Chapter 24 Chapter 12 (ii)
Fae
Then, a week after I learned about that, news spread that they were getting married.
I learned they had been together for two months. They claimed to be so in love with each other that they couldn’t wait any longer.
I was shocked. I did the only thing that I could do—hide my pain behind work and cry only when I was home and alone.
Working in the same building where Sarah worked, too, up to a week before the wedding was like hell.
She didn’t try to hide her smirks whenever she received a call from Carl. Flowers and other gifts were sent to the office for the fiancée from the fiancé. Even though technically, I never got together with Carl like that, no one was happy about it. Most of our colleagues were extremely disappointed—and they showed it by the way they treated her. Not actual bullying, but they avoided her as much as they could if it didn’t involve work. She was alone during lunch, and she wasn’t getting any invitation to group work or night out. It would be easy for her to think I instigated it, and I might have but not by telling them to do so, but because I was family. I wouldn’t have to say anything, nor could I stop them if that’s what they wanted to do because they felt angry at the betrayal.
This fueled Sarah to flaunt her relationship with Carl even more.
When Sarah took a week off before the wedding, I was able to breathe for the first time since they made their relationship public. That was when I realized I would be leaving the firm, and it was another bout of heartache. I wouldn’t have attended the wedding if it weren’t for the invitation. I had also decided by then to leave my condo because I saw Sarah there all the time, and I couldn’t stay calm or have my old peace living and sleeping there.
It was my third heartbreak. This place was the first symbol of my independence since my father passed away. The walls had felt my longing for the company of my family or friends when I was alone. I was friends with many household staff in the Easton house. After my father passed, I wasn’t truly alone until I moved here. It was hard at first, but I managed, and then got used to being my own company, and learned to love my space. Three years later, Sarah started living with me. If that hadn’t happened, I might have been able to survive staying.
That night, I fell asleep exhausted. But there was a moment, before everything went away, when I thought of Jigo.
I would swear to myself later that in the moment between being awake and dreaming, I felt him. Thinking of him, longing for the warmth of his embrace, I suddenly felt the friction of his skin against mine when he hugged me in his bed at the resort’s hotel. I smelled the clean and masculine scent that I loved, which was why I buried my nose in the crook of his neck whenever I got the chance. It felt like I was just dreaming, but it seemed so real.
Then my sleep deepened, and it got mixed with other dreams... and when I woke up I just knew I dreamed about him but I couldn’t remember any more than that.
The next day, I went straight to carrying out my plans. I listened to an audiobook to drown out the noise of my thoughts. It was effective because not a single tear fell from my eyes the whole morning.
At twelve o’clock, I printed my resignation letter. I dressed in my usual office attire and drove to the office. People were just returning from their lunch break, and many were just sitting down at their seats on my floor.
Sarah would be on leave for a few weeks because of her honeymoon. Carl’s grandfather owned the firm. I didn’t care if my leaving would affect Sarah because she was still new to the family while I was known and had better relationships with the uncles and aunts. There were rumors that the wedding was rushed before Carl’s grandparents could do anything to stop it, and Sarah was just starting to gain their trust.
But I was fostered, and Sarah was the wife. It would be worse than awkward if I stayed.
Atty. Estanislao, the senior partner, was shocked when he saw that my resignation letter was irrevocable. I left immediately before he could recover and stop me. Or before the other partners found out and conspired against my resignation because, behind closed doors, they treated me like their niece.
Or before I started crying. Or they started getting emotional. Whichever came first.
Even our colleagues didn’t know that I had resigned when I left Atty. Estanislao’s office after promising that even if I was not with the firm anymore, I would still attend personal invitations to family gatherings and that I would never stop inviting them to celebrate milestones in my life.
When I passed by carrying a box of my personal belongings that I took from my office, that’s when they noticed. I had been gradually taking my things home even before attending the wedding to avoid the drama of bringing a big box of personal effects on my way out. And indeed, they were too shocked and confused to react fast enough.
It might have crossed their minds that I would think to leave, but not to actually leave. For them, the law firm was in my blood, just like it was in Carl’s.
I didn’t want to think about what they might assume after this—that my resignation was driven by vindictiveness, by getting back at Sarah and making her situation difficult and awkward. Maybe it was. Maybe I felt a little bit of satisfaction in what this would cause her. But staying only made the pain more intense and moving on more difficult. And I was not up for that.
Furthermore, I didn’t want to involve them in the consequences of my situation with Sarah and Carl that would eventually affect the office environment.
I would make it up to them when I was ready to face them again. When it was easier to be with them in the future, preferably far away from the office and the cause of my broken heart.