Broken Things
“Sable,” someone called.
Sable sighed, released her mouse, and turned to look at Sarah. An intern who started two weeks before.
“The copy machine is broken.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask your manager to help you fix it?”
Sarah fidgeted with the stack of papers in her hand and said, “I didn’t want to bother him.”
Sable raised an eyebrow.
Yet, she was perfectly happy bothering me.
Frustration simmered beneath Sable’s skin, intensifying with each request.
She caught herself thinking, Why is it always my problem? She had to rein in her thoughts before they showed on her face.
Pressing her hands to her black pencil skirt, she stood. Her back ached something fierce. Walking to the copy machine, she went through the basics.
Plugged in? Check. No error message? Check.
“Did you remember to put paper in it?”
“Of course,” Sarah retorted.
Sable pulled open the drawer for paper and paused. An unwrapped ream of paper nestled in the drawer. She stared at it and turned to Sarah.
“What’s wrong?”
She gripped the copy machine, nails digging into the plastic. It was always her problem.
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Keep your expression flat.
She took a deep breath and lifted the paper from the drawer.
“Question—” Sable snapped her mouth shut.
No. Saying what you think is how you end up spending time with HR.
Sable rolled her eyes, remembering the last time Nancy scolded her because, apparently, telling people who interrupted her work that she was not, in fact, interested in chatting made her a ‘poor team player’.
She unwrapped the paper and put it back in the copier.
“What do you need to copy?” Sable asked.
“This.” Sarah plopped documents in Sable’s hand.
Purchase orders. Digital copies everywhere, and they have her making physical copies. Seriously, though, when did people stop learning common sense?
“I’ve tried everything. Do you think we need to call IT to fix it?” Sarah asked.
Sable dropped the papers into the copy tray, pressed start, then walked away.
“Thank you so much! You’re always so patient and kind. I didn’t want my manager to get upset,” Sarah said.
“No problem.”
“By the way, what was wrong with it?”
Sable coughed to cover a laugh. “Jammed.”
She sat back down at her desk and pulled up her calendar for Monday.
Booked from 7am until 6pm. It was already 4:30pm. If she prepped for tomorrow, she could leave by 5pm for her anniversary dinner with her boyfriend, Ethan.
Five years already.
Sable hummed to herself and prepped notes, agendas, and action items. Her manager teased that she did more work in a day than most people did in a week. Sometimes it was difficult to reconcile what she was working for. Then she remembered Ethan’s smile when she’d surprised him last weekend with a party at his favorite restaurant for his promotion.
He made it to senior manager at thirty. Meanwhile, Sable clung to the same project manager title for seven long years. Seven years in the same role. Reliable enough to depend on. Not valuable enough to promote.
Someone the other day joked she lived to work. But really, she just worked to live. After five years with Ethan, she hoped he’d propose today on their anniversary.
“Sable?” her manager, Steven, called over the cubicle.
“Yes?”
“Go home early today, it’s been a long week, and you’re making the rest of us look bad with your long hours.”
Sable flinched and said, “Yes, Sir.”
A backhanded compliment.
She packed up her laptop, to-do list, and pen into her tote bag and slung it over her shoulder. Plucking her car keys off the desk, she rushed towards the elevator.
The sun set over the trees as she drove home. When she opened the door, she was shocked to find all the lights in the living room off. She flipped on the lights.
Pants and a dress shirt lay strewn on the sofa.
Ethan must have been in a rush to get ready for their date. She stepped onto the staircase and caught a faint moan.
Taking each step as quietly as possible, she crept up the stairs towards her bedroom.
A woman’s breathy voice pierced the dark, “Ethan.”
Sable choked, her hand trembling as she covered her mouth. Her shoulders crumpled, and she shoved open the door, unable to keep from shaking with disbelief and grief.
A naked woman she’d never met straddled her boyfriend of five years.
Happy anniversary.
Ethan’s eyes met hers over the threshold.
“I see,” Sable said and closed the door.
She went down to the kitchen, each step heavier than the last, and rummaged for a bottle of wine her manager had gifted her at Christmas. Sable didn’t drink, but today called for it. As she closed her hands around the cold glass, a hollow ache pressed against her chest.
Ethan barreled down the stairs, buttoning his shirt.
“I didn’t know you’d be home early,” he breathed.
“Your buttons are wrong.”
“Don’t you care?”
“About your buttons? No. Also, you forgot to put on pants.”
“Sable, why don’t you say something?”
“I’m not going to fight for something that’s broken. Now I know why you didn’t propose.” She saluted with the bottle of wine and turned to the door.
“Sable…”
“Thanks for that, by the way.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For not asking me to marry you…Marrying you would’ve been the worst mistake of my life.”
“She’s so cold,” Ethan’s mistress laughed, and naked as the day she was born, wrapped herself around his arm.
“Oh, make sure to take out the trash before you leave,” Sable called over her shoulder.
“Trash?”
“You’ll see it when you look in the mirror.”
The door clicked shut.
Good to know I didn’t waste any more time on something that was never going to change.
