19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Izzy The buzz of her phone woke her up, though she’d been in the lightest of sleeps since turning in. She looked over at it in the darkness, and - it was him. She sat up and swiped through the lock screen. Blake: I really need to talk to you before work tomorrow and it’s important. Wonderful. Izzy turned off the phone and set it back on the nightstand, the knot in her stomach getting tighter. In her experience, people never said I need to talk to you when they wanted to discuss good things. She had no idea what had happened, but she was fairly certain they were over. Why else would he behave that way? They were texting buddies – he’d made fun of her multiple times for saying that – yet he wasn’t texting her anymore. She blinked fast, trying to push back the sad disappointment that surely was going to knock her on her ass. She’d respond to him because she wasn’t a jerk, but not tonight and probably not before work in the morning.  If he could ignore her for hours, she could do the same. And if she was getting dumped, it’d be on her timeline, dammit. Only when her alarm went off at six a.m., she saw that he had sent three more texts. 2 am: Please call me first thing in the morning. 4:15 am: I’m already up, so you can call whenever. 5:30 am: It’s important, Iz. Duuuude. She felt the Iz in the very core of her heart. He’d ignored her all day yesterday, and now he casually dropped that nickname? Screw him. She silenced her phone and dumped it into the bottom her purse when she went to grab clean underwear out of the laundry basket. She didn’t really need to have the phone handy since Blake was the only person who texted her, right? She showered and got ready for work, and pretty much felt miserable the entire time. She was pathetic. But when she got to Ellis and stepped into the elevator, she realized that she wanted to text him. To hear what he had to say and give him a chance. Blake had always been a good person – a good friend, so she supposed he’d earned her trust and patience. There was no reason to assume the worst. Even though she felt like it was inevitable. She rifled through her bag until she found her phone. She tried to keep things light by texting: What’s up, broseph? You get tired of ghosting me and need an Izzy fix? She kept her phone in her hand, expecting a quick response. What she hadn’t expected, though, was for Pam to be standing outside of her office when she got off the elevator, pacing like she was waiting for Izzy’s arrival. “Hey, Pam. Did you have a good weekend?” Pam frowned before saying, “Honestly, no. Can I talk to you in your office?”

Blake Blake pulled his phone out of his pocket as he exited the conference room. Izzy: What’s up, broseph? You get tired of ghosting me and need an Izzy fix? Holy shit - she’d responded. He felt his pulse kick up as he clicked on her contact info and hit the button to call her.  It went directly to voicemail. Shit. He glanced at his watch - 9:30 - and realized he was probably too late. The plan was to speak with all the affected employees first thing in the morning. Noting that Izzy was a part of the human resources team, he assumed that she would have been the first one spoken to. Blake pushed through the door to the stairwell and started down the stairs toward Izzy’s floor. It was a stupid move, going to her office, but he felt like he had to know that instant. He quickly descended four flights of stairs before straightening his tie, checking his phone, then coolly stepping onto the HR floor, trying his best to look casual and professional. “Blake,” said a tall guy – John something? - with a nod, walking down the hall as if it was entirely normal for Blake to be popping out of stairwells. “Adam,” Blake muttered in response. He turned the corner and -- “Hey, Blake.” Pam stopped walking. “I was just coming to see you.” “Yeah?” He said, looking past her in the direction of Izzy’s office. “Yes. We finished all twelve of the separations.” That made his gut clench, which was stupid because he’d known it was happening. He tried for detached when he said, “Everything go okay?” She nodded. “The Danovich employees didn’t seem surprised post-acquisition, for the most part, and I think they appreciated the severance package and support we’ll provide them in securing employment.” “Good,” he said robotically, not even recognizing that he’d responded to Pam. He couldn’t stop thinking, worrying, obsessing over Izzy; it was impossible for him to think about anything other than her at the moment. “I felt really bad for my new generalist, though,” she said, pursing her lips. “She seemed shocked.” He rubbed the back of his neck and wondered if he had any more Tums in his desk. He said, “It’s never easy, is it?” He swallowed. “So what brings you down to our floor?” she asked. “Uh.” He tugged at his tie and seemed unable to come up with a word. Any words at all. What the fuck was wrong with him? He said, “I misplaced my phone and thought I’d check down here.” She glanced down at his hand, where he was clearly holding the latest iPhone.  He said, “I have to go now.” Once he was in the elevator, he pulled out his phone and texted: Are you okay? He hadn’t realized how certain he was that she wouldn’t respond until the vibration of his phone scared the shit out of him.

