Chapter 4

After I left, the first thing I did was check into a hotel not far from the office.

That same night I borrowed the hotel's printer and ran off two documents.

One was the company dorm application form.

The other was the registration packet for an elite candidate for the global strategy project.

Upper management had been quietly building out overseas for five years, and lately the talk about formally launching a foreign branch had gotten louder and louder.

I'd only found out from my team lead earlier that upper management really did intend to move the best domestic staff over there.

For anyone with ambition, that was the best news imaginable.

Even if it came down to one in a thousand, plenty of people would kill for the shot.

The next day, I moved into the company dorm.

The first day there, I regretted not applying sooner.

They called it a dorm, but it was really a single suite with its own bathroom and kitchen, plainly and cleanly furnished.

Fifteen minutes on foot each way to work, cheap rent, safe building.

Most of all, going back to living alone made me realize life could actually be this simple.

I came home and bolted the door, and I didn't have to leave it unlocked for anyone.

When I felt like cooking, I didn't have to scroll frantically through menus on my phone, worrying about someone else's taste.

No corner of the place would keep filling up, every so often, with things that didn't belong there.

I was more than satisfied with how things were now.

Kathleen, on the other hand, didn't seem to be doing so well.

From the day I left, she texted me every single day.

At first it was the same explanation on repeat.

"I dropped Ned off at home that night. When are you coming back?"

Then came the sob stories.

"That ginseng supplement you bought me from overseas is gone. I've had no energy at all these late nights."

And finally it turned into blame.

"Grant, do you even have a heart? Chandler's Diner came to me for payment today in front of the whole office, hinting the whole time that I'd been skipping out on the bill. You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

I'd nearly forgotten about it until she brought it up.

Chandler's Diner was a home-style specialty place near her office.

That year, it pained me that she was too busy and too stressed, sometimes too swamped even to eat.

So I found the owner and had him prepare a full home-cooked dinner sent to her office every day.

Over time Kathleen got used to it, and now and then she'd send the owner whatever she felt like having.

What she didn't know was that all along, I'd been paying a week in advance.

Since she was a regular, the owner had probably held off a whole week before finally saying anything.

Picturing that scene, I couldn't help feeling it served her right.

I sent her the owner's payment QR code, set the phone down, and went back to working at my computer.

To break out faster, I shuttled between the office and the dorm every day, and before long the coworkers saw me as a workaholic.

Another week later, I used the results of that week's grind to land, in one stroke, the project everyone else was dying for.

To give the design proposal the best shot, upper management handed me the authority to choose my own team.

Just before the end of that day, for once, I got a call from Kathleen.

After the home-cooked-meal business, our relationship had dropped to freezing.

She hadn't reached out, and I hadn't thought of her once.

It wasn't until I saw the little heart trailing after the name "Kathleen" on my screen that it hit me.

I still hadn't said we were over.

So I picked up.

"Still angry?"

A woman's voice came through, sounding a little worn out.

"Be angry all you want, just don't bring it into work."

"I've already set up the new project group chat for you. Counting me and Ned, that's two, and you can decide the rest however you like."

Right on cue, my phone buzzed.

A chat window titled "xx Project Winning Team" kept popping with new messages.

Member A: 【Thank you, Kathleen, for this chance! I won't let you down!】

Ned Fox: 【Am I going to drag everyone down? My first time on a project this important, I'm honestly a little nervous~】

Member A: 【Don't worry, I hear the team lead's a friend of Kathleen's, so he definitely won't give us anything too hard.】

……

Two glances was all it took for my heart to sink completely.

Right on cue, the woman's gentle voice came over the line.

"This chance is rare. I'll be right there giving it everything with you."

"When the reporting conference comes, I'll go up and present for you."

"If this presentation gets me transferred to headquarters, you won't have to come out to the branch office."

People really do laugh when they're too dumbfounded for anything else.

What made her think I'd skip over an entire headquarters full of excellent colleagues just to go pick her at the branch?

Because she talked a big game?

I let out a couple of cold laughs.

"Kathleen, I turned in the name list a long time ago. Yours isn't on it."

"And I'm not going to lower myself to go over there, and I'm not going to prop you up so you can come here."

"Because starting today, we're done."