Page 121 - In Five Years

Her team consists of one other lawyer, Davis Brewster, with whom I went to
Columbia. He is smart. I have no idea how he ended up as a midsize company’s
legal counsel.
“This afternoon,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “You must really love your job,” she says.
“No more or less than any of us,” I say.

She laughs. She looks back at her computer. “Not quite.”

At 5 p.m., more documents come through from CIT. I’m going to be here until at
least nine parsing through them. Sanji paces the conference room like she’s
figuring out an attack strategy. I text Bella: Check in with me. No response.

It’s 10 p.m. before I leave. Still nothing from Bella. Everything in my body
feels crunched, like I’ve been ground down to an inch over the course of today.
As I walk, I feel myself stretching back up. I don’t have sneakers with me, and

after about five blocks my pump-clad feet begin to hurt, but I keep walking. As
the blocks go on—down Fifth, rolling through the forties like the subway, I
begin to pick up the pace. By the time I get to East Thirty-Eighth Street, I’m

running.
I arrive at our Gramercy apartment gasping and sweating. My top is nearly
soaked through and my feet throb with numb disconnection. I’m afraid to look

down at them. I think if I do, I’ll see pools of blood seeping out from the soles.
I open the door. David is at the table, a glass of wine next to him, his
computer open. He jumps up when he sees me.

“Hey,” he says. He takes me in, his eyes narrow as he scans my face. “What
happened to you?”
I bend down to take off my shoes. But the first won’t come off. It seems

stitched to my foot. I scream out in pain.
“Hey,” David days. “Woah. Okay. Sit down.” I collapse onto the little bench
we have in the hallway and he crouches down. “Jesus, Dannie, what did you do?

Run home?”
He looks up at me and, in that moment, I feel myself falling. I’m not sure if
I’m going to faint or combust. The fire in my feet rises, threatening to engulf me

whole.