Success Is the Best Revenge {Book 1} **Watty Awards 2012**

Chapter 7: New Information

About forty-five minutes later, Bridget came back and she had the entire packet filled out. I stared at her in disbelief. I was hoping she had walked out into rush hour traffic and managed to get hit by a bus, but that would have been too good to be true.

There had to be a reason she had suddenly popped back into my life like a dormant life threatening disease. The last time we spoke or even saw each other, she made it clear that she hated me. Not ot mention the fact that she pretty much stole my boyfriend away from me on what was supposed to be the best night of my life. That was a night I would neer forget, no matter how old or wrinked I became. That night effected me in ways she couldn't even imagine. Had it ended differently, maybe Bridget and I could have at least been aqquantiances.

But then again, back then there wasn't a pure bone in her body.

"You finished the whole thing?" I asked her in amazement, as my eyes followed the papers that were in her hands.

"Yep!" she exclaimed, placing the packet on the desk. "So when do I start?"

I was flabbergasted. She really thought I was going to hire her on the spot just because I knew her from my past.  "Um. I'll have to go over it with my boss first, and then we'll give you a call." 

"Yay! That's great!" She jumped up and down,making the pen cups on my desk shake with her every move. I grabbed them to keep them from flying off of my desk and gave her a sly glare.

"Yeah. Just be expecting a call in the next week or so," I muttered, as I put her application in the filing cabinet next to me. As much as I wanted to just trash it, I knew that would be a bit much. Taking into consideration that she had a about a billion kids, crushing her hopes this early would probably be hurting them too.

"Thanks Alea. You don't know how much this means to me. I really appreciate it. More than you know." She gave me a sincere smile and I gave her a fake one.

"Okay, I'm going to be leaving then. I have something to do later! Bye!" she called as she waved her hand at me before leaving my office. Her cheap smelling perfume still lingered throughout my office even several minutes after she left. It was ridiculous how even after she was gone, she still managed to stay on my mind and in my office.

I sighed heavily and decided to look over her application. I didn't care about the confidentiality agreement emplyers had. If she was going to be working under me, I had every right to know her background. As I was scanning over it, I saw that she had gotten several jobs over the years. Ranging from odd jobs such as cleaning up prison bathrooms and taste testing for alcohol companies, to basic jobs such as waitressing at diners and being a secretary at various businesses. From just looing at them, th total income of every job she had ever had couldn't have made her over the maximum of $50,000 a year - surely not enough to raise five kids and support herself off of.

I was starting to feel a bit of pity for her as my eyes traveled over the application. This woman was a walkign charity case.

I was just about to put her application back in the filing cabinet when something strange caught my eye. Other than the usual high blood pressure and mensutrual cycle options that were checked off under her medical history, something that I had never expected to see in my life was written in bright blue ink on the very bottom line.

She was HIV positive.

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As I stood outside the building waiting for Sean to come pick me up, the scare of what I'd seen on her application was still haunting me. I even felt scared for myself. What if she had gotten the virus while she was with Carson all those years ago? I could have it too. I mean, I got tested many times after that but sometimes the virus doesn't show up until years later.