"What is it?"
"Nice to see you too" Anne said smiling at her friend. Charis shook her head, and sighed.
"Do I look like I am in any mood for jokes? What do you want? These days I live with a constant anxiety because i have no idea when Mr. Delvey is going to call me and I would have to go and do something totally uncalled for an foolish that he wouldn't even appreciate." She groaned.
"Are you sure he is the guy you met at that bar?" Anne asked.
"Absolutely positive, he was so nice then. Like he seemed really interested in me, for a minute I thought I was i don't know something" she shrugged.
"What happened to all your confidence? Fearfully and wonderfully made?" Anne asked.
"It's not as if I don't know all these things, I do. I know that my validation is in Christ and that even though people are so mean to me I do not have to be mean to them back. I know, I know that God will never allow a temptation that I cannot handle or surpass but my patience is so thin right now. I just want to scream and pull Prisca's hair when I see her and when she is being such a bitch to me." Charis sighed, "I know all of these things and I do know how to overcome them in theory but here I am so overwhelmed, so tired."
Anne's eyes narrowed and her brows pulled together, "Charis are you okay?"
"Why am I like this Anne? Why can't I be like you, you always say what is on your mind and you don't let anyone walk over you. I do everything that people want but I am not liked, you do not do anything you do not want to do yet everyone likes you," She sighs. "It was even the same while I was growing up, Charity was always the one in the spotlight, everyone knew her and everyone liked her. I was just a shadow, and when I thought someone finally saw me hiding in the dark it turns out he was looking at someone else."
"You like Sebastian," Anne said blankly and Charis' eyes widened. Her head whipped around to Anne.
"What? Am I mad? How did you summarise that from all I just said, can you not see me crying for help?" She huffed.
"Crying for help? So what? You want to go jump off the roof?" Anne teased.
"Anne! You're not even taking me seriously, why won't-"
"Because you are not selfish Charis, you're not greedy either. The last thing you are going to do is kill yourself, you may wish you were never born or never even existed but you will never take something that does not belong to you." Anne informed her, "I wish I could help you but I can't. You already know what to do, but I am concerned about you. And about liking your boss, you can't like someone that is so cruel to you right? Please don't let the first guy you fall in love with the person that tortures you like this. You have waited so long that you at least deserve all of the love this world can give."
"I have to go, my lunch break is over, I'll tell you what I called you for tomorrow okay?" Anne said, giving her a warm hug, then gathering her trash and walking out of the roof, leaving Charis alone with her thoughts.
Eyeing the ledge for a moment, there was a railing around it but it wasn't something she couldn't climb over. Suddenly everything seemed so prominent, she thought she could hear her own heart thumping in her chest, the flapping of the butterfly, the cars on the road almost thirty feet down. But that was just her imagination, a thought that was interrupted by her ringing phone.
She didn't need to check who was calling to know who it was, "that's right. I can't take something that doesn't belong to me."
*****************************
"Mr. Delvey, how nice to see you today, I was surprised when you called." A middle-aged man stretched his gloved hand to shake Sebastian. A hand which he took in his own gloved ones.
"Of course, I should call you, you are my father's dear friend after all."
"Speaking of your father, have you been hearing from him?" The man asked, and Charis shifted her weight uncomfortably, she never imagined that a golf bag would be this heavy, could they please speed up this conversation or at least continue it on the golf course? She looked to the man's assistant standing behind him. The man didn't seem to mind, but of course, he was a man and he must have applied to be an actual secretary.
"That is-" Sebastian began to say until a loud thump behind him, everyone was looking at her, again she hadn't thought it would make such a loud sound, she just wanted to drop it for a moment.
"We should head to the course, seems your personal assistant is having difficulties with the golf-"
"She is fine," Sebastian stated bluntly his eyes darkening, and cemented on hers, she wasn't the brightest but she knew that he was threatening her with his glare. "She can lift it up just fine."