Broken Lullaby

Sydney walked inside the house that she shared with Morgan as silently as she could. She couldn’t let her see in that state or she knew she would ask her questions. Questions that she really didn’t want to answer to.
As she closed her bedroom door, a sigh of relief escaped her mouth. She threw herself on her bed and fell asleep still in her last night dress.

Her cell phone ringtone made her almost jump from bed. Before answering it, she realized that it was almost noon and the sudden feeling of guilt took over her. Although it was Saturday, she couldn’t afford to sleep in.

“Hey Matt,” she answered, working her best not to sound sleepy.

“Hey Syd, sorry, I overslept.”

She sat on the bed, a confused look on her face. “Sorry about what?”

“Well, it seems you have forgotten it as well,” Matt laughed. “We were supposed to go run together. At least I’m relieved that I wasn’t the only one to sleep in.”

“Oh, no I wasn’t sleeping… I… I was working. You know, I’ve got a meeting to prep and I totally forgot about it. But we can still go if you want to.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll meet you in half an hour?”

“Sounds good.”

Once he hung up, Sydney jumped out of bed and into the shower.
She really needed that run, it was something that she did every day before work and occasionally on weekends, when Matt joined her. Running helped her release her stress, made her face another day of work in a good mood and now she needed it to forget about what happened last night.



One hour later she was in the shower again, her head against the tile wall, savoring the water that fell against her skin. She tried to shut her mind, tried to keep it from thinking about Brian, but that was all her mind did. She didn’t remember much of what had happened last night, but she knew that she had drunk a lot more than she should have and that she had woken up in a hotel room with Brian. So it was just a matter of doing the math.

After roughly brushing her wet hair, putting on a pair of denim shorts and a black T-shirt, Sydney walked downstairs, ready to attack the fridge.
“Morgan!” She called out once she saw a yellow Post-it on the fridge and as she read it, she realized she was home alone. She remembered that Morgan had mentioned having something important to do, but she wouldn’t expect her to go to Glendale on a Saturday.

Morgan was a creative designer for Disney, a storyboard artist that was part of the team responsible for creating some of the most famous stories, movies and music in the world. Although she formally worked in Glendale, California, her job allowed her to work from home most of the time.



It was almost dinner time when Sydney heard the front door open. “Welcome back!” She tried to sound cheerful. “How was your day?”

Morgan sat next to Sydney on the sofa, who was typing something on her laptop. “Judging by the way you look, probably better than yours.”

“Mine was fine,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Well, you look like shit. Are you curing a hangover or have you hit the ground running?” She chuckled.

Sydney stopped typing and stared at her with me most clueless face she could muster. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on,” she patted Sydney’s knee. “I heard you leaving last night. Did you and Brian got trashed again?”

Her blood quickly rushed to her face, and she desperately tried to focus on the email she was writing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Morgan laughed as she got up to reach for the remote that was on the coffee table. “Besides me, Brian is the only person you would drag to a bar in the middle of the night,” she turned the TV on.

Instinctively, Sydney covered her mouth with her hand, as she remembered Michelle’s phone call. She knew she could confide in Morgan anything, but not what had happened, so why had she used her as her alibi? That had been a major mistake and she didn’t need anyone else to know about it. “Okay, fine,” Sydney slid her laptop to the side and got up. She knew she could handle this, she just needed to keep her from talking to Michelle about it. “So what if I went out with him? What’s wrong with that?” She raised her hands up in the air and left the living room, coming back a few seconds later with an aspirin and a glass of water.

“Nothing, I don’t even know why you’re acting all aggressive with me.”

Sydney swallowed the pill. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” she placed the now empty glass on the coffee table. “It’s just that this headache is killing me.”

Morgan’s cell phone went off and she smiled. Sydney cast her a curious look. “Zacky texted me, he says it’s beer time,” she waved the phone at her. “Shall we?”

Sydney shook her head. “You go, I really need to finish this for work,” she pointed at her laptop. “Besides Zacky texted you, not me,” she grinned mischievously. Morgan has had a crush on Zacky for a long time, almost since senior year in high school.

“Oh please Syd, he has a girlfriend. And I’m not the type of woman to mess with a relationship.”

Sydney swallowed hard. She used to think the same thing about herself, but she was obviously wrong. She thought her feelings for Brian were part of the past, but last night had just proven her wrong.
She could make all the excuses she wanted. She could say that she was drunk and that she had no idea of what she was doing. But she had to be honest to herself. When her head had stopped thinking properly, her heart had given away.



Sydney had successfully avoided talking to Brian during the whole weekend. He had called her several times on Sunday and she had just ignored them. She knew she was being immature, irrational even, but she needed time to put herself together before talking to him.
Sydney left the small conference room after her morning meeting, knowing that her day was not going to be an easy one. Due to budget cuts, the hotel was going to have to fire some employees and transfer a few more to their hotel in Miami, and she was the one who had the hard task of doing it.

Brian was sitting in the lounge area, in the middle of the hotel lobby, when she saw Sydney walking by. She walked fast, and quickly glanced at him, but once she realized who she had just seen, she looked again and this time stopped. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised, shocked or even mad for seeing him there, the look on her face showed no hint of emotion, but as she walked toward him, he couldn’t help but smile.
It always amazed him how different of a person she was when she was at work. Pretty much the opposite of her normal self around them. The girl who would wear mostly black and had the biggest band shirt collection he had ever seen, was now wearing a long sleeved shirt that covered her half sleeve tattoo, a gray pencil skirt and had her dark blonde hair in a very sleek, and so not her, high ponytail.

“What are you doing here?” She tried to maintain her polite smile, although her voice tone didn’t match it.

He got up from the leather sofa. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Can’t you see I’m working right now? Can’t it wait?” Sydney looked around, making sure that none of her superiors saw her standing there talking to him. She knew why he was there, but still, she would rather make him angry than having to talk about it.

“I waited the whole weekend,” Brian narrowed his eyes at her. “If you hadn’t ignored my calls, I wouldn’t be here,” he crossed his arms as if daring her to make him leave.

“I really can’t Brian, I’ve got a lot of important things to do before my lunch break, I just can’t stand here and talk to you.”

“Well, when’s your lunch break then?”

Sydney took a deep breath and looked around once again. He was not going to let her go that easily. As if for her salvation, her cell phone started to ring.

“Hang on,” she held her left hand up and turned around.
After a couple of minutes and words like wage indexation scale, which he didn’t know for sure what it meant, Sydney hung up. “Look, I really got to go, I-”

“Just tell me when’s your lunch break, or I won’t leave,” he cut her off. “I’ve got all day.”

His statement almost made her laugh. “Just do whatever you want, I’m not going to talk to you because there’s nothing to talk about,” her voice dropped a notch. “What happened was a mistake,” she took one step forward and pointed her index finger at him. “Not everything needs to mean something and that didn’t mean a thing. End of discussion.” She quickly turned around and walked away.