My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams

Author:Rachel DeLoache Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

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“Nothing yet, but it will be fine,” I kept saying—to Nick, Jennie, Janine, and most of all to myself. But no one was convinced. My anxiety peaked at night, as I lay awake in bed. Nothing felt real and anything seemed possible. What if she never pays me? I had waited so long to give voice to those words—afraid that in doing so, I would lend them more power. Now, at last, unable to sleep, I said them to Nick, and felt their truth for the very first time. It wrecked me.

Nick rubbed my back as I struggled to breathe. I choked out fear in rhythmic bursts: “I . . . won’t . . . be able . . . to make . . . it back . . . I’ll . . . never . . . save enough . . . to buy . . . a house . . . I won’t . . . be able . . . to have . . . kids.”

Morning came before sleep. But Germany, where Anna’s bankers were located, was hours ahead. Maybe today—it must be today. I had to keep moving forward. One puffy eye focused on my cell phone, the other closed under a cold compress. My fingers shot flares in the dark. Texts at five a.m. How to convey the urgency? Could I make Anna feel, understand, and act? I put my hair back, makeup on, and made it to work on time. I smiled at colleagues in the hallway, wondering if they could tell. There was a pinprick in my protective bubble, and I felt the oxygen escaping fast. It’ll be there this morning, this afternoon, by end of day. Everything should be on track now, Anna had said.

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