Ch. 3- Point of No Return

“I’m sorry for this” Spencer said to the boss, and ran to her spot in line were the boss was pointing. About halfway to her spot she looked up and saw me, making her stop dead in her tracks. For what seemed like hours we just stood there staring at each other.

“Now Ms. Carlin!” The boss said breaking up the moment. She went and stood to my right in the line and mouthed to me What are you doing here? I then mouthed back We need to talk. With that our new boss, Mr. Chek, continued to lecture us about how to treat guests and plenty of other boring things. All I could think about was what I was going to say to Spencer when we had our talk. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to think about what to say before the boss started to list off who was going to be in what cleaning groups. In each group there was a duster, sweeper/vacumer, and a bed maker. Spencer and I were assigned to the same group because we were standing so close together in the line. She was the duster and I was assigned to sweeping and vacuuming. We knew that we would have a lot of time together because while the bed making job took only about 10-15 minutes per room, the other jobs tool more like 30 minutes to an hour. This was bad news because I knew I was not ready for this talk. After a few more lessons on etiquette, he assigned each group a room and told us we had 1 ½ hours to clean it. For the first 15 minutes we worked in silence, then the bed maker left, and we were alone.

“I’m sorry!” we said simultaneously. It felt weird to say sorry after all these years, but it was definitely needed.

“You go first” I ordered.

“No, you, please”

“Fine…” I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “What happened in LA was… a misunderstanding. I never-”

“A MISUNDERSTANING? I saw you and him. Don’t tell me I didn’t see that.” She began to cry as she forced out the words. I stood there shocked. I didn’t know what to say. So I let her continue. “I loved you Ashley, I still do. Every time I think about what happened, I… it’s too hard to live without… you.” I could tell she choked out this last word with difficulty. I was so shocked I barely had time to react as she flung herself into my arms. I knew I had to comfort her quick, but I couldn’t think of anything.