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I Will Leave You, In This Hopeful Spring
NovelShort
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Hoàn thành
After a late shift ended, I realized someone was following me. I called my boyfriend for help, but on the other end he was laughing so hard he could barely stay upright. "Don't flatter yourself. Who'd...
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第1章
After I finished working late, I realized someone was following me.
I called my boyfriend for help, but on the other end he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
"Don't flatter yourself. Who's going to chase you around in the middle of the night? You really think you're that good-looking?"
Before I could finish, the line went dead.
The footsteps behind me rushed in. I bolted, but two steps later a hand yanked me by the hair and slammed me down onto the ground.
"Little slut, you sure know how to work those hips when you walk. Let me get a taste of what you've got."
I fought with everything I had and couldn't break free. Thank God a security guard heard the noise and came running, and the man took off.
I ran all the way home, but Denys James didn't even lift his head. "You're back, aren't you? Quit being so dramatic."
Two weeks later, the new coworker, Fern Henson, posted online that she'd been working late and couldn't get a ride.
In under ten minutes, Denys showed up outside the office.
He pulled the car door open, put Fern in the passenger seat, and even leaned over to buckle her seatbelt for her.
"I'm the boss. Looking out for my employees is only right."
Then he turned to me. "Dropping Fern off isn't on my way. Book yourself a ride home."
Fern covered her face, cheeks flushed. "Denys, you're so sweet."
So he knew how dangerous it was for a girl to walk alone at night.
I just wasn't important enough.
...
A cluster of people had gathered outside the office. Fern sat in the passenger seat, the window rolled halfway down.
The coworkers broke into laughter.
"The boss himself, playing chauffeur?"
"What kind of dream boss is this? He even chauffeurs the intern assistant. Fern, you must have saved the galaxy in a past life!"
Fern's ears went red. She ducked her head, pressing her lips together in a smile.
I stood outside the crowd, watching that smile, and something in my eyes started to sting.
My mind kept flashing back to that night, to being pinned to the ground, to the suffocation and the despair, to the sickening reek of alcohol on that man.
Flattering myself. Being dramatic.
That was what he'd called it.
But somehow, all Fern had to do was post once online, saying she'd worked late and couldn't get a ride.
And he was out the door without a word.
Fern leaned out the window and looked at me, smiling a little.
"Florence Cox, Denys just worries about a young girl like me being unsafe."
"He's got such a good heart. He always says it's on his way, that he'll drop me off."
"I've turned him down a few times, but he won't have it. He insists on driving me. I can't stop him."
No wonder Denys, the boss, left for the office earlier than I did every single day.
So that was where he was going. To play chauffeur.
But he'd never once driven me anywhere. Not one time.
I asked him why once, and he said we had to keep it discreet at the office, that it wouldn't look good if coworkers saw us.
So most of my coworkers had no idea we were even together.
A male coworker beside me knocked into my arm. "Florence, what are you staring at?"
"Eyes glued to the car. What, you want a turn in the boss's passenger seat too?"
The whole group burst out laughing.
"She's had that bag for what, two years? Does she even have the class for the boss's passenger seat?"
"Come on, don't be like that. She just wants a little TLC too."
Denys sat in the car as if he hadn't heard a thing.
No explanation. No defense. Not even a flicker across his face.
I turned my head and looked straight at the coworker with the loosest mouth.
"What about you, then? Still hanging around here. You looking to cozy up to the boss too?"
He choked on it, red-faced and furious, and in the end couldn't get a word out.
I turned to leave.
Denys's voice suddenly rose behind me.
He'd pulled a jacket from the back seat and draped it over Fern's knees.
"It's cold out. Keep this on."
"Don't catch a cold and end up miserable again. Then I'll just have to go buy you medicine."
Fern murmured something, and Denys smiled, soft and doting.
I paused for a moment. Then, without looking back, I kept walking.
第2章
I thought about it for a long time, and I made up my mind: I'd move out of Denys's place first.
I opened the notes app on my phone to start a list of what to take, and then Fern's post scrolled up on my feed:
Thanks for treating me, Denys.
Below it was a photo of the two of them together.
It was nearly midnight when Denys got home.
He came in, saw the suitcase lying open on the floor, and kicked it.
The case flipped over, clothes spilling everywhere.
"Florence, who's this little show for?"
"What is wrong with you?" I stood up.
"What's wrong with me?" He tossed his car keys onto the shoe cabinet.
"You made a face and walked out tonight in front of everyone. Do you have any idea she blamed herself the whole way back? Can you not have a little tact, Florence?"
I listened to him firing off one accusation after another, and I couldn't hold it in. "Denys, in all these years, have you ever once come to pick me up?"
He froze for a second, his face shifting through a few expressions, and his tone came back harder. "How many times do I have to tell you? In front of coworkers, we keep our distance."
"Why do you keep dragging up this same thing? The whole company is watching. If I'm the boss and I'm picking you up every single day, what are people supposed to think?"
"Then tell me this. Ever since Fern arrived, you leave more than an hour early every day to go get her, and you've never missed once. So the keeping-distance rule only applies to me?"
He let out a cold laugh.
"Florence, I really misjudged you."
"She's just a young girl, new in town, doesn't know a soul. What's the harm in me giving her a ride?"
"Tonight she kept telling me not to blame you. She said you left in such a hurry you couldn't have eaten dinner, so she had me pack a meal to bring home for you."
He lifted the takeout box in front of my face, then slammed it hard against the floor.
Broth splashed across my leg, and the skin flared red on the spot.
"She's worried about whether you're going hungry tonight, and you? You're in here throwing a fit? A kindness wasted on an ingrate, and the food too!"
With that he slammed the bedroom door, not sparing me another glance.
