#cuz she could pass for early 20s and that’s technically not too young to be a surrogate

[yourqueenb]

This MC is cute, but am I the only one who thinks she looks crazy young? Like too young to be a surrogate??

[engagedtobefree]

Phase 7: The Truth

Monday - I get to work about 10 minutes early so I can talk to Greg. I ask him about his baby shower and we talk about it a bit. Then, before I have a chance to take the conversation where I want it to go, he asks me how my weekend was. I go back to my desk after our conversation and I submit to my fate of having to ask Joyce if Scott is married. I decide to do this after I have a conversation with Scott, so that it doesn’t appear as if I’m asking out of the blue. This way if she asks me why I want to know, I can just say something about his behavior, taking it off my shoulders and putting it on his. I start to wonder now if she also noticed Scott’s interest in me, hence the “you look guilty” statement she made toward him on 2 separate occasions as he was talking to me. Since the Super Bowl was last night, I don’t expect Scott to come in, especially because he said he probably wouldn’t if the Eagles won. It’s getting closer to 9 and he always comes in between 8:20 and 8:30, so I decide I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to execute my plan.

But Scott comes in at 9:30. He’s in his office talking to Steve and Chris all excitedly about yesterday. I decide it’s probably a good idea to listen to their conversations as much as I can, in case Scott mentions his wife. And he does. I don’t hear exactly what he says. All I catch are the words “my wife”, but that’s all I need to hear. I instantly see red. I feel anger. So it’s true. Scott is married. I can safely assume there is no divorce or anything on the horizon. His wife still has their wedding photos up on Facebook. She loves him and as far as she’s concerned, they’re happily married.

I am livid. I want to flip him off. I want to scream. I want to curse him out. For 9 weeks I have been falsely assuming Scott is single and interested in dating me. For even longer than that I had been noticing him looking at me, watching me, and even walking by my desk a few times to look at me. And all of that may have been more frequently than I was noticing. For 8 weeks I had been flirting with him, believing I could have him eventually. And as the weeks have dragged on I have gotten more aggressive in my pursuit, and he reciprocated. And he’s fucking married. 

I feel so wronged. He has assumed I’m stupid. He assumed I would never find out. He assumed he could keep this going. What else has he assumed? I don’t get any opportunity to approach Scott until right before lunch, which is probably a good thing because I calmed down a lot, so much so that I feel sad, disappointed, even a bit numb. I had been texting 2 friends during this time, and I let out a lot of emotion and blow off some steam, and get out so many of the thoughts racing through my mind. I am on the verge of tears at one point.

My opportunity comes as I’m leaving the bathroom. Right when you come out of the women’s room and turn down the hallway, the supply closet is there on the right, and Scott is in there looking around. He turns his head and I know he sees me, but I don’t look at him. I contemplate going back and cornering him in there so he has to face me, but I feel so empty, that I know the way I picture me doing it is not how it would happen. While I have confronted people countless times in my life, I am not naturally confrontational. I have to really work at it. It’s easier when I have emotions alongside my logic driving me to do it, but even then I may still have some nervousness. Right now, in this moment, I have nothing but my logic. I feel completely empty of all feeling. I go over to the printer to get my stuff and go slow, knowing that Scott is probably restocking the teas. I can hear him in the closet looking for them. Then he can’t get the door to catch and lock. Finally, fucking finally, he comes over to the coffee machine. He is elated, happy, smiling, probably partly due to our Super Bowl win yesterday and partly due to being able to interact with me. He says how he’s finally restocking the Jasmine Green Tea and he says something else, but I don’t know what. I comment on his Eagles shirt and he says he’s had it on since last night and laughs. I may say something else, but I don’t know. I look at him, standing there, smiling at me, most definitely happy to see me, and I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to confront him. I enjoy talking to Scott, I love flirting with him, I like the rush of interacting with him randomly throughout each day, I like the warmth his voice and laugh create inside of me, I like looking at his face, I enjoy the attentions he gives me. In this moment, I am second-guessing if I should go with my heart and talk to him as usual, or if I should go with my mind and do what’s right. “You’re married”. It comes out as half-statement, half-question. I am looking at his left hand, where there is never any ring. He has turned and is looking at me. I shift my eyes up toward his face. “Am I?” Scott doesn’t pose this question as if he didn’t hear me, but as if he is asking me if he is married. This throws me off. It takes my brain a few seconds to realize that it came out of his mouth wrong. I almost can’t breathe. “Yeah”, is the only thing I can muster. “Yeah, why?” He fucking asked me why, as if he doesn’t know why. There’s no need to play dumb with me. I shakily say, “Nothing” as I shift my eyes away, pull my lips into a thin line, and nod my head up and down. I wanted to add “You should have said something”, but my legs just carry me back to my desk. I don’t know what to do with myself. I want to say more, I need to say more. He is still at the coffee machine. I grab my cold coffee and walk down the large hall to the microwave, just so I at least am not stuck at my desk listening to him stock the tea. As I’m standing there, I hear someone start to come up the opposite, smaller hallway to the microwave. They pass behind me, I turn and look at the person as they walk away and it’s Scott. He followed me to the microwave. My only assumption as to why is that he was going to say something to me, but he chose not to. His ego must have won. Hell, he’s probably in shock too. Thought he could keep me wrapped around his ring-free finger for longer than this. Maybe he also thought if I did ever find out that I’d want him enough to not care. After I’m done heating my coffee, I start to head back down the large hall and hear someone not too far behind me. I turn my head to look and see it’s Scott. I turn my head back around so quickly that I don’t even get a solid look at him, but I don’t care. He was headed back down the small hallway.

