Nothing to Lose

“I quit,” Cecilia mutters. Her voice stutters and her head hangs low between her bony shoulders. She has been holding those words deep inside for some time now. Two simple words, festering in the pit of her stomach, growing into something nasty, putrid, and hateful. Cecilia knows speaking them aloud is dangerous. Finally letting them escape gives them life, makes them real.

“I quit,” she says again. This time louder, firmer, allowing the words to take shape and form meaning. She reaches toward the corners of the old rickety wooden table in front of her. She squeezes those corners so tightly she wonders if it will be the wood or her skin to burst first. Cecilia wants this to hurt.

“I quit,” she says a third time with more determination and power. Cecilia peels back her grip, slowly and deliberately releasing her fingers one by one in tandem with her bated breath. She doesn’t look up, but instead stares at her hands. Her palms are fire red and dotted with little white specks of paint chips that have been peeling off the second-hand table purchased from a garage sale for a mere twenty-one dollars. She hates this table. In fact, she hates everything in this disgusting damp little room. Cecilia feels as if the walls are closing in on her. Her heart throbs, skipping several beats, and her chest swells as she gasps for air. What she thought was panic, turns into bitter loathing. The heat of rage flashes through her cheeks. She doesn’t want to look up because she doesn’t want to see the person in front of her. Cecilia knows that when she does, she will see the person she resents the most in this world, the person she can’t change no matter how hard she tries, the person she wants to run away from and be free forever.

“I quit,” she says for the last time. She screams it with the full force of her body, flashing her teeth, her mouth so wide she can feel the skin ripping at the corners. She drags the last word out as long as she can until her gut wrenches and there is no breath left inside of her. She curls and clenches her fists, digging her acrylic French tip nails deep into the meaty part of her palms. She finally looks up into the old oval mirror propped onto her vanity table. The mirror is another item she purchased from the same garage sale for a measly thirteen dollars.

Cecilia throws her fists at the glass and pounds furiously into her reflection over and over until there is nothing left. She replays the words “I quit” in her mind. She imagines screaming them at her boss the next time she sees him.

But there is a truth Cecilia won’t admit — she wants to quit herself and her sad little life. Cecilia is like a beautiful empty vase that has been shattered and glued back together so many times she has lost count. She’s pretty to look at but empty inside, and those that get close enough can see the ugly glue seeping through the cracks. Sometimes she wants to just fall apart and never be put back together.

Cecilia has always been prone to episodes like this, where the despair is just too much to take, where feelings of hate towards anything and everyone around her swarm so virulently in her mind until she just cannot hold it in any longer.

When the fury finally leaves her, as it always does, her mind becomes clear again. Cecilia collects herself from the floor and takes five short steps from her shitty bedroom into her even shittier bathroom. She turns the shower faucet as far to the left as it will go. When she can see the steam billowing in the air, contributing to the dampness that never seems to leave, she hops in the shower. She lets the scalding water cascade down her beautiful, perfectly cultivated body. The water mixes with the blood and forms a pretty pink swirl at her feet before washing down the rusty drain. She lets her feelings of self-hate and doubt wash down the drain as well. As Cecilia picks away the remaining tiny shards of glass from her wounds, she reflects on whose fault all of this really is. Who made her lose control this time?

It was her boss and that mysterious text. Calvin didn’t have to phrase it the way he did and he didn’t have to be so short with her.

“You and I need to meet Friday at 5pm. Ok?” Calvin said.

“Yes!” she sent back with a pink heart emoji. But he never responded.

The more she thought about it, she didn’t know what to make of his request. She didn’t know what to make their situation. She had no idea where she stood with him and it was eating away at her.

Cecilia may only be twenty-three years old but she is no idiot. She’s been out in the world on her own for some time now. She knows that is prime firing time in the work world, a world she never even wanted to be part of. It was always just a way to get close to Calvin. His request to meet at the very last hour on the very last day of the work week sent her mind spiraling.

She told herself it was probably nothing more than a happy hour. Calvin would frequently take his whole team out for drinks on a Friday to celebrate a successful work week. She always liked those outings. They were good opportunities for her to get closer to Calvin. Cecilia always chose the seat to the left of him, and always edged her chair in until their knees were touching. She would pretend to drink too much, stumble as she got up, and pretend to catch herself as she planted a hand in the center of his broad chest. She was always the last to leave, staying with him as he paid the check. His wife, who worked with him, but had recently fallen pregnant, didn’t attend these happy hours anymore. At the last event, Cecilia had even been able to get Calvin to drive her home and walk her to her apartment door. Cecilia invited him in. Being the gentleman he is, he had said no.

