Running Into Figure Six

My first day at Greens Hotels &Suites was like the worst day of my twenty three years in existence.

I’ve had a couple or more bad days like being held up in the rain, having to catch the late night bus home when every vehicle was packed as hell, when my boyfriend slapped me hard in the face behind a public mall because I did not take or return his forty something calls, me getting groped by a tough-looking stranger somewhere in the woods , or when I lost Tom, my therapy cat one fateful summer.

Me being a teenager and lonely at the time most of these things happened, made it really hard for me to get over Tom, eight years later.

Thinking about it now, I’ve had my own fair share of tough times which even losing Tom doesn’t begin to fall into.

There is a particular one that I can’t seem to forget; like a memory that stays evergreen in my head forever, and that I totally dread re-living- Losing my dad to cancer in 2006.

It was the year after I lost Tom. Dad’s final breath on his deathbed in a way, gives my family peace up till now, because it meant that he is set free from this chaotic world and all his personal struggles.

I remember rushing up to my little brother, Stephan, and Margret, my nagging mom, and hugging them tightly after the doctor’s pronouncement of his death, because they are all I have left now, besides Gerald that is.

Yes, I sure have Gerald, if he won’t go back on his words and break my heart. He has given me five solid reasons to break up with him already, but I give him five new chances each time.

Jessie, my best friend from childhood, only knows one of these things and yet, she asked me to break up with his ass every single time we talked. But I can’t do that to him yet, except of course he gives me one more reason to. Or when I get too tired to go on. I know that’s toxic, but I can’t help myself.

“Gerald is the whole red flag if he yells in your face like that all the time, you should tell him to go sit his fucking ass somewhere in a therapist’s office, and get some tutoring on anger management, he’s no good for you, girl” Jessie reiterated all the time like a favorite hymn, not to his face though, because they haven’t met yet. Maybe if Jessie met him, she would see why I shouldn’t leave him. At least not yet.

He’s been my only support since my dad’s death. Not like my mom and little brother were lackadaisical- they both knew me to be daddy’s favorite girl, and so his death sure was a different kind of weight on my shoulders.

For starters, mom has been too much of a nagger, before Dad died, and even worse after, Stephan on the other hand was like a better person at the ‘moving-on’ department or so it seemed to me.

“Daddy specifically told you he’ll be in a better place. At least you got a goodbye message from him, you should keep that with you.

Others don’t get as much as the remains of their loved ones” Stephan would tell me this, every time I threw a fit, and called for dad, throwing all of my clothes out of the window, and destroying things in the living room.

Then afterwards, he would hug me without shedding a single tear. Sometimes, I could swear he was being a little sadistic. Only I can’t say that about my handsome little brother to anyone.

Mom on the other hand, wouldn’t do as much as look on, until about a couple of days later, and then she would nag me out of the house for the nth time, on my way to Jessie’s.

She always thought I did too much, and that I pretended to be more hurt than they were, about his death.

So It’s been pretty complicated living with those two after Daddy left us.

Being a tough, iron lady of our home, Mom thinks Dad’s been too easy on me in his lifetime. She said it would be really tough for me to be a leader if I depended on affection too much, or indulge myself or hold on too much. I once told her she made no sense, but she fired back, ‘we will see who makes sense soon enough’ .

It’s not her fault that she’s too much of a disciplinarian, but I like to blame her for it- she didn’t know her father until after my birth, and she had lived with her foster mother who was in the army, all her life. She called me ‘spoilt’ up until a couple years ago, and when my mental health began to rot away, I had to leave home, and immediately it was.

Gerald stood by me through all those times, told me it’s okay and that I was not spoilt.

I ran to him every time tears threatened to fall down my eyes, every time I got mood swings, or my panic attacks, and he always came through, ever so sweetly, and sometimes in weird, unexpected ways.

Jessie said he is the only person I listen to, after dad, and that’s so very true. I saw a glint of my dad in him, and so I couldn’t just leave abruptly. I cannot leave someone who calls me, ‘Rissa’ like my dad used to.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Everyone called me by my full first name ‘Clarissa’, except for him.

Okay, Jessie called me “Classy” sometimes but all others, except Gerald called me Clarissa.

When I rushed into the quarters after my first day at work with a shaky voice and a palpitating heart, my knees threatening to give way before I could get to my bedroom, his call came in, and we spoke throughout the night, he being my succour and listener.

He helped me through my panic attack without being physically there, and I was surprised I could sleep like a baby that night, wake up the next day refreshed and peaceful.

“Rissa, I owe you a five-minute hug when we meet again, I promise you. I will hug your anxieties away and rock you on my solid chest, plant warm kisses on your forehead, like you deserve”

“Gerald…” That was the only thing I could mutter throughout the first half of our conversation as I felt my heart palpitations reducing into regular beats. He had that charm on me- making me melt without even trying.

That night, he had especially calmed me down in a weird way- he had asked me to finger myself, and imagine it was him doing that. I thought he was trying to make me laugh, so i laughed, because it was literally an hilarious thing to hear- getting fingered when you could literally feel your heart dropping- but he insisted it would help me feel better.

And I did it.

It was not gross because I imagined it was Gerald touching me down there, and making me feel so good from inside out, although he had never actually done that .

Well, never let him.

But, that was enough for me. I guess it’s the thought that helped.

I could swear that, if Jessie heard about this though, she would totally gross out, clench her fists and possibly go find Gerald somewhere, and take out three or four of his teeth, give or take, five teeth.

It will happen all in her head though, because my man is not within her reach.

“I will come and check up on you soon enough” Gerald had said to me before saying goodnight.

It had felt like a dream, judging by the fact that he had been very mad at me for leaving home for New York without notifying him.

I knew he would never let me do such a thing, and that was why I had made that decision on my own. I had left him there in California and I was regretting it now, yet, I could not go back home- to my awful past.

I was twenty three, and that was enough age to make decisions on my own, like changing cities, renting a room in a boys’ quarters, and being a secretary for one of the top Hotels &Suites, plus travels and tours business corporation in NY.