Read Online The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen - Free Book Online Page B

than air. He shouted insults in my wake as I kept walking. I wanted to walk forever. I wanted to be like Forrest Gump, reaching one end of the country and turning around and heading for the other coast. I passed by a twenty-four-hour liquor store and a deli with red flowers clustered in buckets out front. I stepped over the chalk outline of a child’s hopscotch game and the broken amber glass of beer bottles. I keep walking, my shoes tapping a steady rhythm against the sidewalk of the city I’d loved so much.
    Some time later—maybe an hour, maybe three—I passed a street I recognized. I stood on the corner, staring up at thestreet sign. Somehow, I’d looped around and now I was only ten blocks away from my office. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees, and the wind was picking up. A storm was coming. My teeth chattered, and I could no longer feel my feet.
    A thought wormed its way through the numbness of my brain. I had an extra set of keys to my apartment and twenty dollars in my desk drawer for emergencies.
    No one would be at the office now; they’d all still be partying. I could slip into the building, then I could go home and swallow a sleeping pill and escape into oblivion.
    I turned right, toward my office, and kept walking.
    “Want me to turn on a light for you?” the security guard asked. I’d knocked on the glass window outside his station, and he’d put down his fork and Tupperware container of spaghetti and let me into the building. He used his passkey to open the door to my office after I mumbled a story about leaving my purse in a cab.
    “I’ll get the lights,” I said, my voice coming out all husky, as if I’d been screaming for hours. “Thank you, John.”
    “Don’t work too late now.” He tipped his head at me and headed for the elevator, whistling a song I didn’t recognize.
    I sat down in the leather chair behind my desk and reached for the drawer with my money and keys, but before I could open it, I noticed something amiss on my desk. My pencils and Clio Award and stapler had been moved to one side, to make room for the magnum of champagne someone had put in the center. There was a silver card attached to the bottle. I reached for the card and laughed a mirthless laugh when I read it.
    “Congratulations to our newest—and youngest ever—VP creative director!” the card said. It was from the board of directors of our agency.
    I picked up the heavy bottle and turned it around and around in my hands. Dom. Nice to know that even though they’d stabbed me in the back, they hadn’t skimped on me.
    Suddenly I was desperately thirsty. I must’ve walked for miles, inhaling black exhaust fumes from buses and cabs, and my throat felt so sore I could barely swallow. I pulled off the foil and wire twisted around the neck of the bottle and used my thumbs to pop the cork. I ignored the foam that cascaded over my hands and took a greedy gulp from the bottle.
    When the phone on my desk shrilled, I nearly dropped the heavy bottle on my toe.
    Who could be calling me at the office at—I squinted at the clock on the wall—nine-thirty on a Friday night? It was probably Matt, or maybe Mason. They could leave a message; there wasn’t anyone in the world I wanted to talk to right now.
    I finally glanced at the caller ID on the third ring. It was Bradley Church.
    Bradley, who always made me feel good. Bradley, who’d had a not-so-secret crush on me since the second grade. Bradley, whose red felt heart printed with the words “Be My Valentine” had been tucked in the secret compartment of my old jewelry box since the third grade. He was the one guy in the world who’d always made me feel like I was pretty. Like I was special. His deep voice would be a balm to my soul.
    “Hey, you!” Bradley shouted. His voice was happy, excited. “I’ve been trying to reach you all night, but you didn’t answer your cell or at home. I can’t believe you’re still at the office!”
    “Yeah,” I said.