If it really was a happy hour, he would have said that in the text. No, this was a meeting between just them. Maybe he was going to finally give in and succumb to her constant advances. He would leave his pregnant wife and make Cecilia the newer, younger, hotter replacement. Cecilia imagined what it would feel like to finally have his lips pressed against hers, his hands running through her long blonde hair, his fingers inching up her long legs, reaching under her skirt.

Her mind darts to another possibility — what if he really does fire her? If she’s honest, things haven’t been going well at work lately. Cecilia lost her temper and had said some pretty nasty stuff to his wife last week. His wife thinks she is so perfect, living in her three-million-dollar home, driving her brand-new Mercedes Benz, the one with the third row because she will have his baby. His wife doesn’t deserve any of it. She’s never had to work for anything in her life, not the way Cecilia has had to. This has all taken a toll on Cecilia lately. No one knows just how stressful it is trying to break up a marriage.

Cecilia takes a deep, slow breath and steps out of the shower. She stands in front of her bathroom mirror and assesses the damage she has done to herself. Cecilia has tediously and tirelessly worked at cultivating the best physical version of herself. She doesn’t just have the fake boobs, a glowing tan, stuffed lips, a body built by hours in the gym and restrictive dieting, but she is also a full six years, eight months, and twenty days younger than Calvin’s wife.

“You can’t quit. You won’t,” Cecilia whispers. It’s not who she is. She was captain and MVP of her high school volleyball team. Ever since then, everything has been a competition to her and she never gives up. Cecilia is a winner, always, at any cost. She is determined to win Calvin over.

She is too good to be working so hard and living in such a shitty apartment. She was made for better things — tanning by the pool, sipping wine, and online shopping. She needs things, nice things, like Louis Vuitton bags, Prada shoes, and Gucci belts. She deserves them. Cecilia is prone to episodes like this too — episodes of intense desire and consumption. Episodes where she wipes out her entire bank account on European leather, silk dresses, and velvet shoes. She has lost count of the times she has had to call her poor retired father two states above to borrow money just so she can make rent.

Cecilia must find a way out, a way to something better. She has always been good at spotting people and opportunities. More so when people are the opportunities. That’s how she met Calvin.

It all started a year ago with another one her episodes, right after she was kicked out of grad school. Cecilia popped a couple Klonopins to calm down. Perhaps she over did it with two bottles of wine as well, but she was stressed. She wasn’t actually trying to off herself. When Cecilia’s decrepit crusty old chihuahua started yipping so loudly from not being fed dinner, the neighbor went to check on her. She found Cecilia face down on the kitchen floor.

Cecilia awoke in the hospital the next day. She was in the cafeteria sneaking a coffee when she saw Calvin for the first time. He was in the checkout line, holding a white styrofoam box and a bottle of lemonade. He looked like a Greek god, bronzed olive skin, dark wavy hair slicked back, and deep hazel eyes. His green scrubs were so tight around his biceps that she thought the seam might burst. Her whole body tingled as she watched him flash his white teeth, throw his head back, and laugh. The pretty blonde lady, also wearing scrubs, standing next to him must have said something funny.

Cecilia went back to the cafeteria at the same time the following day, and to her surprise, he and the lady were there again. When Cecilia was released and finally home with her crusty old chihuahua, she couldn’t get the man off her mind. He invaded her every thought. She went back to the cafeteria every single day at the same time over the next two weeks. He wasn’t always there, sometimes it was just the lady. But on the days he was there, she spent every second drinking in his beauty and charisma from afar.

The next time she saw the blonde lady eating alone, she approached her with a very friendly,

“Sorry to bother you, but I just love the color of your hair. Where do you get it done? As you can see, I am in bad need of a touch up and a new hairdresser.”

The lady instantly lit up at the compliment. She introduced herself as Katie and gave her the name of her hairdresser.

“So, what do you do here at the hospital?” Cecilia asked.

“I don’t work for the hospital. I am a sales representative in the cath lab. What about you? I think I’ve seen you around before?”

“I, uh, work in administration. It’s boring really, nothing special,” Cecilia lied.

Cecilia continued visiting the hospital cafeteria every day just to have lunch. She would purposefully bump into Katie and make small talk until they gradually became some sort of friends. Katie and Cecilia even began eating lunch together on the days that Katie was alone.

“Who is the guy that is here with you sometimes?” Cecilia asked Katie one Friday afternoon.

