Anyone but you

*contains swearing and references to a past of bad mental health*

ANYONE BUT YOU BY ASTRID QUINN-FLETCHER, enjoy!

Everyone knows that when your told to be there by 1:20, you should really get there by 1:30 but now it’s 1:38 and I’m 2 blocks away from an interview which could change the course of my life forever. My heels click so loudly on the pavement as I run I can’t help but think they are going to break off. I look down at my coffee hoping it hadn’t spilled and I wonder where I would be without my crippling coffee addiction and I get to the conclusion that I would be early for everything.

It is 1:40 and I take a second to look up at up the huge building that holds my future and push through the heavy glass doors. I’m surprised by the time I check in at the front desk, look at myself in my phone to see I only have a few tiny beads of sweat on my forehead and find a seat in the otherwise empty room if it weren’t for a women who looks like she has both all the time in the world and yet none at all and a man in a subtly striped suit and a burgundy tie who must be my competition for the job.

The friendly head of the kind looking secretary pokes out of the door which separates me and my interviewer and says. “Ms Sydney Willson? Mr Beckett is ready for you.”

“Oh great! Thank you.”

I say to her while secretly thanking my parents for having a surname near the end of the alphabet. As I get to the door which is just before the interviewers I see a girl who is probably also in her 20’s beaming so brightly that anyone who has a vitamin D deficiency probably wouldn’t need to take their pills anymore walks past me happily in her own world, not even bothering to say thank you to the secretary who’s name I should probably find out if I want to make a good impression.

The interviewer's desk is facing away from the door so I can’t see his face, he has a relaxed posture that radiates “I’m a cool boss and I don’t care if you get fired” kind of vibes. I open his door and slowly make my way to be in-front of his desk and as I slowly turn, I see him.

Camden Beckett. Camden. Fucking. Beckett. before I even have time to process apart from thinking “Anyone but you.” As if he was reading my mind “You're shitting me, Sydney Willson?” He laughs as if my name is a joke he’s heard a million times even if he seems disappointed. “Long time no see.” He looked just as smug, and although I hated myself for thinking it, just as attractive as when we were in school together.

Camden and Sydney, Sydney and Camden, “the kids named after places”. We were best friends pretty much all throughout school. We would ride our bikes together, walk around town, go round each others houses, when there was a girl he liked I would help him and when there was a guy I liked he would help me. It was all perfect. Until the last month before we left for university when I heard him call me a “stupid slut” who leads people on to a group of rugby guys. Not only that but he also said that I probably only got into Edinburgh because I slept with one of the administration people. The stupid thing was that this little shit had seen how much work that I put into getting into Edinburgh, we had both worked so hard and yet he had the nerve to say that, he told me the day after I heard him say all the stuff about me that he had liked me for the whole of the year. He was vulnerable in that moment so I did what any mourning friend would do and I told him everything that I had heard him say then proceeded to kick him in the kneecap (honestly, it was very anticlimactic) but I still walked away with much satisfaction. He knew he couldn’t say anything about it because then I would have the right to tell people what he had said, so we spent the rest of our education completely ignoring each other.

What nobody says about losing someone who was so close to you that losing them feels so unimaginable and then losing that someone is that it is so hard to find someone again who you can trust again, care for again, love again. No one says how the years that should of been the best in your life could be the worst.

“Okay Sydney, before we start, I want to make two things very, very clear.” He spoke clearly in his posh British accent which he wore like a badge of honour, he held up two fingers and put them down slowly, hesitantly. “I was an absolute idiot in school, I know what I did was wrong and stupid, and I wanted to apologise. I don’t expect you to say it’s okay or anything because I don’t deserve that, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that I was wrong for saying that and what came after was…” he paused when the memory flashed through his brain. “Justified.”

Damn, if there was one thing I remember about about Camden Beckett was that he knew how to apologise.

“And two, our past will not effect this interview, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the job because I feel bad and it doesn’t mean you won’t get the job because I’m petty.” He says with a new serious voice that makes me feel like I’m sitting in front of a computer.

“You know what Cam Cam, I forgive you, it was shit what you did and it ruined me… for a while but it’s okay now.” I tell him in an even tone which makes me think I actually do forgive him.

“Thanks Syd,” he shakes his head slightly as if waking himself from a dream. “Anyway. You're not here to chit chat, let’s get on with it.”

The interview goes smoothly, he seems impressed with my answers and the qualifications I have, it saddens me a little to realise he doesn’t know anything about what I’ve done the past few years. It’s interesting to see when I say something he’s interested in and he leans forward a little bit and smirks so subtly it would be hard to miss if I hadn’t been his friend.

“Impressive as always Sydney. I think I’ve got everything we need. Do you have any questions?”

“I think I’m alright, yeah. Thank you, for this.” I put my hand out for him to shake and he shakes it. “If you’re not busy at some point later are you free to get coffee or something? I just have to interview one last candidate and I should be done.” It makes my heart flutter slightly knowing he wants to hang out with me again.

“Nah, it’s not like I still have a crippling coffee addiction still that needs quenching.” I say with a giggle. Wait. A giggle? Heart fluttering? 15 minutes with him and an apology and I’m giggling and my heart is fluttering? Ew.

“Okay, good. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.” He laughs, a hearty sound that shakes my world “it was lovely to see you again Ms Willson, you’ll hear from us soon.” We laugh.

“Thank you Mr Beckett, you have my number, text me when your done and I’ll meet you at the cafe round the corner.”

“Will do, bye Syd.”

“Bye Cam Cam.”

I walk to the door, open it, walk past the secretary, smile at her and go to find the cafe round the corner.