because our relationship was relatively new, and we weren't seeing each other that often, yet." I reply.
"Whoa."
"Yeah; whoa."
"Are you two still together?" She asks, tilting her head to try and look me in the eye.
"I don't know." I reply. "She was begging me to forgive her, and give her another chance, and I just walked out, without saying a word."
"Well, that explains why you've been so short with everyone today; you need to vent."
"I guess." I say, and then turn my head to face her. "I'm sorry, by the way; it's no excuse for the way I acted today."
She leans over and bumps my shoulder with her own. "Ah, just buy the coffee and muffins tomorrow, and all will be forgiven."
Silence envelopes the room again, until Kimberly says, "You never really answered my question; are you two still together? Are you going to forgive her and take her back?"
I stand back up, and start to pace. "I don't know; I'm just so angry. I mean, I love her, but I hate her; you know what I mean?"
"Yeah." She replies, and I can hear the sorrow in her voice. She had decided not to forgive Mike, and had broken it off.
I stop, turn to face her, and say, "Sorry; I should stop talking about this. I don't mean to upset you."
She laughs. "Stop apologizing; talking is good. If you hadn't forced me to talk about Mike, I would probably have had a break down; and I would definitely not have found the strength to kick his ass to the curb."
"Is that what you think I should do?" I ask.
She gets serious again. "Please don't ask me what you should do; I don't want you to hold it against me if you end up regretting it."
"Okay, I won't; but, maybe we can talk about my options, and you can help me make sense of them?"
She pats the spot on the table next to her, and says, "Okay."
"I do my best thinking while in motion." I say, as I start pacing. "Besides, I'm too riled up to sit still right now."
We spend the next forty-five minutes talking about my options, and my feelings; I call the alarm company to tell them that I will be staying late tonight.
Eventually, I calm down enough to sit down next to Kimberly again. It's at this point, that the conversation takes a weird twist.
"What about getting revenge?" She asks.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I mean, what about cheating on her? You know, make her feel what you feel." She says.
"I don't think it would affect her the same way it affects me." I reply. "Besides, I don't think I could do it."
She bumps my shoulder again, "Oh, don't think you can get it up, hunh?"
"What?" I ask, turning to see her laughing. "Oh, I could get it up; don't you worry about that."
"Why would I need to worry about it?" She asks, with a smile.
