Page 5

FIVE

Lena

Lena cracked her fingers and squinted at her screen, trying to make sense of the code in front of her. She was once again reminded why she hated working on someone else's program because it was an absolute mess. This was going to take hours to clean up and fix the errors.

With a sigh, she reached for her mug but misjudged the distance.

The back of her hand hit the side and it tipped over, spilling all over her desk and splattering onto her screen.

She cursed and picked it up, to no real avail.

Everything was wet. At least the coffee was cold instead of scorching hot.

She used some tissues to clean it up while thunderclouds brewed in her head. After the birthday party, she was already in a bad mood. This was just making everything worse. And to really top it all off, she had that dinner party at the end of the week that she somehow mysteriously agreed to.

Alix was a witch with magical persuasive powers.

Lena contemplated cancelling but she was fairly certain that Alix wasn’t going to give up so easily. It was better to just get it over with. After all, she and Aditi did agree that they would stay friends even if they broke up. Granted, that was an agreement they made before they started dating.

What the heck did they know back then? Could they have imagined or predicted that the breakup would leave such a painful wound?

Maybe it would’ve been better if they never dated at all.

Lena grimaced at the thought. No matter how heartbroken was, she could never regret her time with Aditi. That was part of the problem, how was she supposed to get over this?

She tossed the wet napkins into her bin and got up for some coffee since hers was all gone now. At least her colleagues looked all just as unhappy with the current assignment so nobody was going to question why she was in such a foul mood.

At least it paid well. If the money hadn't been good, she wouldn't put up with this job. But it was no exciting job up North.

She got to the communal kitchen but the coffee pot was already empty. Typical. If she had to assign blame, she would put it at Brian's door who always took the last of the coffee and never bothered to make more.

To make matters worse, they seemed to be out of coffee entirely which meant she had to go up a floor for some coffee and risk getting chatted up by Mandy from Finance.

But Lena wanted coffee and she didn't want to walk all the way to Dragon Roast in case she ran into Aditi again.

She didn't bother with the lift and just ran up the stairs, two steps at the time.

She was embarrassingly out of breath when she reached the next floor and took a small break to compose herself.

That was enough exercise for the week.

Once her breathing was under control, she left the stairwell and went into the break room of the finance guys.

Everything here looked the same, from the shitty metal chairs to the awful outdated wallpaper.

She pulled the cupboard open in search of coffee and noticed they all had stupid mugs with dumb sayings too.

So similar and yet, for some reason, their departments did not get on.

"Aha!" Lena finally spotted a packet of coffee grounds and grabbed it. It might've looked like stealing but it was all paid for by the company. She deserved this coffee just as much as the finance people.

She turned around and froze.

"Hiiiii!" Mandy had spotted her and was coming her way with big strides. Her blazer was a little tight around the chest, as always, and her platinum blonde hair was starting to show its dark roots.

Lena forced a smile. "Hey."

"I haven't seen you in a while. What brings you up here?"

"Coffee," Lena said, holding up the bag. As if her day wasn't bad enough, now she had to deal with Eager Mandy.

"You ran out, huh?" Mandy nodded in understanding. "Don't worry, I won't tell that you snatched a bag. I can't function without coffee either."

Not really in the mood for small talk, Lena just chuckled awkwardly. "Right. Better get back to it."

"Hey, I heard about your break-up. I'm sorry. You and Aditi seemed like a really solid couple," Mandy blurted out with a strange shimmer in her eyes.

Lena froze. So her break-up had somehow made it up to the finance floor then. She wondered how, considering most of her colleagues couldn't care less about her personal life and she barely talked about it either.

Mandy continued without pause. "I know how hard break-ups can be. If you need someone to vent to, I'm available."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm alright," Lena said, glad that she could hide her disinterest behind her customer voice.

She wasn't interested in Mandy and the break-up was far too fresh in her mind.

She was still coming to terms that all the forever plans she'd made with Aditi had fallen in the water.

Although if she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure if she'd ever really come to terms with that.

Lena held the bag of coffee grounds out, using it as a sort of shield. "They need me downstairs.”

"Right, of course." Mandy moved to the side, just enough to let Lena squeeze past. "You know, there's this really cute coffee shop not too far from here. Dragon Roast, have you heard of it?"

"Yeah, I know it."

"Their coffee is amazing, isn't it? Much better than this cheap stuff. Why don't I buy you a cuppa sometime? My treat."

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Lena replied. She was sure Mandy was lovely and that some people might really like how forward she was, but she wasn't interested. She hadn't been when she was dating Aditi and she wasn't now she was single.

Mandy didn't look all that discouraged and strategically stayed where she was, blocking the exit. "How about dinner then? You've been working late this week, it'll be good to relax a little, maybe have a glass of wine."

"Umm... I've still got a lot on my plate so I don't think so," Lena said, wishing she could escape. If she were a dragon shifter, she would have the option of jumping out of any window but unfortunately, her genes were a let down on that front.

It seemed like Mandy finally got the hint. "Alright, but you know where to find me if you change your mind."

Lena was pretty sure she wasn't going to but she smiled and nodded anyway, just glad she could get out of here. She made it halfway back to the stairwell when she was cornered by Craig.

"Ahh, Lena!" He waved and jogged over, clipboard trapped under his armpit. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Really?" Lena replied. For the life of her, she couldn't work out why he wanted to talk to her. If anything, she was surprised he even knew her name.

He paused in front of her and held out his fist for a fist bump.

Lena refused. "What can I do for you?"

"You remember that last staff party? You brought a really pretty friend with you. Darker skin, really nice eyes. What's her name?"

"Why are you asking?" Lena asked instead, an uncomfortable feeling stirring in her stomach. She could already guess why he was inquiring. It was always the same reason.

Craig grinned. "Just thought she was really cute and I've been wondering if I could get her number?"

"No," Lena said coolly. It wasn't like she begrudged Aditi love, but she wasn't going to play matchmaker for her ex. Over her dead body.

"Why not? I'm a pretty nice guy," he insisted.

"I said no. And that wasn't my friend, that's my girlfriend," Lena hissed out, not even caring about the pedantics of how they were technically not girlfriends anymore.

Craig looked pretty disappointed. "Oh, I didn't realise you were... No, you know, that makes sense."

"And why is that?"

"Well, cause you look so—" He gestured her up and down before seemingly realising he was being incredibly rude. "Sorry, I'm stereotyping. Anyway, well done on the relationship. Hot stuff."

Lena seriously considered assaulting him with his own clipboard but that might facilitate a meet-cute with Aditi in the hospital.

This was why she hated coming up to here, there was something wrong with the people here.

She stomped to the stairs, glad when she made it without another interruption. She thundered back to her own floor while her mind replayed the insistent requests from Mandy and the shiver-inducing conversation with Craig.

What a way to make a bad day worse. Especially because claiming Aditi as hers had been such an automatic response, something that just rolled off her tongue like a fact because once upon a time, it had been a fact. An irrefutable, universal truth.

And now, it made her a liar.

Lena hated being a liar just as much as she hated liars.

With a sigh, she settled back at her desk. The picture of her and Aditi was still sitting on the corner of her desk, a little memento from their first weekend trip away. She should’ve thrown it away when they broke up but the silly sentimental part inside her was not managing to let go.

She picked up the small frame and brushed her thumb over Aditi’s face. They looked young and carefree and so, so happy. It was making Lena’s stomach churn. They’d been so happy, why couldn’t it have lasted?

She glanced at the bin next to her desk, really tried to throw it away, but put the frame back next to her monitor in defeat.

Who was she kidding?