By the third night, I can't hold back. We're in a private room of a high end restaurant this time . Xavier says that getting the contract deserves at least one good meal.
I take a gulp of a 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon wine and sigh in relief as exhaustion loosens my tongue.
I can't afford it on my salary so I should take advantage of these nice things when Xavier is buying, right?
"Why are you like this?" I ask before I can stop myself.
His head turns. "Like what?"
"Cruel. Cutting. Always ready to remind me I'm less."
His eyes darken. For a long beat, I think he won't answer. Then: "If you believe it, why should I believe any different."
"Believe what? That I'm less?."
Xavier nods.
"I do not think that I'm less of a person!"
"Then why do you act like it? Because if actions speak louder than words, then your actions speak volumes."
I stare at him flabbergasted, "I don't believe you." I say.
"It's just another of your mind tricks to make me seem less than I am."
Xavier sets his glass down, "Think back on your life. Did people treat you the way they treated others on the same level as you?"
"I ---- I--- I" I stutter. Coffee bastard is right.
From highschool, to university and even at work.
Even though Sophie and I both held the lowest position in the department as PR interns, I was the one who did the grueling work, the one who was unnoticed unless it came to doing work and taking zero credit for it. Raven Mallory never spoke to Sophie like she did to me.
"I told you I could be a great therapist." Xavier gives me a smug look from where he's seated opposite me.
"Although I'm not fully sure if you act like the way you do so as to ---"
"---- 1 ----" he raises his index finger.
"---- To show your level of importance so you won't be discarded.----"
"-- 2. if you just intend to pass by as background noise. Not to be remembered, never to be missed."
I stare down at my plate. I couldn't keep eye contact with him any longer.
"That's okay if you're into stuffs like that." he quickly adds.
"3. if you grew up poor. These are my hypotheses.
What do you say?" Xavier leans back in his chair, his long index finger trailing along the stem of his wine glass.
I bunch my fingers into a ball fisting them on my skirt. I can not let him see how his words affects me.
Xavier's words hang between us, unexpected, heavy.
Probably, because he told me the truth that I'd been running away from all my life.
What do you do when all you've been trying to escape comes to slap you in the face all of a sudden?
It's like one of those horror movies. You're in the forest, trying to escape from a clowned serial killer who hunts and kills people like you. You run and run and run but you find yourself in the same spot you started at.
You're running in circles and then ---------- BOO!.
The serial killer slams you down on the ground with an axe hanging over his shoulder.
You scream and scramble on the ground trying to get to safety. To get to anywhere, really, but it's all hopeless.
But I can't scream. I've lost my tongue to the serial killer's axe, so I do the only best thing, I've been doing for decades. Change the topic to the person speaking about me.
From my research and knowledge, people love talking about themselves. Especially, the narcissists, arrogant ones, those who believe you're less important than them.
Give a guess which one, my dear coffee bastard is?
I blink back the tears that had gathered in my eyes. For some reason, it hurt more when Xavier described my life to me than anyone.
"Why?''
"Hmm?"
I plaster the fake professional smile I'd come to associate myself with, "Why did you not become a therapist?"
Xavier stares at me for a long time before giving me a little smirk and taking a swig of his wine, "I said I could become one, I didn't say that I wanted to become one. Learning human psychology is an important aspect if you want a blooming business. You may create objects, but they are created for humans. Your Investors, consumers, workers are also humans. You have to appeal to their human nature." He waves his hand dismissively.
"Good, because you lack a very important ingredient of being a therapist." I snap.
"What is it? Humor me."
"Compassion! It's disappeared so far from you, that if you plan to start having it now, your body will flag it as an intruder."
"Good thing then that I don't intend to accommodate it at all. Compassion pays nothing."
"Pay? For someone who has so much money, is your greatest goal still money?"
"Correct and for someone who has no money, why do you look at money as a sin?"
My throat close at Xavier's condescending look.
He's not just looking down on me, I'm down so he's just looking at me.
My throat close up, making it hard for me to breathe.
I have to get out of here!
My fingers unbunch from my skirt and I rush out, grabbing my handbag in the process.
Xavier follows me out as I run trying to escape.
"Are you okay?" He pulls me by my shoulder, stopping me from running into incoming traffic.
I didn't take note of that.
It's slow traffic anyway.
I lash out, "You think pushing people down keeps you untouchable. But it doesn't. It just makes you alone."
He doesn't reply. He just tosses me the coat I forgot to take with me and walks into the restaurant without a backward glance.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Splatter of water in drops fall on my face. I stretch my hand out watching mindlessly as the water drop increases.
Great.
I'm ab
out to be soaked in a foreign country with no money to go back home and may have just blown off the only job I have.