Izzy Was he kidding with that? Izzy shoved her phone into the pocket of her coat. Nope. She definitely wasn’t okay. Because getting fired was terrible. She felt embarrassed, rejected, sad, and stressed about her future. But what was even worse – devastating, honestly – was the fact that Blake had known. Perhaps if she didn’t work in HR, she might’ve been able to delude herself into thinking he hadn’t been aware. She might’ve assumed he was too important to be in the weeds of a workforce reduction. But Blake was the AVP. He was the one in charge of things like this. If he hadn’t been the one to make the decision, he’d at the very least signed off on it. So when she’d been burying her face in his neck at the farmer’s market and thinking about forever with him, he’d been fully-aware that she would only be employed for a few more days. She looked out the window, at the steady autumn rain, and the question came out of nowhere, nearly knocking the wind out of her. Had her termination been the why and how of their relationship? Had Blake known she was getting fired, and that knowledge made him okay with more than friends?? Had she been fired SO they could be more than friends? She shifted the box on her lap as the bus’s squeaky brakes squealed to a stop at the end of her block. Her cheeks burned as she stood and walked down the center aisle, hyperaware that every eye on that bus knew she’d just been fired. And when she stood on the curb and watched the bus pull away, it somehow felt like yet another rejection. Izzy pulled the hood of her jacket a little tighter as she walked in the rain. Everything sucked, but she was going to try her best to be positive. It’s a gorgeous autumn morning, she told herself, letting her eyes wander over the rain-dampened yellow leaves that were covering the sidewalk. You have your health, she thought as she catalogued the lack of physical pain existing in her body. You will find anoth— “Oof!” She tripped on a raised section of sidewalk, falling forward and all the way down to her hands and knees, spilling her I-just-got-fired box all over those wet leaves. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she whined, though no one was even around to hear her. It was a Tuesday morning. Everyone else was at work.

Blake After an hour, she finally responded. Izzy: Fine. HBU? Yeah, she wasn’t fine. He responded with: I just saw Pam. Izzy: Haha samesies He hated this. He didn’t want work to ruin what they had. He didn’t want this hanging between them. He texted: So again - are you okay? Izzy: I’m fine. Ellis is very generous with their severance packages. He didn’t know what to say to that. He texted: Can I call you? Instead of answering, his phone started ringing. Izzy was calling him. He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey.” “So I have three questions,” she said, sounding uncharacteristically serious. “I don’t want to be a hardass, especially since you’re kind of my favorite right now, but I need answers.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Right. Of course.” “Okay.” She cleared her throat before saying, “When did you find out Ellis was firing me?” “You didn’t get fired, you were part of a workforce reduct--” “Blake.” Her voice was tight. “When?” Fuck, he didn’t want to answer that. He sighed and said, “Yesterday morning.” “Oh - wow.” She did a breathy cough-laugh thing that was definitely not good. “More than twenty-four hours.” “Well I was--” “Question two,” she interrupted, sounding like her teeth were gritted. “Did you have any part in the decision that I should be one of the eliminated?” He felt even more queasy than he’d felt before. “Yes.” He heard her shocked inhalation through the phone. He said, “But I didn’t know that--” “Nope. Blake.” She talked right over him, her voice stiff and weird. “You have no idea how much I respect your honesty. I’m sure you made the right business decision and didn’t let your personal feelings interfere.” He didn’t know if she was being sincere or sarcastic, so he said what was in his heart. “Please let me bring you a pizza.” “No.” She cleared her throat again and said, “I mean, no, thank you. I have to go.” “Wait.” “WHAT?” He didn’t know. He only knew that if she hung up the phone, things would get worse. “What was your third question?” She growled. “Once it was decided