My lunch is shortly after this, and Scott always takes his lunch right when mine is over (technically when Steve comes back from lunch, but my lunch is the same time as Steve’s). I am outside Joyce’s cubicle while I’m waiting till she’s finished on the phone, and my body is at an angle so that I am still facing her and also facing Scott’s office. I see him come out of his office, but he had just started to turn his head away when I shifted my eyes over to him. I didn’t have to turn my head and didn’t want to, which is why I stood at the angle. I didn’t want him to know I could see him if he happened to come out of his office.

I go into the warehouse twice, and neither time does Scott turn and look at me. I keep questioning why. Why did he do this? Was it because he liked the attention? Was it nice to know he’s still got it going for him at his age? Does he not get attention at home, and was just innocently enjoying it? (Highly fucking doubt that one, at least the “innocent” part). Did it really just make him happy to come into work and have a young, pretty girl, who he clearly finds attractive, show interest in him and be happy to see him every day? Did he ever intend to take this further, beyond the workplace, into an affair? I have no answer from Scott, and I probably won’t get one. I doubt I’ll even get an apology. If I have it in me later in the week, and if I’m feeling better, I could quite possibly find an opportunity to corner him, make him uncomfortable. Or should i wait to see if he chooses to approach me about it, which I know is highly unlikely cuz most men dont do things like that? Or should I just keep making my prescense known, like keep popping up as usual, but just not give him attention? There are so many ways I can approach this from here, but it’s way too soon for me to even know what I want to do.

At the end of the day, I always go up to get my lunch bag since I typically have something still in there (usually hummus) that needs to stay refrigerated. As I head up the stairs, one of the bathroom doors open. To my horror, it’s Scott. He doesn’t see me as he heads into the break room/kitchen. I’m not turning back around just because of him, so I keep headed toward my destination. He’s at the coffee machine. This guilty motherfucker, who always makes his end-of-the-day tea at the coffee machine by my desk, came all the way up here to make his tea so that he could avoid me. Joke’s on you, Scottie Boy, cuz we work literally within 20 feet of each other at all times. Can’t fucking avoid me forever, you coward. I don’t look at him. He starts to turn his head but sees it’s me, so he quickly turns it back. “Hey, Dana, what’s up?”. Still his typical greeting, just more quietly and with less enthusiasm than usual. In a soft voice, all I can say is “Hey”. I shouldn’t have said anything, but there is still a part of me that wishes I could continue what I was doing with Scott. After I grab my bag, I keep my eyes looking down as I walk back past him. I don’t want to look at him. Not out of shame, or embarrassment, or because he won, but because I’m so hurt. When I get back to my desk, not only am I shaking on the inside, but also physically. Scott has thought of no one but himself. He probably has no guilt. He never thought of his wife at home, or the woman at work smitten with him. Never thought how this would affect me at all if I found out about his marriage. And I know that he knows he cannot even say this has been casual flirting. This has been getting more and more involved between us as the weeks have passed, and who know how much more it would have developed. Our once-a-day greetings and slight smiles slowly evolved into big smiles, daily conversations, making more eye contact, standing closer and closer, and purposely going out of our way to interact with each other. Even me complimenting him and checking him out several times, which I know at least a few he had to see. And he has purposely left out mentioning his wife.

