By the time the taxi dropped me off outside my office building, my mascara and the rest of my make up had melted, smeared, or disappeared entirely. I had left in such a hurry from the apartment that I forgot to grab my coffee and makeup bag. I would usually throw it into my purse, before leaving, for touch-ups throughout the day.

I paid the cab driver who had initially started trying to console me while he drove me to work, but realized it was no use. So he just turned up his Latin Pop music and drove through the city. Even looking up at the skyscrapers that passed by didn't soothe me, as seeing them usually distracted me from most things. But not this.

I was grateful it was Saturday, so I wouldn't have to see anyone but Adam. I hoped I would be able to collect myself enough and resemble some sort of normalcy before he arrived.

When I got up to construction and design floor at the office, it was quiet, and the only soul in sight was the elderly janitor, I'd seen every other Saturday I'd worked there. He was making his way from one end of the floor to the other emptying trashcans that were stowed beneath the desks and wiping down everything with a dust cloth. He spotted me, gave me a slight wave, and frowned when he saw what my face looked like.

Just as he was coming over to greet me, the elevator dinged behind me. I turned to see Adam stepping out. I glanced back at the janitor, who smiled knowingly and returned to his work.

"Good Morn-. Vicky! What happened? Are you okay? Did someone die?" Adam rushed over to my side and placed a caring hand on my arm.

From his words and touch, I broke down again. Adam instantly moved to comfort me in the folds of his arms. He let me cry for at least a solid minute. Then, he pulled me back at an arm's length and looked at me as I wiped my eyes with any dry part of my hands or fingers.

I started laughing lightly at the state I was in. "I'm sorry," I said with shortness of breath. "Can we just focus on work right now?"

"Of course." Adam nodded and dropped his grasp of me. "Why don't you go freshen up a little, while I get the project pulled up in the conference room. We can practice the parts of the presentation we have so far."

I nodded and agreed that his plan was a great idea.

After washing away all my makeup in the bathroom, I stared at my plain face in the mirror. I cursed at myself. Telling myself, I deserved what happened. What did I think was going to be the outcome of cheating? This time as tears streamed from my eyes and down my cheeks, there was nothing left to take with them. After one more tear shed, I told myself to suck it up and that I didn't deserve to be the one to cry.

I took some extra deep breaths and a few extra tissues from the box at the end of the sink. I gave myself a shameful look once more before making my way out the door and back down the hall to the conference room.

Adam had the PowerPoint up on the lowered screen at the end of the room. He had closed the mechanical blinds, so the light from the wall of windows didn't make it hard to see the screen. He smiled gently as I entered and ushered me to take any seat that was stationed around the table. He said he wanted me to take notes on his presentation part, so we'd know what to edit or move around.

I couldn't help but think of Eric and what happened, during Adam's presentation. Luckily, he kept wanting to recite several slides more than once, so I didn't really need to pay complete attention to him every time. After an hour of working on it, most of the kinks were corrected. We were both happy with our end result, and I was grateful to have returned to a somewhat normal state of mind by the end.

"Well, I think that's all we really needed to work on today. I appreciate you coming in." Adam closed down his laptop that he had plugged into the projection dock.

I got up and raised the projection screen back up into its home in the ceiling, then moved my finger over to the next switched that raised the window blinds. "I'm actually really glad to have a little distraction from life today."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"Not really. But thank you for your concern."

"Of course. While I may be your boss, I'd also like you to consider me a friend. You can always come to me about anything. Even a shoulder you can cry on." He smiled. I knew he was referring to me crying on him when he arrived.

"Well, you definitely have a supportive shoulder. But that's about all that it can be. Nothing you could say could fix this," I trailed off, realizing I was starting to tell him what had happened. I definitely didn't want him to find out about Ryan in the process of explaining what happened with Eric, so I stopped. I collected my notebook from the table. "If you don't mind, I'm going to head out. I told Sasha I'd meet her for lunch if I finished work early."

"I don't mind." Adam nodded. "I'm heading out too."

With that, we closed and locked the conference room and made our way back to the elevator. Adam tried to carry small talk on the ride down, but I didn't give him much more than a one or two-word response. Since I was entering back into my personal life, my thoughts were trailing back to my reality of heartbreak and betrayal. I realized I didn't really know what to do or where I should go from here.

I said goodbye to Adam as we exited the building and immediately called Sasha to confirm we were meeting for lunch.

"We didn't have a lunch date today, Vic," Sasha stated, sounding confused.

"It's an impromptu one." 