that my position was being eliminated, which was evidently done by none other than you, is that when you told me that we could be more than friends?” He hadn’t expected that. Holy shit, did she really think he was that big of a jerk? She had every right to be pissed at him, but he felt wounded when he said, “Are you asking me if I eliminated your job so we could be together?” Her voice was clipped when she said, “Dear Lord, Blake. You’re an intelligent man. Don’t make me repeat the question.” “Izzy, of course I didn’t--” “Forget it,” she interrupted. “Doesn’t matter?” “Are we okay?” he asked, feeling like he needed to brace his arms on his knees and put his head between his legs so he didn’t pass out. “I don’t know. I don’t really think so.” “Iz.” For the third time that day, he had no fucking idea what to say. “Please tell me we can be okay.” “I can’t.” Her voice was louder now. “Because no matter how I look at this, we’re not okay. Either you fired me to get what you wanted, or you knew I was getting fired but didn’t tell me. I hate both scenarios.” “I texted you,” he said, hating how desperate he sounded, how desperate he felt. “In the middle of the night," she snapped, "And all you said was to call you. That's not a warning.” “You have to believe me that I didn’t know you were on the list until Brad told me yesterday morning.” “But you said--” “I was looking at employee numbers and data when I made the decision - no names,” he said, wondering if that would even matter to her. “It wasn’t even until I talked to him about us that I realized you were affected.” “Wait. You told him about us?” “Yes.” Fuck. I was totally blowing it. “I met with him Monday at six a.m. to discuss it.” “Ohmygod, Blake - what if that’s why?” She sounded even angrier as she said, “Or were you just ensuring that I couldn’t be removed from the list once Brad knew?” “It wasn’t like that.” “I have to go.” No. “Can I come over?” “No.” “Iz. Come on,” he begged, feeling desperate. “Please.” “I need to think, okay? I have to go.” She disconnected the call, and Blake stood there for the longest time, just staring at the phone in his hand.

Izzy “To Izzy,” Josh shouted, holding up his shot glass. “To Izzy,” his friends repeated, and they all tossed back another shot. When she’d come home in the middle of the morning, crying and carrying her wet box of belongings, her cousin had gone into full-on supportive bestie mode. He’d taken her shopping to try and help her forget about her joblessness, and then he’d called all of his nerdy friends to meet them for day-drinking. On a side note, she didn’t know how Josh’s friends were able to just ditch work for an impromptu afternoon party, but she was sure glad they were. It’d been a good distraction, but not good enough to make her not think about Blake. Every time he entered her mind, she’d get that adrenaline shot to her system, the weird chemical mixture that made her feel love, hate, worry and dread, all at the same time. But the thing of it was, she wasn’t sure how she really felt. He might’ve handled it poorly, but he’d never lied to her. He had always been honest to a fault, so if he said he hadn’t known he was choosing her for elimination, he probably hadn’t. She still didn’t know where they stood, relationship-wise, but -- “Drink, drink, drink!” they all chanted over the noise of the bar, and she did. She tossed back the Vegas Bomb, happily allowing her tipsiness to catch a buzz that she hoped would morph into full-scale drunkenness. Because it’d been a very shitty day that she’d like to forget. Josh and his friends forced her to play darts with them, then pool, and it wasn’t until she was good and tipsy, on the way home, that the conversation turned 100% in her direction. The whole group was piled into the back of their DD’s minivan when Josh’s friend, Chuck, turned around in his seat and told her over the headrest that she was too good for Blake. Who, over the course of the afternoon, had been renamed The Douche. “I like ethics as much as the next guy, but you can’t keep a secret like that. Not if you really care about the other person.” He stroked his pencil-thin mustached and said, “You deserve better.” Josh nodded in agreement from his spot beside her in the back row, his words just short of slurry when he said, “Quick point of clarification, Chuck. You