Used it for what? Victoria was quiet for a moment. That's exactly my point, she said. She pulled onto his street north Paulina, a quiet block of two flats and a corner store with a handpainted sign, and stopped in front of his building. He reached for the door handle.
Daniel. He stopped. He turned to look at her in the glow of the dashboard. Victoria Hayes looked different from every version of herself he'd encountered in three years of working for her. The CEO was still there.
It was too deeply embedded to disappear. But there was something else beneath it. Something that reminded him painfully and unexpectedly of the way Maya had looked the first time she'd told him she was scared. Not weak, just real. You've spent 3 years being the most dependable person in every room you walk into.
Victoria said, "You show up, you fix things, you quietly take care of everyone around you." She paused, "And nobody takes care of you." Daniel was very still. "I'm fine," he said. Reflex.
Pure reflex. "I know you are," she said. "That's not what I said." He looked at her. "I have a 9-year-old to get back to," he said.
"And you have a company to run." "I know. So, what is this, Victoria?" He said her name like he was still deciding whether he had the right to. What are you actually doing here?
She held his gaze. I'm doing what I probably should have done ago. She said I'm showing up for what? She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "For you, not for what you can do, not for what you give."
Just she stopped, started again. I drove here tonight because I realized that the person who is always there for everyone else deserves to have someone show up for them. And I wanted that person to be me. Daniel's hand was still on the door handle. His chest was doing something complicated.
He thought about saying something safe, something that would let him get out of this car and go upstairs and tuck his daughter in and go to bed and wake up tomorrow and go back to being the person he had been for 6 years. The invisible man, the dependable one, the one nobody had to worry about. He thought about saying, "This isn't appropriate. You're my employer." He thought about saying, "I appreciate the thought, but I don't need anyone."
He thought about saying, "Please don't do this to me." Instead, what came out of his mouth was, "My shift was over at 10:30." Victoria smiled. Not the CEO smile. Not the polished one, the real one.
I know, she said. I wasn't there for your shift. Daniel looked at her for a long moment. Then he did something he hadn't done in a very long time. He let himself feel it.