Going Alone

“Mae, it’s closing time.” Mark said, snapping me from my feverish work.

“I’m almost done, five more minutes.” I quickly threw out and went back to typing.

“Mae.” He pulled me back from my desk, “Nothing in this office is worth staying for. Take a break.”

“But it’s going to bug me if I don’t do this.” I struggled to push myself back to the desk.

“You have a minute.” He said, letting go of my chair.

I flew back to it, gluing my fingers to the keyboard. I quickly typed out the some-what important email message to our paper supplier, careful to not make any major mistakes. I was about to press the send button when my chair was pulled back.

“That’s not fair!”

“Your minute was up.” He said simply.

“I just need to hit send!” I complained, reaching out for the white mouse.

“Nope, end of the work day. Goodbye, Mae.” He said, turning my monitor off and helped me out of my chair.

“I just need five more seconds!” I said, fighting to go back to my computer.

“You need to stop this, Mae.” Mark said, grabbing both of my arms firmly.

“I’m fine. Just let me send that message!”

“Mae! You’re pregnant. You need to take it easy.”

“Mark, I’m fine. Sending one harmless email isn’t going to kill me.” I rolled my eyes, avoiding his stare.

“No, but over-working yourself will. Or worse, maybe it’ll kill your baby.”

“Nothing is going to happen to Marshall, thank you.” I ripped my arms out of his grasp and walked to my car.

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“Hey, can I come over?” Jack chirped.

“No.” I said plainly back to him.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” I rolled my eyes, stirring my daily cup of Chai Tea.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Obviously not!” I yelled at him, “If I wanted to talk about it, I wouldn’t have said it’s nothing.”

“I’m coming over.”

“I’m hanging up.” I retorted.

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“Mae, open up.”

I turned up the episode of House that I was watching, trying to block Jack out of my mind. I laughed as House made another racist joke at Foreman.

“Mae!”

Again, I turned to volume up even higher. As if in a zone, I shoved a piece of muffin into my mouth as I watched the patient’s health deteriorate. Just like the planners of the show expected, I groaned when it flipped to a commercial.

“Mae!” Jack banged on my door, “Open up!”

“Get away from my door!” I muted the TV.

“I want to know what’s wrong!”

“It’s nothing!” I yelled, muting the TV again.

I don’t know why I can hear him over the TV, which is on full blast. Maybe it’s the overly hyper, high pitched yell that somehow found the right decimal point that found it’s way over the commercial for Honda and into my eardrum. Whatever it was, pissed the fuck out of me.

“I’m not leaving until you let me in there.”

“Should I bring out some milk and cookies? You’re going to be there for a while!” I hit the door for emphasis.

“You should fucking let me in there!”

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He’s been sitting out there for three hours. I slipped him a few granola bars when he wasn’t looking, because if he was, he could easily push past me and enter the fortress I call my apartment. He groaned when he realized I opened the door without him noticing, but nonetheless, ate the food.

“Mae.” He groaned, “Please let me in.”

“I don’t want you in here.” I slunk against the doorframe.

“We don’t even have to talk about that.” He reasoned.

“Then what would you do here?”

“Just hang out.”

“It’s 11 at night.” I stated sourly.

“I can go till 3!”

“Ugh. Fine.” I groaned.

Jack always got the best of me.