told at least thirteen lies while we were at the bar. You’ve told two since we got in the van and we’ve only made it five blocks. You wouldn’t know ethics if it bit you on your big rosy ass.” Then he turned toward Izzy and said, “But Chuck is right. You deserve so much better than The Douche. He can kiss Chuck’s lying butt.” Chuck added, “And he should’ve asked you before he told his boss about your relationship. Total dick move, not talkin’ to you first.” She nodded and said, “Honestly, I'm dying to know what he said. Like, word-for-word, I want to know." “Ask The Douche,” Chuck said, gesturing to her phone. “Make the asshole tell you.” Izzy giggled. “Should I?” “Yes!” they all said in unison. She gnawed on her lip before unlocking her phone and texting: What exactly did you tell Brad about us? His response was almost immediate. Blake: I told him that I started dating you the second I saw a post-acquisition org chart draft showing HR would soon begin reporting to someone else. Obviously that changed, but at the time I thought we were fee and clear. Man, Iz, my heart exploded. That sounded really good to her, even though Chuck and Josh were talking about how douchey of a move that was. Blake: Can I please call you? She was about to text "yes" when Josh yelled, “NO!” “Give me that,” he said, snatching her phone from her fingers. “No matter what your ultimate decision is, you have to be aloof in right now. You can’t let The Douche think you’ll forgive him that easily.” She pictured Blake’s face and felt melty. Yeah - she was definitely ready to consider being easy on him. Still, she said, “I don’t want to run the risk of losing whatever this is that we have, assuming I want to take him back.” She looked around the van and noticed they were waiting on her to do or say something. She cleared her throat and said, “Assuming I want to take The Douche back.” Cheers and clapping erupted in the van. “You won’t,” Chuck said. “Just let him spend the night thinking he might lose you. Trust us on this.” She looked from Chuck to Josh and decided that yes, she would trust them. She sucked at love and relationships, so they had to at least know more than her, right? “Fine,” she said, noting a light slur in her own voice. “Keep my phone and don’t let me have it back, even if I beg.” “Donezo.”

Izzy She regretted that the minute she woke up the next morning. She reached for her phone, only to discover it’d never been returned. Awesome. She sat up and looked out the window, her head pounding, and sure enough, his car was gone. Josh had gone to work and left her phoneless. A week ago, she’d have just gone up to his apartment and retrieved it, but after The Darkling puked on his stuff, he’d started locking his door. “Dammit,” she groaned, her head aching as she flopped back onto her pillow. She laid there, feeling devastated about Blake. Her fuzzy brain was having a hard time keeping track of whether she was mad or sad, but there was no question that there was a massive aching emptiness without him. An instant later, she remembered she was unemployed. “Gawwwwwd.” One of those things would’ve been the worst, but the two of them together? This was nuclear-bad on her heart. She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, but that wasn’t comforting because it made her think of the way Blake’s pillow had smelled like a combination of him and bleach. After a half-hour of crying in bed, she decided to get up and eat. She was wickedly hungover, and the only cure was going to be cold pizza. She climbed out of bed and shuffled toward the kitchen. She grabbed a slice and a Red Bull from the fridge, and took them over to her desk. After waking the laptop that she always forgot to turn off, she plopped onto the chair and logged into - ugh - LinkedIn.  Because as much as she’d like to spend the day loafing, the tiny balance in her savings account was pushing her to start job hunting immediately. She clicked on the search window and typed human resou-- before noticing the little inbox notification on the side of the screen. 25 New Messages. She knew they were all spam, but clicked into the messages, anyway. The first one was sent at 8am that morning, from someone named Ashley Lea at MOA. Izzy was familiar with the huge insurance company, but no one named Ashley.  