Free The Brute by Tabitha Levin Page A

my computer might, at least, give me a way to see things more clearly.
    A quick rundown of how I got here.
    First, I had been offered a job at an accounting firm in Charlotte. It was a great job at a prestigious firm, especially for a graduate such as myself, whose scores, while I passed, did not make top of my class.
    You should have seen my father’s face. I don’t think I’d seen him that happy when I told him the good news. My family threw a huge celebratory party for me and even let me drink champagne in their presence (they aren’t really drinkers and even though I’m old enough they still prefer I didn’t drink around them). They were so proud.
    Next, I got myself an apartment. Nothing fancy of course, I was only on a first year salary, you understand. But it was my place. My sanctuary.
    Things were going well and then it happened. I messed up.
    I guess I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, and I ended up putting a decimal point in the wrong place in a client’s records.
    Really, you wouldn’t have thought it was that big of a deal - I could have just fixed it by re-entering the figures (that’s primarily what I was doing, simple data entry, rather than actual accounting which, I’ll be honest with you, I thought was quite unfair given that another graduate who started at the same time I did, was given more responsibility than me). But that’s the culture in some companies. Honestly, sometimes I almost expected that they’d ask me to fetch them coffee or something, but they weren’t that obvious.
    Back to the decimal point. I had made it look like the client had far more money than they actually did, and the client saw this error before my boss did.
    But they didn’t come back and tell us we’d made a mistake though, did they? No. Instead the client started spending his invisible windfall on all manner of frivolous items like hot air balloon rides or expensive champagne. Items that you couldn’t return to the shops and get your money back.
    My firm found out my error four weeks after I’d made it and promptly fired me.
    Not, Angel let’s try and fix this, or, Angel how about we give you more training. Nope. Here’s the door and goodbye.
    So there I was, not knowing what to do. I had enough money to last me about two months. The first thing I did, of course, was start looking for a new job. I was smart, had a degree, I didn’t think I’d have any trouble. Oh, how naive I was.
    It’s sad that a degree from a good university doesn’t guarantee a job anymore.
    Even though I was unemployed, I was determined not to give up.
    One day, after another fruitless endeavor, I was standing outside a little patisserie that sold the most delectable muffins, just staring through the window (drooling is probably more apt), and thinking about how lovely it would be just to taste a crumb of one (but not daring to spend any of my savings when I was being so frugal), when he came up beside me and said hello.

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    “Delicious,” he said, looking in through the patisserie window, next to me.
    I figured he was talking about the muffins. “Divine,” I agreed. “Like they could melt in your mouth with just one bite.”
    “Would you like one?” He still wasn’t looking at me, his gaze forward, admiring the window display. So I took my chance to look at him more closely.
    He was wearing an expensive suit. Although to be fair, I had no concept whether it actually was expensive. Coming from a regular family in a regular town, if you had shown me two different suits and asked me which one cost more, the only way I would have gotten the answer correct was because my chances of guessing were fifty percent in my favor. But even so, it looked like it cost more than my monthly rent.
    There was also something about him. I wasn’t sure exactly how to describe it. Maybe, confidence? But you know when you just look at someone, they have this, electricity. He had it. It oozed from him. Filled the air. Made you agree