What We Thought Was Inevitable

I hated social events. From family reunions to school events and now to office gatherings that I could not escape from. If I had it my way, I would’ve skipped this whole thing and stayed in my apartment, beer in one hand and remote in the other, watching whatever the hell was on TV. It seemed like the best way to spend a Friday night for an introvert like me.

But Brooke dragged me to this stupid event and didn’t leave me with any choice. I owed Brooke. She was the one who got me the job in this big-ass pharmaceutical company that she worked in. It took a lot of pressuring on her part to make me come to the interview and when I finally agreed, Brooke pulled in her connections.

It was kind of humiliating to have my brother’s girlfriend get a job for me but it wasn’t like opportunities were presenting themselves on my doorstep.

With a sigh, I took another gulp of the fine champagne that they were serving. The champagne was probably the sole highlight of this night for me. To everyone else, it seemed like the way to live if you were up in a rooftop, drinking fine champagne and mingling with a crowd. Like how Brooke seemed to be thriving in this event.

And then there was me, lurking in a corner and getting my hands on every glass of champagne that came my way.

I glanced at my phone, checking the time and sighing. I promised Brooke that I’d stay for at least two hours and if I did so, she promised to drive me home. I still had an hour and thirty minutes left. Oh, how the world seemed to enjoy my agony.

Buzzing, I looked at my phone. There was a message from Zane.

You haven’t jumped off the building out of sheer boredom yet, have you?

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my brother although I knew he was just checking in. He did try to save me from his girlfriend’s constant pestering but even he was no match for Brooke’s tenacity.

Had I done so, you would’ve been informed that your twin sister jumped off a building.

When we were younger and still in school, everyone always questioned how Zane and I were twins. Unlike me and more like his girlfriend, Zane was a social butterfly. He thrived in attention and basked in it. Me, on the other hand, liked staying invisible. I didn’t have a lot of friends and hated when people noticed me.

We were polar opposites and despite the fact that we shared the same uterus, we looked nothing alike.

Just do one of your silly mind games. You could be stuck in your brain for hours and enjoy it.

Even when we were nothing alike, Zane always looked out for me. When people in school called me names and regarded how weird I was being, Zane made sure that they wouldn’t say it again. He was protective of me, as if I was this fragile glass that might break if handled incorrectly. Even now, when I was being handled by his girlfriend, he wanted to make sure I was okay.

Taking in his suggestion, I placed my phone back in my purse. I also knew that he made the suggestion so I wouldn’t check or use my phone as much. Taking in a deep breath, I scanned the crowd of people that I was with. There were so many people to choose from and weave a story for that I mentally scolded myself from not thinking of this earlier.

The woman beside Brooke, the one wearing a flowy midnight blue dress that hugged her body and dipped too low on the front. She was trying to catch someone’s attention because it was clear she was trying to be interested in the conversation Brooke was having with everyone else, her eyes flickered elsewhere.

I followed her gaze and oh boy, bingo. The guy in the crisp olive green suit. I think he was a pharmaceutical agent like me. He was a charmer, always showing his pearly whites and wispy blonde hair. I noticed how the woman’s gaze flickered on the silver band on his hand frequently and how there seemed to be another woman beside him, wearing a matching ring.

Woman A will be named Tasha. Woman B- the one beside olive green suit- shall be Callie. And the main character, the charmer in the suit, we’ll call him David…

“You know if you keep looking at people like that, it can get creepy.”

I pursed my lips, closing my eyes briefly in frustration. I was just about to launch into the made-up story-telling scheme I had in my brain to entertain myself. But it seemed like someone had the audacity to interrupt me.

“Excuse me?”

When I turned to look at him, he had this amusing glint in his eyes. He tipped his glass towards me, lips twitching into a small smile. “Did I bother you?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, shaking my head and taking a sip of my drink. It wasn’t as if I could simply tell him that he did bother me and ruined a perfectly good start of a story in my head. Once, when I was in middle school and bored during class, I was lost in a made-up story in my mind. Someone noticed me spacing out and asked me if there was anything wrong.

I tried to explain it to people. I tried to tell them that I could get lost in my thoughts and sometimes end up creating a story in my head, like writing out a book but only in my brain. None of them believed me, told me that I was just simply being weird, and evidently, Mom told me never to bring it up to anyone else.

“I was just thinking,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to hide my annoyance. I hated people invading my private bubble as much as people popping them. Tilting my head backwards, I downed the rest of my drink and placed the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter.

The man beside me whistled lowly. It seemed to me like he didn’t get the message that I minded his presence. “Tell me, you weren’t thinking that the lady beside that pretty blonde woman had been eyeing that guy,” He pointed to the one wearing the olive green suit, “and you’re thinking that they might be having an affair because of how much she stared at him and his wife.”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “How the hell did you figure that out?”

The man shrugged, still smiling. “Ah, I’m a sucker for affair stories and if you manage to get the right person drunk, you learn a lot of office stories.”

“So you’re telling me that it’s all true?” I asked, clearly dumbfounded. It’s not like I wanted the story in my head to be real. They were simply pawns for a game that I wanted to play.

He looked at me, seemingly confused now too. “Didn’t you already know that? I thought you were staring at them to see what’s going to unfold between those three.”

I stared at him, trying to place him. I’ve never seen him around the office or even in the field. If he was a senior sales pharmaceutical agent, I knew that I would’ve bumped into him. Our world was small and we often collided with one another in hospitals and clinics. But I’ve never seen the guy around the office or anywhere.

Although he seemed a little bit familiar.