Sasha knew that was our code phrase for when something shitty was happening in our life. We'd call each other for a planned, unplanned lunch. Then the other would drop whatever they were doing and meet up to talk or just sit there in silence or cry.

**********

After having lunch with Sasha at a deli near her place, she insisted I stay with her and Becca for however long I needed. She even volunteered to go to my apartment and get some of my things for me, since there was no way I could go back home.

While Sasha was gone, it was just Becca and me alone in their apartment.

I looked around at their small one-bedroom apartment. It was so cozy, and the decor they selected was very much them. Almost any spare space on the walls had some sort of art attached to it. Whether it was a large hand-painted abstract canvas or colorful scenic photos. Their one large sectional couch was about the only piece of furniture they could fit beside their mid-sized dining table in the room. But the room didn't feel squished or cramped like other apartments did.

"Would you like some more tea?" Becca lightly touched my shoulder, causing me to come back to the present and turning my head to look up at her.

"That would be great." I handed her the empty mug I hadn't let go of since they gave it to me.

She smiled and took the cup from my grasp. She was behind me now, and I could hear her ripping open a tea packet, and soon heard the sound of water changing frequency as it filled up my mug. She brought it back and set it on the coffee table in front of me. I watched as the steam billowed from it. 

"Now that Sasha is gone. I wanted to talk to you myself about all this." Becca circled her hand in the air as if she was drawing an imaginary ring around me.

Becca and I had never really been that close. Though we had known each other since our Junior year in college, we only really had Sasha in common. Even during our trip to Brazil, we maybe had two real conversations when it was just her and me. Otherwise, it usually took Eric or Sasha to be there to keep our conversations going. "Okay."

Becca walked around the coffee table and sat at the corner of the sectional couch. She placed a pillow on her lap and looked at me with gentle eyes. "You know I'm your friend, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And I'd also like to consider Eric a friend of mine too," she added.

"I agree."

"I think what you did to him is seriously messed up. And not just what you did to him over the last month. What you've done to him since you started dating him." She was still looking at me with kind eyes, but behind them was an expression that was pissed.

"What do you mean?"

"Please, Vicky. Don't play stupid right now. You know exactly what I mean. I'm talking about how you strung Eric along since sophomore year. You knew he was head over heels in love with you and would do anything for you. And when you got bored because he was too nice and because there wasn't a 'spark.'" She made quote signs with her fingers. "You went crying to Sasha that you wanted to end things. Then something would happen, and he'd get you to change your mind somehow. That or you were just too scared to be alone, so you wouldn't just cut things off and set that poor man free to find someone who loved him completely.

"For as long as I've known you, you have thrived on some sort of drama. The only reason I hadn't said much on this until now is that I figured that after you got engaged to Eric and graduated from college, maybe you were finally growing up. But then you went and started falling for the drama of messing around with your boss. And not just once, but for a whole month, according to what Sasha told me."

I looked a little shocked at her last statement. "Sasha told you?"

"Of course she did! She's my wife! She doesn't hide things from me. You aren't supposed to keep anything from the person you choose to spend the rest of your life with. Otherwise, you're just going to continue building on lie after lie, until you won't know what the truth is anymore. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I saw it with my own parent's relationship. Hell, I saw it with myself when I tried to deny that I was gay. It took meeting Sasha for me to accept that truth.

"And as a person with that kind of experience, I can tell you, accepting the truth about yourself is so liberating. You become this whole new person! A person that's not afraid to look themselves in the mirror." Becca sighed. Her expression turning sad now. "Well, that's really all I had to say. That and I really hope that if you and Eric do somehow work things out, that you really give him your whole heart. I know Sasha doesn't like him. But I do. He's a great guy, and he deserves to be treated like one."

I moved to pick up my tea from the table. I sipped the hot liquid and felt it slightly burn the back of my tongue. "You're right. About everything." I took another sip. "I suppose I did start getting bored with Eric when he was doing all the right things. I don't know why I took his love for granted. But I see it now. And he is the one I want to be with." I took a longer sip this time. "And if he does miraculously decide to take me back, I will spend every day proving my love for him is as real as his love for me has been since we met."

"Well, I hope so." Becca smiled lightly this time. She scooted closer to me on the couch and opened her arms out to me.

I placed my tea back down on the coffee table and responded, hugging her. It felt nice.

Just then, Sasha walked back into the apartment, wheeling in a suitcase. She spotted us and tilted her head. She grinned devilishly at us. "You just made all my porn fantasies come true! Please tell me this is going to lead to us having a threesome finally!"

We all burst into fits of laughter. I had to give it to Sasha, she always knew how to make the worst situation bearable.