Coming Back Home

Chapter 33

I woke up the next morning and felt like I had maybe gotten two hours of sleep. It was going to be a rough day.

I rolled over and saw that Natalie was awake already, and I heard her voice coming from the kitchen. Who the hell was she talking to?

I quickly sat up and walked out into the kitchen, scared to find out who would possibly be in my apartment at this hour.

I saw Natalie's phone held up to her ear and breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she was just on the phone, I really needed to get my shit together.

Natalie turned around and saw me standing there and wrapped up her conversation.

"Alright sounds good, I'll talk to you soon," she said.

She ended the phone call and walked over to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

"Morning, everything good?" She asked.

"I wouldn't say good...but sure," I said, "who were you talking to?"

"My mom, she was checking to see if I was still coming to dinner at their house later this week," she responded.

I nodded, still thankful that it was just a phone call.

"I'm going to go shower and get ready, I'll be back out soon," I told her.

"Okay," she kissed the side of my head and let her arm drop from my shoulders.

I got ready for work and did my best to keep my mind on that instead of everything else. It worked for a while, but not for long.

Natalie and I left my building and walked towards our cars. I'd started driving since it was getting colder out, and I figured it didn't look great for us to be showing up together.

"Are you sure you don't want to ride with me?" Natalie asked.

"Yeah, it's fine," I told her.

She nodded as we both got into our cars and drove to work.

***

Work surprisingly ended up serving as a good distraction. I didn't think I'd be able to focus, but I was thankful that I was wrong.

I was concentrating on a spreadsheet that I had to put together, when a knock on my office door nearly made me jump out of my chair.

"Oh, sorry Madison! Didn't mean to scare you," Ella said.

"No you're fine, I was just um, I was really concentrated, what's up?" I asked.

"Just seeing how things are going, and I needed a break from work," she said with a grin.

"Fair," I said as I returned her smile, "it's going though I guess."

"You seem kind of...off," Ella said hesitantly, "you and Natalie didn't get in a fight again, did you?"

"No," I shook my head with a laugh, "actually we um - well come in here."

I waved her over to my desk, I wasn't sure what possessed me to tell Ella about Natalie and I, but I was going for it.

Ella sat down across from me and I leaned closer to her and spoke quietly.

"Natalie and I are actually uh - we're kind of together," I said.

Ella's eyes widened and her mouth hung open.

"Like...together, together??" She asked.

"Mhm," I said with a nod.

"Oh my gosh, that's adorable, why haven't you told anyone?!" She excitedly asked.

"I guess I've been kind of nervous about people finding out since I'm still new to this job, you know," I said.