Still Falling

13 | ring

Finn

*

I woke from my nap like I had just got dunked in ice water. My body was tense and alert, but I wasn't sure why. My sleep wasn't plagued by nightmares, not in weeks now. Not since I came to New York for Elliot's wedding. Whatever recesses of hell the terrors had crawled out from, something had sent them into a dormant state. I wanted to feel relief, but I was scared they would return when I got too comfortable.

I looked around my new room, in my new apartment. Darkness had descended since I laid down to sleep for a bit early in the afternoon. My hands patted around for my phone. I found the device, brought it up to check the time. 7:25pm. I hated jet lag. In a few weeks I had shuttled between New York and Zurich like a man with no home.

Heh. You are a man with no home. But that was a truth I was okay with, as long as I intended to fix it. My life was filled with so many uncertainties and countless things out of place, but I had to try. One mess at a time. But first, I had to go back to the thing that had been a constant the longest. My position in the company. Before I lost that too.

I sat up, curled my back inwards like a feline and stretched. Slowly, I got out of bed, undressed and went into the bathroom. One look at my groggy reflection in the mirror and I nearly took my ass back to bed. Doing the right things were the hardest. It was so easy to want to return to Zürich and lock myself indoors for as long as I could, but then I wouldn't have anything to come back to. My leave of absence was only this long because I was shot and my recovery process was a tricky one, but I could tell the board were running impatient. Elliot was proving to be a good choice for an interim CEO, but still, it was rare for one to be on seat for over a year. It was difficult and I felt out of my depths, but it had to be done.

With that firm resolve in mind, I got into the shower and turned it on. Hot water rained on my back, seeping down and washing away traces of doubt. Fear was out of character for me. I needed to be firm, I had to be determined and driven. I needed to be Finn Harris. The Finn Harris that had taken his family's name to places his father and grandfather failed to. The Finn Harris that had grabbed the reins in a lonely world at such an early age, even at the times he felt scared and unsure. That went to prove how much he was capable of. That was why he was so good at what he did.

But why here? Why did you chose here?

I got out of the shower and patted my self dry with a towel. I ignored the part of me that viciously insisted that choosing to live in the same building as her was a bad idea. That just because I felt an odd sense of peace around her, didn't necessarily mean I had to be close to her. But I didn't care. I had let myself be selfish a limited number of times in my life. This was one of them. This one thing. Knowing she was right across the hall was the closest thing to security I was having in a long time. It made my suffering a little less... cursed.

I needed to step outside for a little while and make a call to Elliot. I got dressed in loose clothing, slipped a baseball cap over my head and shoved a pair of sunglasses into my pocket. I didn't want to be recognized while walking through Central Park today.

Before I got the chance to open the front door, a call came in from Parker.

"How was your move, sir?" He asked.

I sighed. "Not bad." Then, it hit me that all the times I had to travel, he had always done so too. He had overseen the moving process and took care of the paperwork for the apartment. And here he was, calling to check on me when he could decide to not make contact with me unless it was assignment related. "How are you, Parker? Why don't you take tomorrow off to rest for a bit."