Maybe I just like torturing myself. That could easily be it. I know I shouldn’t want this woman, ergo she’s all I can think about. If she knew the dark, nasty things I’ve been doing to her in my head, she would probably try and slit my throat.

When I woke up this morning, my sheets were full of semen and my head was pounding from lack of oxygen. Even in my sleep, I hold my breath when I’m coming. How fucking messed up is that?

I try to put the girl out of my head as I shower and get myself ready for work. Instead, I find myself thinking of Alex. I’ve often wondered if, given the choice, my brother would rather be alive, or would he rather be dead and have me stuck here running this company. Him dying really was the only way to get me back here, crammed inside a suit, itching to break out every single damn day. If Alex didn’t make it into Heaven and was instead cast into the fiery pits of hell, I’m betting he’d rather stay there than come back to Earth to relieve me of this responsibility. That really would be an Alex Callahan-sized fuck you.

That might seem like yet more hyperbole, but bear with me. The antagonizing relationship Alex and I shared was far more than a simple case of sibling rivalry. Basically, he never forgave me for what went down when we were teenagers. Sure, if you were to ask him, he’d say it was all water under the bridge. That would be a lie, though. He still hated me for what happened, and did until the day he died.

So seeing me here—if he’s capable of it, wherever he is now—is probably giving him a great deal of pleasure. He’s probably quite happy that I’m back in Chicago, doing exactly what he wanted me to be doing.

I don’t wake up late. I don’t spend my days on the beach anymore. My tan has faded to almost nothing. I could take a vacation, but that siren song would be irresistible. I’d probably disappear to some remote island forever. No, these days I get up early, sometimes just as the sun is beginning to rise. I might work out first, or I might just stand at the kitchen counter and drink a cup of coffee before quickly showering and dressing myself in the exact same corporate clothing I always shunned.

If I pass a mirror, I don’t recognize the person staring back at me. The reflection doesn’t register as anyone I know, or would like to know. I am the man my father always wanted me to be, and yet he’s not alive to see it. Or perhaps he’s watching from the afterlife and getting a big kick out of it. His corporation, his legacy, didn’t end up run into the ground with me at the helm; it’s thrived, making me one of the richest men in the country. Forget Hawaii, forget spending long days on the beach, out on the ocean. Now, I live in a landlocked state where the biggest body of water is a lake (albeit a rather large one) and I get up every morning and put on a monkey suit.

I’m not exactly sure what happened. After the funeral service for my family, I fully intended to sell the company, dismantle the fucking thing, hack it up and sell it off in bits to whoever would take it, and then hightail it back to Hawaii. I didn’t give a fuck. Let the Callahan Corporation crash and burn for all I cared. Not like there aren’t plenty of other corporate conglomerates that could have taken over right where my father and brother left off.

But that’s not what went down. I got to know my father’s employees. I realized I was responsible for the livelihoods of well over four hundred people, and if I turned my back on the business, their positions would be meaningless. Someone else would take over and start making cut backs, and jobs would be the first thing to go.

And then there was the need to make a point, too. That was the part I never expected. I was given something I didn’t want, yet somehow it became something that I had to succeed at. I wanted to prove to Arturo, to my father’s and Alex’s associates, to my dead mother, even, that I could do this. That I hadn’t been spending my time teaching people how to surf and been a beach bum because I wasn’t capable of making it in the corporate world.

I was doing that because I loved it. And this…I found myself doing this because, no matter how much I hated it, it was the right thing to do.

The city’s barely even awake by the time I’m at work, standing in my office, looking out the south-facing window over the high rises and the pillars of steam rising from the sidewalk. From this window I like to watch people walking on the sidewalk below, watch people going about their daily lives, sitting in their office, diligently working. And I wonder about those people, I wonder what their lives are like, and if they’re doing what makes them happy or if they’re doing what they feel is required of them, even if they hate it.

Behind me, the email alert chimes on my laptop. Another email. I should figure out how to disable that fucking thing. The messages are constant, most from people I don’t even know wanting money, wanting approval, wanting my goddamn soul. It’s dizzying how much attention people will pay you for public appearances when you’re suddenly worth a lot of money, when you suddenly find yourself in a position of power. It makes you realize how fake most people are. Nothing about me has changed, and yet suddenly I’m meant to be someone of great importance. No one would have looked twice at me if I’d stayed in Hawaii and was still a beach bum.

Eventually, I make my way back to my desk. Sitting down in front of the computer, I slide my hand over the mouse pad, activating the screen. Five years ago, as my screensaver I uploaded a picture of one of my best friends nailing a pipe, the water the most crazy color of blue, arcing over his head as he grinned straight at the camera. At me. I’d been right there with him, sitting in that wave. That I’d even managed to snap off the image was a complete fluke. I got rolled while he rode the thing out. Afterwards we’d gotten blind drunk and fucked some tourists from the mainland to celebrate.

It took me all of four months to change the screensaver to corporate, plain blue. It just depressed the ever-loving shit out of me to look at it, to see the pure joy and adrenalin on my friend’s face, and to not be able to experience it for myself anymore. I shake my head, turning my attention to other things.

Email. I’m meant to be focusing on my email. Clicking on the desktop icon, I scroll from the bottom up, making sure to reply to people in the order in which the messages came through. I’m about to click on the first message when my eyes catch on something closer to the top of the screen. A name. Her name. The girl from my dreams.

“What the fuck?”

 Essie Floyd. 

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that’s been waiting for her to email, or call, or to get in touch. Just drop back into my life somehow. It’s been a remote hope, one of those things you keep tucked safely away in the back of your mind that you tell yourself is probably never going to happen, and that it would be for the best if it didn’t.

And yet, here it is, happening. After all this time, she’s reaching out.

I start reading.

Mr. Callahan, 

My name is Essie Floyd. I’ve been working at Mendel, Goldstein & Hofstadter for several years now, but I’ve never had the pleasure of directly working for you until now. Mr. Goldstein has been shifting around some of the internal roles at the firm, and he’s got me doing a few bits and pieces for the Callahan Corporation. I found some forms this morning that are dated from February three years ago. They’re annotated for your signature, but it seems that they haven’t been signed yet. I was wondering if I could bring them by your office?

Regards, 

Essie Floyd