6

Aurora

It was already 8:45 pm, and I still had a couple of more pitches to edit and send to media houses. I looked up from my laptop screen, and into Mr. King's office. This wasn't the first time this week that he'd kept me around far longer than other coworkers. Today though, I had somewhere to get to, and working later than 9:00pm wasn't going to work out for me.

But then, how would I tell him that?

He spine was straight as he typed away on his own computer, face serious as he stared at the screen. He usually wore these blue light glasses while he worked, and now, as they sat low on the bridge of his nose, he looked like a typical working person. There wasn't even a scowl on his face.

He looked up all of a sudden, and I nearly choked on my own spit as I tore my gaze away from him and faced my work. I could feel his eyes burning into me as he stared sideways through the transparent walls of his office.

Oh, damn it all to hell.

I stood up from my desk and went over to his office door. I knocked three times, and stepped in immediately he told me to come in.

The moment I got into the space with him, my palms begun to get all sweaty.

He looked up from the screen of his laptop, looking very exhausted. The one thing that I didn’t find annoying about him was that he was actually someone who worked hard. As the President of the company, he didn't even need to do much, but he always insisted on getting work done.

His tie that looked so immaculate in the morning, now hung in a limp, untied mess over his shoulders, and his shirt had been unbuttoned to reveal the top of his chest.

"What do you want?" he said, voice deep and dripping with fatigue.

I gauged his expression with my mind, and formulated a response with my mouth, so my words didn't come out right. "Leave work now, I want to."

A small frown creased the skin between his eyebrows. "What did you just say?"

"I . . ." This had seemed so easy before, but now, staring into his face, made me realise that I was in way over my head.

"You what? I don't have all night for this. If you have nothing to say, get out of here." He muttered something else under his breath and turned back to his work, leaving me forgotten.

'For once, Aurora. Take control. Don't let this asshole walk all over you,' the little voice in my head piped up. My fists clenched by my sides, and I took a steadying breath.

"I said I'd like to leave work now, Mr. King. May I do so?" I'd trurd to be firm, but my voice came out shaky and pathetic.

He paused, hand in midair about to land on his keyboard. His eyes circled back to me, and he huffed. "You what?"

Was this guy deaf or something?

His eyes widened, and I realised that I said that out loud. My hands flew to my lips, and I started to shake my head. No! This couldn't be happening right now, I really wasn't looking to get myself fired right now.

He whirled around in his chair—you know, those twisty ones that are fun and great and make you feel like this really awesome superstar? Yeah, that chair. If looks could kill, I'd have turned into a puddle of flesh and melted bones, but luckily for me, I still stood.

But for how long though?

He clasped his hands togther, looking like a mafia hit boss about to cast a devastating order for some unfortunate person's death. "You know, four eyes, you've been really . . ." he pauses for a moment, looking for the perfect word, " . . . bold today. Did you finally get laid or something? No, that's not possible, even a disabled tech dude wouldn’t deem you fit for such."

He sprung out of his seat, his tone of voice taking that devastatingly sarcastic tone that he always used to demean me. "Or, maybe," in two steps, he was right before me again, "you woke up this morning craving for my attention and somehow got it into that empty brain of yours that getting on my nerves is the way to do it."

The saliva in my throat turned into a huge lump that just wouldn't go down calmly. Every muscle in my body shook from his words, not because I was afraid of what he'd do, but because I was scared of what I'd do.

And damn, I was so close to throwing my fist into that beautifully smug face of his.

"Well, you've finally gotten my attention," he continued. "Are you happy now?"

I pressed my teeth to hard togther that I feared they might have shattered. The back of my eyes burned with livid tears that pressed against me, begging to be released.

Who gave this man the right to treat me this way? If not for the fact that I couldn't think up of another way to come up with a steady income, I'd have left the job the first day he'd looked at me and called me a retarded individual.

"Even a goat would be a better employee than you," he'd said after I'd told him that I didn't know how to operate a printer.

"You . . ." I started, using every strangth I had in me to construct my words properly, because if I didn't,  I would have ended up spitting out nothing but garbled gibberish.

"Me what? Come on, say it. Or did the cat get your tongue?" He gave me a look of mock sympathy.

"You are such an . . . Asshole!" I said, raising my voice with each word. "What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much? I have done nothing to you, and yet, you treat me and everyone else like we are slaves that owe you our lives!"

"I pay your fucking salary, so yeah, I own each and every one of you that dares to call this place your job.  Do you think you're 'that girl' in the movies who finally speaks up her mind and somehow get what she's ever wanted?" He was right in my face now, speaking so loud that I could feel his voice scraping deep in my ears. "Well, I say wake up, Sleeping Ugly!"

I blinked, and the balloon that had been inflating and inflating within me just deflated. It shrunk into a pathetic piece and sunk into the pit of my belly, taking with it the anger that I'd wanted to let loose.

I gently shook my head from side to side, causing my wavy bob to brush against the sides of my face. "You know, you always think you're above everyone else."

He smirked. "Of course I am, I run this place, I call the shots."

"But have you for one, split second ever thought about what your company would be without these workers that you treat with little to no respect?" I chuckled, but there was nothing funny about it. "They all fucking hate you."

"And what about you? Do you hate me as well?" he asked, and although little empathy resided in his gaze, he looked a bit curious about what I had to say.

It'd have been so easy to say yes, because for so long, I'd repeated it to myself so many times. I'd said it for so long that I shouldn't even have hesitated before giving him an answer.

Something in me wavered, and he took it for weakness. "Look at you, so bold until asked a question. Should I take your answer as a yes or a no?"

I looked into his jade green eyes framed by long lashes that would have been better suited for a female. He looked so much like an angel, with his good looks that made him almost unrealistic, but the had the heart of a demon.

I should have told him off then. Maybe even added in the resignation letter that had been sitting in my desk drawer for the past one year now. But I just couldn’t. There was a reason that everyone else let me dance with this demon; because no one else had the balls to do so themselves.

I wasn't weak for putting up with him. I was powerful. The fact that I'd spent this long under his emotional and verbal abuse showed that despite what he thought, I was stronger than I appeared.

I raised my head up high, and looked him straight into the eyes. "If we are really being honest here, Mr. King, you're really the pathetic one. You deserve all the hate you're getting, and I hope you die a lonely, old man."

Something actually passed across his face as I spoke. His eyes shook, and his smug expression fell away so fast. For a moment, he looked like he couldn't belive what I'd just said.

I couldn't blame him. I didn't believe what I'd said either. When the realisation fully dawned upon me, all I could do was turn around and walk out of his office as fast as I could.

Oh my goodness. I'd single-handedly fired myself, because there was no way that he'd let such disrespect slide. I'd seen him fire a person for just typing 'am' instead of  'I'm' in a script for an interview. What would he do to someone who'd insulted him?

As I picked up my bag from my desk and made my way out of the company building, my heart sunk into my chest and made it so hard to breathe.

I was doomed.