Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 78807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Silence falls over the room. Johnnie’s bright red with rage and shame, his jaw tight and working. Harry’s completely pale, glancing from me to Johnnie and back again, looking like he’s at a total loss.
“Ah, Ms. Connell?” Harry’s voice is a squeak. “This was supposed to be a performance review. He didn’t mention any, uh, allegations.”
My body goes still. My heart nearly stops. My hands and feet feel like ice. All that anger? Yeah, that’s gone. Back to being numb. “He… didn’t?”
“No,” Johnnie says through his teeth. “And my review was very positive.” He stands suddenly. “Sorry, Harry, but can I talk to Dara in the hall for a second?”
“Uh, I don’t think, ah, it’s probably—”
But Jonnie’s already steering me out the door. I let him do it. I’m too mortified, too frozen to fight back.
“You weren’t trying to get me fired,” I whisper once we’re alone, the door slammed shut, Johnnie facing me with a vicious, hateful stare. “I thought—”
“No, you psycho,” he snaps quietly, leaning closer. “I know I fucked up last night. I was going to apologize to you by giving you a glowing performance review. Instead, you came in there guns blazing, and because of your big mouth, we’re both screwed. I swear to fucking god, now you really are done working here. You hear me? I’m going straight to my uncle. You’re fucking done.”
I take one step away, ears ringing. “But I thought—I figured you were—” Shit, shit, shit. What the hell did I just do?
But no, fuck no, I did the right thing in there.
Even if Johnnie wanted to apologize, that doesn’t change anything. He really did assault me. He really did all those things.
The only problem is now he’s actually going to get me fired, whereas if I had kept my mouth shut, I might be getting a raise and a promotion right now.
God, this is disgusting. I feel absolutely filthy. This whole situation makes me absolutely sick. What a horrendous moral situation. Let my abuser get away with abuse, get money thrown in my face for my silence.
Absolutely horrifying.
Suddenly, some of that rage returns. I’m mortified, completely embarrassed, and all I want to do is get out of here.
I turn my back on him, head spinning. I need to leave, go back to my empty apartment, talk to the cops, sort my shit out. Let Johnnie do what he has to do. I said my piece to HR already.
“Where are you going?” he snaps. “We need to fix that in there. Hey, Dara, get the fuck over here! Where the fuck are you going?!”
I don’t look back. I walk away, as fast as I can, too self-righteous to stop.
My body’s fried. My nerves are shot.
I reached my limit. Here I am, I’m finished, totally finished. I can’t keep fighting, not after the last couple of days.
Everything I had is gone, and now I’m going to lose this job for real, all because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I should find some solace in that: at least I went down swinging. At least I did the right thing. At least I didn’t take my abuser’s bribe.
Maybe, if I was smart, I could’ve gone to HR privately without Johnnie right there in the room and made sure justice was served.
Instead, I made myself look unstable and guaranteed that he’d retaliate against me.
Johnnie will go running to his uncle, and all his problems will vanish.
While I’ll be vilified. It’ll be his word against mine with the weight of his Patagonia Cronies backing him up and the air of respectability he manages to cling onto by way of association with his uncle. Meanwhile, I’m just some girl working here.
This isn’t fair. This is so stupid. I should stay, make sure Harry understands my accusations, make sure Johnnie doesn’t wiggle his way out of this somehow.
But I’ve lost too much and I can’t keep going.
I’m giving up. To hell with it.
I head back to my cubicle, defeated, at my lowest, pack my things, and get the hell out of there before they have the chance to make this hellish day even worse.
Chapter 9
Dara
Six Weeks Later
I puke my guts up for the third time this morning and that’s when I know my life is really over.
“Are you okay in there?” Kathryn frets outside of the door. “You don’t sound good.”
“I’m fine,” I croak, flushing my sick away. I lean back against the wall, a sheen of sweat on my forehead. “Really, I’m okay.”
Except I’m not.
Because for the last few days, I’ve been throwing up first thing every morning, like clockwork, and my period’s late.
Like two weeks late.
I’ve been deep in denial. So much has gone wrong this last month and a half that I couldn’t bring myself to admit what’s happening.
Except I must’ve known last week when I bought a batch of pregnancy tests on a whim. A little, just in case sort of contingency. Or so I thought at the time.