That night the scalded skin started to blister, burning and raw.
I pulled back the covers, got out of bed, and went for my coat.
Denys rolled over, irritated. "Where are you going in the middle of the night?"
"The hospital. I got burned."
"Tsk, can't you keep it down? I've got an early meeting tomorrow."
第3章
The next day I got to the office at my usual time. Fern wasn't at her desk, but her monitor was still on, and the messaging app was open.
I was only passing by, but out of the corner of my eye I caught my own name, and my feet stopped.
The other person was saved as "Phoebe," and the last few messages ended sometime last night.
Fern: "The plan worked! Denys got into it with that bitch again today."
Phoebe: "So she's still clinging on and won't leave?"
Fern: "Probably thinks she's the boss's wife or something. You have no idea, she goes around every day acting like the boss's girlfriend, ordering people around the office. Like everyone owes her."
"Denys got drunk and held onto me and said he liked me. She's the one who won't let go, that's why we've been stuck all this time."
I dragged the mouse down, my hand shaking.
"Denys was completely wasted that night, leaning on my shoulder telling me being with her is just habit, that he stopped feeling anything a long time ago."
"They just can't split up. The second he brings up breaking up she cries, and there's nothing he can do."
Phoebe: "So nothing happened that night?"
Fern: "Some security guard came out of nowhere. Fuck."
"Such a waste. I was going to find someone to ruin her. If she'd gotten used up, made dirty, Denys definitely wouldn't want her anymore."
My vision went black, my palm slick with sweat, the mouse so slippery I could barely hold it.
I wanted a photo, proof. I'd just raised my phone when I heard footsteps behind me.
Fern came down the hall carrying a cup. She saw me standing at her desk, paused, then smiled.
"Florence? What are you looking at?"
I stepped back half a step, my mind racing.
If I turned on her right now, she'd delete the whole chat on the spot.
I'd have nothing left.
"Nothing, just passing by, came to get some water." I moved aside a step. "You go ahead."
I carried my cup to the break room, set it on the counter. My hand was still shaking.
I stood there for a dozen seconds, took two deep breaths, then turned and walked toward Denys's office.
The door was open. He was looking down at his phone and lifted his eyes a little when he heard someone come in.
"Denys, I need to talk to you."
"Talk."
"Fern hired someone to attack me."
His finger stopped on the screen. He looked up at me.
"That man in the parking lot two weeks ago, she paid him. I passed her desk today and her chat with a friend was still open. She said it herself."
Denys stared at me for two seconds, then set his phone face-down on the desk.
"Florence, have you lost your mind?"
"The chat's right there on her computer. Go over now and you can still see it."
"Fern hired someone to attack you?" He gave a cold laugh. "She was apologizing to me last night, said she was afraid you'd be upset, told me to pack up some food to bring home for you. And you're telling me she paid people to beat you?"
"She said it herself. She said she was going to find someone to ruin me."
"Enough!" He stood, came around the desk, stopped in front of me, and looked down at me.
"Florence, can you not be normal for once? Fern's a girl from out of town, she's only been here a little over two months, she doesn't know a soul in this city, can't even find her way around. Where's she going to find someone to do that?"
"You're making up a lie like this to frame her over something as small as me giving her rides? Do you think I'm stupid?"
"You can't stand me being a little decent to anyone else? Making a scene like this, what is it you actually want?"
I stood on the other side of his desk and couldn't get a word out.
He turned back to face me, his voice going cold. "If you keep this up, don't blame me for not being nice about it."
"Get out."
第4章
I went back to my desk and sat down. Beside me, coworkers were chatting, a low drone of voices, and I didn't take in a single word.
I unlocked my computer, opened the HR system, clicked into the resignation section, and started filling it out.
Halfway through, my eyes stung. I got up to pour myself a glass of water in the break room, and when I passed the HR office the door was open, with no one inside.
A few onboarding files were spread across the desk. Denys James's was on top, with Fern Henson's tucked underneath it.
Same university. Same year. Same major.
I stood in the doorway and looked for a few seconds.
The fingers around my cup slowly tightened.
Back at my desk, I opened the internal directory and found a senior guy in Denys's department, someone who'd followed him over from his last company a few years back.
I asked him whether Denys had had a girlfriend back at Ashford University.
There was silence for a moment, then a reply: Yeah, he did. They broke up later.
Around graduation year, I think. The girl's family didn't approve. Not sure of the details, but Denys drank a lot around that time.
I stared at the screen, hands resting on the keyboard, and didn't move for a long while.
I remembered something.
About two years ago, Denys came home drunk one night and we ended up in bed, and the whole time he kept mumbling a name under his breath.
I'd been drinking too and wasn't thinking clearly, and he fell asleep fast, so I figured I'd misheard and let it go.
A few days later I brought it up. His face went dark and he said I'd remembered it wrong, told me to stop imagining things, and I never asked again.
That name came back to me now. A surname. The same surname as Fern.
My stomach turned over hard.
I braced myself on the desk and stood, walked to the restroom, pushed the door open, bent over the toilet and gagged twice. Nothing came up.
The tap water was freezing when I washed my hands, running over the backs of them. I looked up at the mirror. My face was a terrible white.
Back at my desk, I closed the resignation page and just started dumping everything from my drawers into a bag.
Water bottle, hand cream, nap pillow, a few pens, all of it shoved in together.
The coworker next to me asked where I was going. I said I had something to deal with and was leaving early.
Once I got home, I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed and threw all my clothes in without folding them, stacked the books off the shelf into a cardboard box, and tipped the drawer contents into my backpack.
I booked a high-speed train ticket home for five thirty that afternoon, then took out my phone and sent Denys a message.
"Denys, let's break up."