The Science of Growing Apart

2- Kripke

Tulip was such a cute and affectionate cat with a beautiful coat of black and orange-ish brown splotches and a chest of white fur. Sometimes, when she's feeling generous and I haven't upset her in a while, she'll crawl onto my lap for a nap, like she did on the day I met her at the rescue center. Her fur is so soft, her tail slowly moves through the air as I gently would pet from between her triangular ears down her spine, to the base of her hips.

But when she's not being cute and cuddly, she is reigning terror on all that inhabit our one bedroom apartment. When she's in a bad mood, Tulip would be slapping me in the face while I slept and meowing in a high pitched whine until I got up to feed her.

So that was how I ended up driving to work a half an hour late with scratches covering my forearms, rethinking the sweet, lovey name I gave my evil, evil cat.

Luckily, I could take back roads to get from my apartment to my office to avoid the hefty DC morning traffic and in order to save time, grabbed an apple on my way out the door. The second I pulled into the parking lot, I tossed my half-eaten apple into the passenger seat of my old car, grabbed my blazer and purse, and began sprinting toward the door. Careful not to trip over my untied sneaker laces, I scanned myself into the building and tied my frizzy mess of hair into a messy bun in a last attempt to presentable, trying not to look like I got ready in five minutes while yelling at my petty cat.

"Josie," my editor, Kim, called my name as I entered our office and then waved me into the meeting room where she sat with the rest of the journalists on our team. "You're late."

"I had, um, an emergency," I stammered as a blush started to rise to my pale cheeks when my co-workers continued staring at me. I stood awkwardly in the doorway of the meeting room for a moment before pushing forward to one of the empty seats around the long oval table and then said, "What'd I miss?"

"We're going over assignments for the month," she said to me, giving me one last stink eye before averting her attention back to the bulletin board with ideas tacked to the front in a brainstorming cloud. "Clarice is working on the insider trading article for finance and Mark is going to follow up on Senator Wilder's daughter's fairy tale wedding that cost more than my house."

"I was hoping that I could start working on a piece about the body found in the Potomac," I said aloud after she finished listing off some other stories that the journal was working on. I felt awkward jumping right into the conversation despite not being here for most of it, but I was determined to get this case. I'd been working at the journal for a couple of years in the crime section but spent most of my time writing about petty theft and robberies. I was bored, I wanted a challenge, and I wanted to write about the murder that just happened, to really follow the case and get to the bottom of what happened.

"Boris will be taking that story," Kim dismissed my suggestion immediately, without even blinking, and I closed my eyes so that nobody could see my childish eye roll.

"I already started researching the case," I protested. I usually didn't say anything when Kim would give the high profile cases to Boris, just because he'd been there longer than me. I knew I was biased, but I truly believed that I was a better journalist, a better writer, and put more effort into my pieces. But every time we wanted to write the same story, Boris won because of his stupid seniority. "I basically already have an outline planned up, I can do this."

"Always a team player, Josie," Boris smiled at me from across the table with a frustratingly confident smile on his old, wrinkly face. He was probably only about forty, but he had graying hair and squinting gray eyes that always looked so condescending. I wanted to punch him most of the time, but especially right now. "We can share notes later if you want to help out."

"There was a robbery at the bakery on 12th street last night," Kim moved on without even addressing the issue again and I deflated into my seat. "And there's some court cases we need updates on."

I hated being overlooked by my boss just because I was younger and had less experience. I felt confident in my writing abilities and I really thought she wasn't giving me the chance to prove myself at the journal. But this was my dream job at a good, reputable online journal, so I didn't feel like I was able to move at all.

"And I know you have a lunch meeting today about a new lead. I want an update on that when you get back," she added before moving on to other sections of the paper. I wasn't holding out too much hope for that lunch meeting, as I didn't recognize the name of the person I was meeting with and felt like it wouldn't lead to anything. I had many meetings with people who wanted me to write an article about their family member's court case, or small petty crimes that we didn't cover at our journal. As much as I'd like to help as many people as I could with my writing, there wasn't enough time in the day to capture it all.

After the meeting ended, I returned to my long desk and sat beside Clarice, who was complaining about the insider trading article she'd been assigned. She was normally a fashion and lifestyle writer, who had just been assigned to the finance section temporarily because one of their writers has gone on maternity leave.

As she continued to complain, and I nodded and 'mhm'ed along to her mild ranting, I started on the bakery robbery story and planned a meeting with the owner later in the week to talk about the events of the robbery. In the mean time, I would be researching court documents and police reports to get a better understanding as to what happened.

"Oh, and how was your date this weekend?" Clary asked me after she was finished ranting about how boring she thought finance was.

"It was a dud," I responded with a small shrug. "He barely talked the whole night, so I just figured that he wasn't into me. But then at the end, he said he wanted to see each other again? It was bizarre."

"That's a bummer," she gave me a sympathetic look and then turned back around to face her desk. "Well, there's always next time."

"Yeah, I guess. I'm just taking a break for now," I told her. Although I didn't see Clarice outside of work very often, we were still very good work friends. She was a couple of years older than me, married, with a young child. So we didn't have too much in common outside of work, but it was still easy for us to chat about dating, dealing with Kim, and other small talk things.

"When I decided I'd 'take a break', I met my husband," she said with a joyful laugh. "It always happens when you least expect it."

I laughed along with her, because the thought of finding my future husband without looking for it was a funny thought. How would I meet somebody if I wasn't on the dating apps, actively seeking it out? I rarely went out to bars, rarely met new people outside of work, and wasn't a very social person in general. I didn't go very many places where I would be able to meet the love of my life without purposefully seeking it out.

And most of the time, I was okay with just being alone. I was very career focused, barely had time for dating as it was, and I liked being on my own. Maybe one day, I would meet my Prince Charming but for now, I knew that I was okay being on my own.

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Song: the broken hearts club - gnash

Hey everybody! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this story. I hope you like it! I'm still editing parts of it, but I'm really excited to share it with you! I have one quick question: How do we feel about sex scenes? Should I add more graphic detail? Maybe put a warning so anybody who doesn't want to read it can skip it? Let me know what your thoughts are! I'm undecided