I leave for the day and his car isn’t started yet, so I’m guessing he will never be leaving on time ever again. I actually take awhile to get situated in my car because I’m trying to stuff mail that has been sitting on my passenger seat for days into my bag, and then I’m trying to get my iPod to play but don’t realize I have the volume shut off and the radio set to Disc instead of Aux. Joyce comes out and I wave to her. I’m still messing with my Ipod and my radio when the door opens again. I know who it is before I look. When I do decide to look, he’s already staring at me, coming slowly down the stairs. He has the coffee straw in his mouth as he does for 90% of the day, his shades are on, he’s got his tea in his hand. There’s something written on his face though, but I can’t place what it is. His mouth is moving in an odd way, despite chewing on the straw, almost like he’s about to say something, even though I wouldn’t hear him through the door. I lift my hand up in a good bye. Again, I know I shouldn’t, but my heart was so set on this man, I just can’t believe that this turned out to be the reality of things. He lifts his hand up back to me. I realize after this interaction that I had a sad, pained look on my face. I didn’t mean to, but yeah, in hindsight I know it was there. And I question myself: should I have waved? I don’t want Scott to think what he’s done is okay, but at the same time I realize that if I want to bring this up again, I need to remain somewhat open toward him. And I can’t help but be open anyway. It’s in my nature. I am vulnerable, and while yeah, it gets me hurt sometimes, I know being open and vulnerable have a lot of positives to them as well. And I just can’t help it. As angry as I have been throughout this whole day, as much as my brain keeps telling me he is a scum bag and complete piece of shit, I have grown quite fond of the man who on a daily basis would give me his greetings, his smile, his radiating face. It was all for me and directed at only me, and he made me feel special, despite any ulterior motives he may have had. It has been years since any guy has truly made me feel that way. And even though Scott wasn’t exactly honest, something about it all was still so genuine, something about him still seems so genuine. It doesn’t mean he’s not guilty or wasn’t doing something completely inappropriate and downright wrong, but I think that maybe Scott really enjoyed giving along with receiving. Maybe he also enjoyed seeing me light up and feel special, and liked knowing he made someone happy just by his presence. Maybe he also really enjoyed talking to me too. I have no doubt he enjoyed being on the receiving end more than the giving end, but I believe that he was also fond of me too. And there was definitely a connection between us. There still is. I felt it earlier at the coffee machine when he came over to me, and I think that along with my affections for him, that connection is what made it so hard for me to confront him. A small (very small) part of me wonders if Scott has felt any confliction or guilt about all of this. I doubt it, but I honestly can’t rule it out. Maybe he did develop some feelings for me and he’s wrestled with the morality of it (or not - he could’ve developed feelings and not wrestled with it at all). Does he love his wife? Is he happily married? Was he hoping for that sweet double-life of being a family man and still having some side action with a beautiful mistress? We interact out in the open for all to see at work. He was in his office all those countless times he turned to smile at me, risking the 2 men he works with noticing that. I thought I was the only one risking something here, but what if Scott was as well? And his face, his face always lighting up when he sees me. You can’t fake that. I may have gotten the truth about his marital status, but this is no less confusing than it was before.

I am writing all of this in real-time. It is Monday night, and I am sitting here with my aching little heart wondering where this is going to go. I know it will take me a bit of time to adjust to no longer flirting with Scott, or greeting him in the mornings, or jumping out of my cubicle to talk to him. It’s gonna hurt, and it’s gonna hurt because it matters. This has meant something to me. I don’t mind in the future being friendly with him if we cross paths. Will I talk to him like before? I don’t know. If i do, I run the risk of still being interested in him. I could get over this, start talking to him, then end up right back where I was before, completely smitten and charmed by him. Or I could get over him and not even care anymore, and go back to how it was way before all this, which was barely seeing him and interacting with him, and being okay with it. My fear is though, that despite how wrong I know this has been, what if the part of me that wants what it wants wins? What if I pick all this back up? I can’t see me doing that, as I really am a nice person, and I have never intentionally hurt anyone in my life, but this feels so abruptly over and left unfinished. That may be due to me not having an answer as to why he did this, or it could be due to something uglier. There is something in me that is thinking about how he wants me, despite being married. Do I carry that disgusting potential to be the other woman, one that is aware of the marriage but doesn’t care? And the answer is probably yes. I know we all get bad thoughts some times, bad urges, bad desires. Being a kind person doesn’t mean they’re not there. It’s not letting those things win that matters most. Scott has very much acted on something and been feeding into and contributing to something he should have put an end to a long time ago. I don’t want to be like that. I know I have made mistakes in my life and done things that are wrong, but what if I do something intentionally wrong? Am I a bad person? Am I a bad person for still wanting him? Am I a bad person if I somehow get wrapped back into this and don’t put an end to it again? Do I really want this man enough to not care about any destruction it could bring? I can be so obsessed with finding true love, and would my mind start to wonder if it’s this man, rationalizing that he’s just in a marriage with the wrong woman? A huge, huge part of me is saying, “Come on, Dana, you’d never do that. You’d never intentionally be with a married man and hurt another woman. And look, you’re aware of it. That’s good!” Then there’s another part of me, a smaller, quieter voice that is whispering, “There’s no harm in some casual flirting still. There’s no harm in letting him know what you want. We’ll just let him decide if it’s to actually be taken further or not.” A young woman fantasy of “He’ll choose me over his wife.” I am disgusted. I am so disgusted and I really hope that the better part of eventually squashes out this longing for him and I come 100% to my senses. 

This is still so sudden though, and I shouldn’t expect my longing for him to just disappear so quickly. I want it to, but I know what I’m like, and I know this is going to be difficult for me and that I’m going to be wrestling with these emotions for some time. I want him, and only time can me make stop wanting him. 

I hate this. I hate this so fucking much. I hate every little fucking thing about it.