Her Special PayBack: #3

I pulled the sheet up to her shoulders and quietly closed the door, cleaned up the kitchen, had two healthy drinks and went to bed. I thought, "Tomorrow should be interesting."

I'm an early morning person no matter when I go to bed, so I woke at sunrise, unsuccessfully tried to go back to sleep, and finally got up. My master bedroom has its own bath so I did my morning things, put on a clean shirt and shorts and went to the kitchen.

The office door was still closed so I stalled for about an hour sipping black coffee, reading the morning paper and then started organizing breakfast. I went to the office door and knocked. Nothing.

"Holly, wake up."

I knocked again hard and opened the door. She was on her side facing me with the sheet up to her neck. Her eyes were full of sleep, but open and watching me.

I said, "In twenty minutes breakfast will be ready so you better get your butt out of bed, clean up and meet me in the kitchen."

"Are you always this bossy?"

I pretended to look stern and answered, "Twenty minutes."

I walked away leaving the door open. Minutes later I heard the door to the bathroom close, and then the toilet flushed. Almost twenty minutes later she walked into the kitchen wearing the same T-shirt and shorts. I noticed this time she was wearing a bra.

She sat down without talking. A large glass of milk and another of orange juice was in front of her. I put down a plate with three pieces of toast each topped with two poached eggs accompanied by about eight slices of bacon. I put a couple of bagels on a side plate with cream cheese next to her.

She said, "This is way too much food for me."

Fifteen minutes later the food was gone.

She looked embarrassed. "I ate like a pig again."

"You ate like someone who hasn't eaten right for a while."

She blushed again.

want

to the park and then have our talk. It's cool right now but later it's going to be really hot, so let's enjoy the

point out something interesting every now and then, but I could tell she was getting nervous. We circled the park once along the bike path and then

obvious she didn't know what to

"What's your most serious

with no

continued, "What's your second most serious

in a

cancer

"No."

wanted

"No."

concluded, "You have a serious short term problem, but will be fine in the long term, and you don't consider

000005s.org for uninterrupted enjoyment. The next chapter is just a click away, exclusively available on

my hand and blurted, "Shit, that was stupid of me. You saved my life yesterday;

covered her hand with mine and quietly asked, "If it will make you feel better, why don't you tell me how you ended

then everything poured out. She had grown up in a suburb of Chicago. Her father bailed out even before she was born, so she was raised by her mother. They were very poor, but her mom

a small business in Chicago. Two years and two promotions later she was starting to make it in the real business world when she met Jim.

been an alcoholic and had fallen off the wagon. He didn't look very hard for a new job and the small savings they had built up started to disappear. His drinking got worse; he abused her when drunk and

She received a week's severance. When she got home that afternoon she found the apartment had been torn apart in one of Jim's rages. The furniture was destroyed,

get the past due rent money, she found out that Jim had

had moved to Atlanta. She called Carol to see if she could stay with her a few days and start a new life. When she arrived in Atlanta, Carol wasn't there; I

The look of desperation had come back as

I had done nothing during her story. I wasn't sure what to do. I felt if I hugged her she would completely fall apart and be even more of an emotional cripple, but I had to give her some hope; and I was not unaware that even at this

a big short term problem, but that's all it is. Here's what we're

in the second week we start working on finding you a job. Let's go back to the apartment and I want you to

"Do you cook?"

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