The Last Time

Mallory walked into her work office an hour late and she could feel her coworkers eyes on her as she silently made her way over to her cubicle where John was stood, leaning against a cubicle wall with his eyes glued to his watch. The smirk fell from his face when he looked up to see Mallory all red-eyed and sniffly. Mallory swept past John and sat her belongings onto her desk before she leaned over and snatched the Polaroid off of the cubicle wall.

“Mallory?” John questioned, his eyes glued to the faded spot on the wall where the Polaroid was for so long.

Mallory turned around to face John, “I told you I’m not what he wants anymore” she whispered, her breath catching in her throat as her eyes glazed over with tears. Her fingers traced the edges of the Polaroid before she let it fall from her hand and into the metal garbage tin.

“I don’t know how to be what he wants.” Mallory admitted, her eyes meeting John’s for the first time as if she was hoping he would hold all of her answers. John’s heart clenched at the realization that Mallory couldn’t see how truly incredible she already was.

“It’s ironic that I write about love and happy endings for a career when I can’t even get it right in my own life” She chuckled humorlessly. John hated this version of Mallory, the self-loathing, sarcastic and bitter one. He hated that this side of her had been coming out more and more ever since she started having relationship issues, he hated that the only remedy was the same poison that caused her to be that way to begin with. Alex. It always came back to Alex, and John hated that more than anything.

“Mal...”

“I’m okay” the blonde cut him off, “I have to get to work though, I have a lot to catch up on” though John knew what she meant was “please don’t make me talk about this.” He knew by heart that this was the first step in Mallory shutting down by pushing everyone away from her.

He had experienced it only once, but the coldness that became Mallory was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He had known Mallory for a year, they were sophomores in college when Mallory’s brother Adam had died on impact in a car accident. He had been on his way to visit Mallory after she begged him to make the trip out to their college because she was too broke to make a trip home. A local seafood delivery truck had ran a stoplight and jack knifed into the driver side of the car, killing Adam. Mallory instantly blamed herself for his death when she received the call. John would never forget watching her fall to the floor in agonizing screams or the way she had secluded herself from everyone. Alex had been one of the first people aside from John that Mallory had let into her life after losing her brother. Alex brought the light back into Mallory and John refused to let Alex be the same force that extinguished the light as well.

With a fleeting glance at the polaroid that laid on to of the crumpled papers in the garbage tin, Mallory whispered, “this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

John pulled the blonde into his arms and hugged her tightly, silently assuring her everything was going to be okay. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head before he held her away at arms length and said “ this isn’t how the story ends, Mal. I know you don’t want to hear it right now but I refuse to believe this is how the chapter ends, it’s just a cliffhanger that continues on the next page....you just have to turn the page, love.”

The smallest of smiles graced Mallory’s face at John’s cheesy words, she was ready to retort with a sarcastic reply before her phone was paging her to her supervisors office. She raised an eyebrow at John, “think I’ll get fired this time?” she joked nervously. Mallory had easily passed the reasonable amount of times to show up to work late, call out of work and even not show up at work at all.

John shook his head as the blonde shook out her nerves at hastily walked across the office to Robert’s office. Once the office door was shut, John reached down and plucked the Polaroid out of that garbage tin and shoved it into his pocket as he made his way back over to his own cubicle.

“I know I was late, but I have an explanat---” Mallory rushed the words out as soon as she had opened Robert’s office door.

“Ah! Mallory, great! I wanted to formally introduce you to Camilla. She’ll be working with you on a high profile feature for the next issue.” Robert beamed, cutting Mallory off before she had the chance to ramble on about why she was late.

“Oh...” Mallory breathed out in relief that she wasn’t being fired. Though, when she made a few steps towards the woman with her hand outstretched to introduce herself, she was hit with a wave of realization that she had seen that face before. Mallory stood in her spot, frozen and confused as her eyes darted between her boss and the brunette that sat opposite of Robert’s desk.

“I’m Camilla, it’s a pleasure to meet you Mallory” Camilla gently shook Mallory’s hand. Mallory held in her grimace, she absolutely hated weird feminine handshakes. Her dad had always taught her to lead in with a strong handshake to show she meant business.

“N-nice to meet you too, Camilla” Mallory stuttered, her eyes still glued to Camilla. It all made sense to her now. Camilla was absolutely radiant, practically a goddess compared to Mallory. Her hair was long enough to cascade down her back in chestnut colored waves, highlighted with tints of blonde when the light hit it just right. Her skin was perfectly tanned and her style impeccable, Mallory had never felt more average in her entire life. The brunette even had a name more beautiful than her own, Mallory felt the looming feeling of insignificance settle in her bones.

“Now that the formalities are out of the way lets talk about this feature!” Robert clapped his hands together breaking Mallory out of her daze. Mallory tried to focus on Robert and the papers that he kept handing her that were dotted with deadlines. She had gotten the gist of the feature but her mind was elsewhere. Before she knew it she was shaking hands with Camilla again and bidding her goodbye for the day. Mallory hazily walked through the office and gathered her things at her desk, she hadn’t even realized how long their meeting had been until she slung her purse across her body and saw that the office was empty.

Mallory could hardly recount leaving the office but before she knew it she was standing in her bedroom with an armful of boxes. Mallory dropped the boxes onto the bed and looked around the room, the walls filled with pictures of her and Alex. She felt her chest tighten as her eyes skimmed all of the pictures as she pulled the frames off of the wall one by one and stacked them into a box. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with them yet but she couldn’t bare to look at them. When the box was full, Mallory pushed it across the floor and placed it across the room by the bedroom door. Her eyes skimmed her bare walls and she ran a hand through her tangled hair, she couldn’t figure out how it had reached this point.

She felt numb as she moved across the room and pulled the first drawer of the dresser out, Alex's drawer. Her thin fingers traced the edges of Alex’s batman shirt and before she could stop herself, she was shedding herself of her work attire and slipping the shirt over her head. The loose shirt fell down to her mid thighs and overwhelmed her with Alex’s scent, it felt like home. It was at that point that reality had set in and Mallory let her floodgates open as the sobs ripped through her heaving chest. She wrapped her arms around herself desperately as her screams filled the otherwise silent house. Mallory reached into her purse that she had thrown on the bed, her fingers hurriedly scrolled through her contacts until she found his name. She knew she shouldn’t be calling him but he was her safety net and she needed that comfort one last time.

“Mallory? Mal?” His voice swam through the reception line.

Mallory choked out a sob.

“Mallory, just breathe. You have to calm down, love.” Alex instructed calmly, though his own heart was beating madly in his chest. Mallory listened to Alex breathe through the phone until she had calmed down. She wiped her eyes with the heel of her left palm, breathed out “I’m sorry I called you, I shouldn't have....goodbye, Alex.” The line went dead before Alex could tell her otherwise, before he could tell her how much he loved her and how sorry he was.