He’s there. I can feel his eyes on my back. He’s watching me and I know if I turn around he’ll deny it. I loved him. I told him I loved him. But that was a year ago and he never really understood why I said it. But now he’s standing behind me, leaning against the door, I just know it. I’ve felt those eyes on me before and with him it’s always the same feeling. I didn’t have to hear him walk in. I just know he’s there by the feeling I’m having right now. It’s not the kind of feeling that makes me want to kiss him. It’s the kind I get when I can’t control something. Right about now I’m really regretting that I told him the truth a year ago. He didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve being rejected, if it could be called such.
So I’m just standing here wondering when is the right time to face him -- to face the man who ruined my life with a simple word. So I just wait. Finally he realizes that either I haven’t noticed him or I’m just ignoring him. He coughs, the sound of it making me shudder with disgust. Now I hate the man.
“Clarisse Carson,” he says, as if I didn’t already know my name.
I decide to answer him. “Levi Gordon. What brings you here?” I ask monotonously, trying to stay as emotionally balanced as I possibly can. I don’t turn to face him, so he walks over and sits in front of my desk, to which the inside of my head starts protesting. Instead of sit down and come to his physical level I remain standing with my arms crossed. I face him reluctantly.
He takes a long while to answer -- something that he knows has always bothered me. I’m just about ready to blow his head off. “I came to ask you something.” Wow. It took him three minutes to come up with that line.
I fold my hands and stare incredulously at him. “Well?” I ask innocently.
He made a face that was probably supposed to portray a certain level of pensiveness but it came across more as a grossed-out slash I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom expression. “I need your help.”
That was the last thing I expected, but the one thing I would never give him. “On what?” I say carefully, not wanting to give the impression that I’d help him at all.
He gives me the look I had become used to, the look that many people who came through my office had on them. I immediately shake my head and point to the door. “No way. There’s absolutely no way. Now get out before I call security.” I don’t want to be nice to him anymore.
Levi stares at me with wounded eyes, another look to which I had become accustomed, if not immune. “Clarisse, you can’t do this to me! I’m in trouble!”
“Well, you should have thought about that before you got into trouble,” I reply sharply, although most of my clients are victims. “I am not prosecuting anyone for you.”
“I won’t give up,” he says, as if I don’t actually know that.
I raise an eyebrow and continue pointing at the door. “I said get out.”
Slowly he realizes that I lost the feeling I had a year ago. He walks out, past me, and gives one last look that I know my heart is immune to: rejection.