Page 17 of The Difference Between

Trish stays calm. “I see a lot of myself in you, Reese. You’re driven, you’re smart. Decisive. You know how to smell bullshit from a mile away. But the difference between us is, I know one day this job will end, and I need to be living for something else. You’re giving everything in your life to the firm, and I’m here to tell you we don’t want it all. You need to find something else.”

With that, I’m pissed enough to stop pacing and slap my hands on her desk. “I’ve worked my ass off here,” I shout. “Isn’t that exactly what I’m supposed to be doing as partner? Making us all shitloads of money? My personal life shouldn’t matter, but since it does, what else do you think I can do to improve on the damn good job I’m already doing?”

She stands across from me. “People to go home to, for one.”

“So you’re not giving me the account because I live alone?” I laugh maniacally. “I must have missed that part of the job requirement. Tell me, do the complaints on my living situation come before or after you deposit the money I make you and your brothers into your bank accounts?”

“We are grateful for every dollar.” Her voice stays level. “This is us repaying you. Thanking you.”

“Thanking me?” I’m incredulous.

“You might not be able to see it, but you don’t have anything other than a fat paycheck. Woman to woman, you don’t know how to turn it off and⁠—”

“I—”

“—it’s evident you weren’t fully with us today and you need a break.”

“A break?” I gasp. “What would I do with a break?”

At this, she laughs. “The fact you’re asking that proves my point, Reese.”

I’m pacing again. Fuming. Glaring at the Chicago skyline. The windows that were my crown jewels earlier now make me feel like a blue whale in a fishbowl. “I don’t want a break.”

“You need one,” she insists. “You need to get your head on straight, and you need time away from here to do that. I’m strongly recommending a three-month sabbatical—my brothers agreed.”

I whip my head toward her. The fact The Family has discussed this makes me want to vomit. But—a sabbatical?

She continues. “They’ve noted your long hours for months, and I’ve defended you. I assumed you had it all under control. But today when they asked if I thought you were up to tackling an account of this magnitude, given how tired and distracted you were, I had to agree with them. Your job will be here when you get back, and you can pick up where Matt leaves off with Fizz Co. You need this.”

Again I say, “What?” but what I really mean is what the flying fish of a fuckity fuck?

“I haven’t missed a day of work in years,” I fight back. “What am I going to do with a three-month sabbatical?”

“Go home. Be with your mom. Figure out what you want out of your life. You said yourself you’ve been waiting to start a family until things settle down.” She shrugs. “Be settled.”

I am gobsmacked. “Just to be clear—you’re telling me that even though I do a good job—some would argue the best—but because I’m not settled, Matt gets my account while I disappear for three months like some knocked-up Catholic teenager?”

“Because you don’t have anything but work, we are encouraging you to take time away to breathe.” Trish circles her desk to stand next to me, pausing long enough for her words to land.

They do.

Like a bitch slap.

“You are going to burn out and go up in flames working the way you are. I’ve seen it before with some of the most promising partners in the company. I don’t want that for you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You need people.”

“I’m. Fine.”

Her voice loudens as she punctuates her next words: “And you still need people, Reese.”

This can’t happen. I refuse. She might be right that all I have is work, but the truth is, all I have is work. If she takes this from me, I’ll have nothing. I’ll twiddle my thumbs in my condo. Alone. She might think this is what I need, but it will make things worse. I’ll drive myself mad thinking about Matt and Fizz Co and my empty office. I will not let her push me out into some three-month hiatus from work to think about things I’ve been perfectly fine not thinking about.

But I also know Trish. If it’s gotten to the point where she’s telling me this, the decision is made. I can threaten to jump from this building, and she won’t change her mind. Her decisiveness has always been something I admired until right now when she’s pitting it against me.

Out of nowhere, I’m in the elevator ride from this morning—from all my mornings—and two truths collide: I’m furious, but Trish isn’t totally wrong. I don’t have the personal life or people that I thought I’d have by now, but I also won’t let her make those decisions for me. If she wants me to settle, I’ll settle alright. On my own fucking terms.