The Good That Won't Come Out

Hailey got up and went to work. She sat at her desk, editing articles, bored out of her mind. She chewed on the end of the pen. Her phone rang.

"Yes?"

"Miss Andrews, you have a call from a Peter Wentz on line 1."

"Thank you, Mary."

"Pete, what's up?"

"Guess who had a fight last night?"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Patrick called me and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch"

"He doesn't usually get out this early, and it's the middle of the day," she said, knitting her eyebrows.

"Get a co-worker, go to Brannigan's. When is your lunch?"

Hailey looked up at the clock, it was just about her lunch hour.

"In about 10 minutes."

"See you there."

Haley talked Lauren into going to lunch with her and they ran across the street to Brannigan's.

"So" she finished, "Pete is in on the scheme."

"As long as you don't go for Pete," Lauren pouted.

"EWWWW! He's yours."

They walked in the door and were seated. Pete and Patrick followed but a few minutes later. Pete scanned the crowd and met her eyes. She glanced at Patrick, he looked miserable and tired. His eyes were red and he was lagging behind.

"I can't do this anymore!" she whispered. "Look at him, he's unhappy and it's all because of me."

"Hailey, it's not your fault," Lauren retorted.

"Yes it is."

She got up and went over to the guy's table. She flashed a small smile and said, "Fancy seeing you here. I work across the street."

"Oh!" Pete exclaimed, feigning surprise.

Patrick gave her a feeble smile.

"Good to see you, Hai. Look, I'm sorry for Savannah's behavior the other night."

"Pete, why don't you go talk to Lauren, she's dying to talk to you."

Pete gave her an odd look then shrugged his shoulders. He got up and left the two alone.

"Look, Hai"

"Let me talk first, just listen. You aren't the one who needs to be apologizing, it's me." He opened his mouth. "Stop! Something's wrong because you're apologizing too much. Savannah has a right to be upset. Your ex-girlfriend randomly shows up. I think that, at least to a girl, my intentions were fairly obvious. Patrick, you were happy until I came around again. I just realized how selfish I was being. I don't want to make you unhappy. I'll leave you alone and I'll tell Pete no more scheming. I hope you can forgive me for all the drama of the last few days. I'm sorry."

With that, she got up and walked away, and he let her. She made her way to where Lauren was sitting with Pete. Pete took one look at her, "What happened?"

"I let him go," she whispered, "I apologized. Pete, just leave him alone. All these silly games are putting him through hell."

"Hailey, he's been unhappy for a while now," Pete began.

"And it got worse when I decided to show up. I love you for all you've tried to do Pete, but it's time to stop. Lauren, you stay and have lunch with the boys, I'm going to go back to work."

"Hailey, you don't have to do this," Pete whined.

"Yes, she does. This is the kind of person Hailey is, she will do anything to help the people she loves and she can't stand to see them hurting," Lauren said, giving Hailey a big hug, "I'll bring you dinner tonight, ok?"

Hailey nodded and left the building. She bought herself a strong coffee at the Starbucks and went back to work. As she entered her office, her boss, Colleen came in.

"Are those articles done?"

"Yes, Colleen, here they are," she said, handing over a few files.

"Hailey, are you ok?" she asked.

"Yes, things are a little crazy, but I promise to not let it interfere with my work."

"You know, you have some vacation time saved up. You could take it if you needed it. You haven't gone back to England in how long?

Hailey smiled weakly, "Thanks, but if I used my vacation time, I certainly wouldn't go back there."

"Well, think about it, dear. I don't want to lose my best worker because you're overstressed."

"Thank you, Colleen."

Hailey began to think about a vacation. Maybe it was a good idea, get away from everything. One thing she knew for damn sure, she was not going back to England.