This in-progress piece represents me branching out to a genre I haven’t explored. It’s unorthodox for a teenage girl to write about, but I wanted to get into the mind of a cheater.
My unsteady hand sent the salt shaker to the ground, thousands of salt particles sprawled over the polished, mahogany wood floors.
“Jesus,” I muttered, stooping down to pick up the salt particles from the floor in disguised shame.
“Wow, honey, you can’t keep a hold on anything . . .” my wife, Ruby, spitefully commented. Ruby and her snide comments are like a relentless BB gun, they don’t hurt if you hit someone with its bullets one at a time, but all those little hits accumulate to an everlasting pain.
“Thanks for your encouraging comments, they’re duly noted.”
“Smartass, why don’t you just get a sweeper and sweep up the salt, it’s not like we’re going to eat that now.”
“You know what, Ruby, just let me do what I’m doing.”
“Okay, sir.”
As I proceeded to pick up every salt particle off the floor like a fool, I thought back to how I’d gotten in this situation—my job lost, the only emotional connection I’ve made in a long time turned out to be a complete sham, and my wife has no clue about what I’m going through.
I heard her before I saw her. Her laugh permeated the bleak office, through the dismal environment built by the forever unsatisfied employees. She walked with an air of vigor that was foreign to us. She caught the attention of me and those around me—not because she was beautiful or anything, but because she was the first new employee that the company hired in over a year. Working in a small company, you don’t see many different faces, and, working in an accounting company, you don’t see many lively faces. Everyone who was working already had their life sucked out of their soul. Coupled with that, we worked in the heart of New York—Syracuse. Or at least that’s what people who live in Syracuse call their city to make them feel better about their mediocre existence. Not to shit on Syracuse, but there are definitely more exciting places to live in New York.
Anyways, cut back to the new employee; she was being shown around the office as I was filing taxes. I tried to catch her eye several times, to get her to acknowledge my existence, but she was too busy trying to stay interested in what our manager was telling her. Though it was obvious that her thoughts were drifting away from her conversation, our manager was quite blasé to the same blank, expressionless look people get when talking to him. Though he is one of the sincerest guys in the office (and the one who gets you fired), he isn’t the most enthralling.
Frustrated that she wasn’t returning any of my hopeful glances, I decided to “get some water” and conveniently bump into them. As I started to get up, my palms grew sweaty and I unexpectedly started to second-guess my decision. What if I sneeze on her and inflict my snot on her? What if I touch her boob by accident and she thinks I’m a pervert? What if I trip on something and tumble into her, sending her flying across the room? What if I actually do get the chance to introduce myself but my breath smells like rotting garbage puked in it and she never wants to talk to me again?
Grabbing a mint and cautiously making my way toward her, I began to realize how laughable I sound. She’s just a young woman who is new to our office and wants to be acquainted to her workplace—no need to be intimidated. Besides, I have a wife whom I’ve wholeheartedly tolerated for the past fifteen (or is it sixteen?) years.
I’ve made that joke to her once and she found it hilarious, which she finds everything to be. She’s never been one to get easily offended and approaches life with a very coolheaded attitude—something that I’ve always loved about her.
That night I lay in bed, battling desperately with my mind to stop racing with images of her. Ever since I talked to her this morning, my mind keeps on drifting off to thoughts of her—how her mellifluous voice perfectly complemented her generous eyes, how everything she said seemed to be from a place of intellect and importance, how she managed to keep you entertained the entire time she talked, your eyes never wandering somewhere else . . . God, I’m doing it again. It’s not like I fell in love with her, but she was a refreshing change from my dreary life, one embedded in routine and restrictions. You can’t do this and you shouldn’t do that is all I am told. Wasn’t it Plato or Locke who philosophized the concept of free will; well, where’s mine?