“He’s my boss. He owns the company and rotates through the accounts. This is my account, so I am always here. We are doing a happy hour tonight at five, you should join us when you get off,” Katie replied.

“Sounds like fun. If I get off on time, I’ll stop by,” Cecilia said. She knew the man would be there and immediately rushed home. Cecilia shaved her legs, applied moisturizer with the little sparkles in it, curled her hair, spritzed perfume, used her best makeup, and picked out the perfect outfit.

When Cecilia arrived to the happy hour, Katie rushed to hug her. “I’m so glad you made it, let me introduce you to Calvin.” He shook Cecilia’s hand, and she felt the electricity rush through her body as his calloused hand rubbed against her soft supple palm.

“My husband,” Katie added.

“You never told me —” Cecilia blushed.

“Yeah, we try to keep it professional during work hours,” Katie giggled before fluttering off to talk to another co-worker that just arrived.

Cecilia spent the rest of the night glued to Calvin’s side and doing what she does best — engaging, enthralling, and entrapping. She elicited every detail about his life that she possibly could. She even learned that one of his associates had just moved away and he needed to fill an open position on his team as soon as possible. That’s when Cecilia feigned a desire to quit her fake job in the hospital administration department. They exchanged cell phone numbers before the end of the night.

Cecilia got the job, because of course she did. Lucky for her, he never called to verify her past employment nor did he even ask for a resume. Cecilia is just that good at winning people over. That’s when her real work began. Him. The one thing standing in her way was Katie.

To beat Katie, she had to stay close to her. They worked together most days, and in a way, they really were friends. When she started hanging out at Katie’s house, she realized just how much she wanted Katie’s life. It was the life Cecilia deserved — the house, the cars, the fresh new clothes, to be wined and dined by a man like Calvin. What had Katie done to deserve all of this? Nothing, she just happened to run into Calvin fifteen years ago when they were nothing but teenagers.

Cecilia capitalized on every opportunity to flirt with Calvin when Katie was not around. Flashing him little glimpses of her body, sending him flirty texts, dressing seductively when she wasn’t required to be in her work scrubs.

“They’ve been fighting lately. I think it’s working. I almost have him,” Cecilia confided in her friend one night over the phone after a few too many glasses of wine. Her crusty chihuahua yipped for his dinner in the background.

“You can’t be serious? You have a real job, after getting kicked out of school. Why don’t you focus on that?” her friend replied.

“It’s not about the job. I want him.”

“You can’t imagine the bond two people have after fifteen years. I don’t think this will work out for you.”

“Nah, I am out competing her in every way. I will win this. You watch.”

“Sometimes I worry about you, Cecilia. I wish we never had this conversation, now go to sleep.”

When Friday finally arrives, Cecilia changes out of her green scrubs and the long white undershirt she has been wearing to hide her wounds from the mirror incident. She puts on a tight black turtle neck and a pleather crocodile print mini skirt, she intentionally forgets her underwear, and pairs the whole outfit with her black high heel booties.

Cecilia sits down with Calvin promptly at five pm. She carefully places her Gucci handbag on the table in front of her, carefully positioning it between them. He reaches out to take her hand and for a moment she contemplates the very real possibility that he could utter the words “Katie and I are done. I love you.”

Instead, he says “I’m sorry, but I have to let you go from this team. I think you know why after everything you said to Katie last week. I hope we can stay friends.”

The heat, the rage, the fury swells within Cecilia. She wants to pound her fists into his face, but must restrain herself. She prepared for this, she reminds herself.

“I quit,” she mutters and he looks confused. “You are a terrible person. You’ve withheld my pay because I won’t return your sexual advances. You forced yourself on me the other night — tried to rape me. You told me I had one last chance to make you sexually happy or you would fire me. I just wanted to do my job. Now, you’re firing me. Well, I quit instead.”

“What the fuck are you talking about —” Calvin says, but Cecilia cuts him off.

“You’ll be sorry. I have nothing to lose, but you have everything to lose. I will make sure no other poor woman has to suffer under you like this.”

“You need to get some help,” he says sternly.

Calvin walks Cecilia to her car in silence. After she hands over her work laptop and literature from her trunk, she makes one last ditch effort to salvage everything she had built with him over the past year.

“I love you,” she mutters with her head hung low.

Calvin leaves without saying another word. Cecilia reaches deep into her purse and pulls out her phone. She clicks the recording button to off. When she edits the tape, everyone will see what a monster he is, and she will win. Because winning isn’t always about getting exactly what you want, it’s about coming out on top and getting the last word — at any cost. Cecilia promises she will do exactly that.