Hi, Isabella. We currently have an opening for an HR Generalist, and a little birdie told me that you might be looking. If you’re interested, please call me - I’d love to chat. Izzy took a bite of pizza and read the message again. It looked like a legit message, but that was just a little too good to be true, wasn’t it?  She moved down to the next message, which was also sent earlier that morning. My name is Emily Carson, and I’m with Price-Harper Corporation. We’re looking for a Senior HR Generalist, and your name was mentioned with a glowing recommendation. Would you be interested in discussing? Izzy dropped the cold slice onto the table and leaned closer to the laptop screen. What in the actual hell? She started clicking through the rest of the messages, and they were ALL legitimate, I’m-not-dreaming employers, reaching out to her about jobs. She couldn’t believe it. Pam must’ve made some calls on her behalf - it was the only explanation. The woman was the sweetest and felt horrible when she’d let Izzy go, so that had to be it. But talk about going above and beyond. Over half of these jobs were better opportunities than the one she’d just left. Izzy grabbed the heavy old rotary phone that sat on her desk, a throwback relic that her grandparents kept connected to a landline because you never knew. As long as she’d lived there, Izzy had never used the old phone. Not even once. Now, however, she was grateful as hell for its existence. Izzy lifted the phone to her ear and dialed the number from the first message she’d received. It was a direct line to Ashley, the VP of HR, and when the woman answered, she behaved as if she’d been dying for Izzy to call. She said she was thrilled to hear from her and would love to chat in-person.  Two hours later, Izzy had six interviews scheduled, six very promising interviews. She couldn’t believe her good fortune; like, what were the odds? How is this even happening? She made a mental note to ask Josh if she could borrow his car for interviews since Blake still had hers. But when she was on the phone with the seventh, a Lori Anderjaska at Citibank who was going to rearrange her entire schedule in order to fit Izzy in, it all started making sense. Lori slipped and mentioned Blake’s name - when Blake called - and Izzy made the woman slow down and tell her everything. And that was the moment she knew.

Blake Blake pulled up in front of Izzy’s building. He shut off the car and texted: I have pizza, McDonalds, flowers, a six-pack, a gallon of chocolate ice cream, a bottle of wine, your better-than-new running car, and a thousand apologies. If you’ll let me come in, I’ll give you all of it. She hadn’t responded to him since the night before, when he admitted he’d told Brad about them. And honestly - he couldn’t blame her for being pissed. He should’ve asked her permission before going to the top with their relationship, but he’d been so fucking desperate to somehow have both Izzy and his integrity that he'd been impulsive. And he was never impulsive. Although, to be fair, he felt wildly desperate and maniacally impulsive at the moment as he sat there in a car full of bribes and a gnawing in his gut that worsened every time his brain said it’s too late - you’ve already lost her. Lost her. As if he’d ever had her. But he had the promise of what they could be. It wasn’t the idea of her, it was the reality of them. They hadn’t been together long, but it was long enough to know that losing her was more than he could handle. When Skye had lied to him, resulting in their broken engagement, he’d been pissed and disappointed and felt like an idiot. But somehow today, the possibility that he might’ve lost Izzy felt far more devastating than a lost fiancé. He got out of the car, grabbed the mountain of shit from the passenger seat, and walked up to the stoop. It couldn’t hurt to try the buzzer, right? Technically he had the building code, but there was no way he’d be that creep who just let himself into someone else’s apartment. He shifted the stack of stuff and hit the buzzer, but after three times, gave up. He lowered himself to the ground and sat, knowing that if he went back to work he’d just think about Izzy and accomplish nothing. He might as well wait for her. She couldn’t be gone for that long, right? He stretched his legs out in front of him and settled in to wait her out.