June 2023

Anniversary 2

“Where is he?” Your eyes searched the wall behind Carmen, landing on the door that hid a dark, empty office. 

“He left an hour ago, Mrs. Stone,” she replied flatly, an implication that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with whatever situation was unfolding in the lobby. You rarely made appearances in Peter’s professional life. You’d never been to the SVU squad room, never made trips to the court house, and never really got to know Carmen, either, so it was fair that she was happy to stay neutral. 

You sighed and shoved your hands in your pockets. “Thanks,” you muttered as you turned and headed for the elevator. As the doors closed behind you and secluded you for a few seconds of silence, you found yourself growing more and more angry as each floor passed in descent. A first anniversary was a chance to set the standard and yet you were now playing a game of hide and seek with your husband. 

The doors opened and you stepped out, ignoring the odd glances of the men and women who were on the ground floor. They knew who you were, but hopefully your poker face was strong enough for them not to see the sinking feeling in your stomach. 

Maybe he was down at SVU? It was worth a shot. You had zero plan for what you’d do if you didn’t locate him there, but you knew you needed to check. Something just didn’t feel right about tonight, which was unfortunate considering you’d had such a great day prior to Peter dismissing you like a school bell. Things at the studio were going well and you’d picked up several more students in the past two weeks - which was good, because teaching dance was a passion of yours and if you had the opportunity to share it with someone else, it was a no-brainer. 

“Can I help you?” a uniformed officer stopped, standing from his spot at the podium. You had been so scattered that you’d barely realized where you were. 

“Hi, I hope so. I’m looking for ADA Peter Stone. I thought he might be here,” you lied. 

The officer looked puzzled but shrugged and walked away, asking several detectives if they’d seen the ADA. None of them had, apparently, and you were left dumbfounded. Where could he be, if he wasn’t at his office or SVU? 

With a grumble, you turned on your heel to leave, pulling your phone from your pocket to see if he had at least texted you back. 

Nothing. 

You decided to call him as you stepped out onto the street again, having passed the point of anger and nearing pure rage. 

“Hi. It’s me. Just wondering where you are. I’ve been trying to find you. I hope you’re okay. Please call me. I love you, Pete.” You ended the call and leaned back against the brick of the building, exhaling a long sigh. 

“Excuse me, ma’am, are you okay?” 

You looked up at a man in a suit who seemed to have just exited the building a few moments after you. He was buttoning his coat and slipping on his hat and gloves as he awaited your response. 

“I’m fine, thank you,” you muttered dismissively. It wasn’t in your character to reject anyone’s conversations, but you weren’t in the best mood and frankly you were feeling a little bitter towards men at the moment. 

“You sure?” he insisted, now shoving his hands in his pockets. “You look like you’re having a shitty night.” 

“You have no idea,” you replied, rolling your eyes at the situation you found yourself in. “But what can you do, y’know?” 

“I tell myself that every single day.” He laughed gently and smiled in your direction. “Wanna talk about it?” 

Your shoulders fell. Yes, yes you did want to talk about it, but it probably wasn’t best to divulge your personal life’s woes to someone you didn’t know, or even someone you did know if you were being honest with yourself. “It’s probably best that I keep it to myself,” you said, but offered him a small smile in return. 

“Alright, but when I see a woman looking as angry as you do right now standing outside of the SVU, I just want to make sure..” he trailed off, arching a brow. 

“Oh, no, nothing like that. I’ve just been trying to find someone and I thought they might be here. Long shot, I guess.” Your phone vibrated in your pocket and you pulled it out to see that it was Peter. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to take this. Thank you, though, for being so kind. Goodnight.” 

You ducked back into the warmth and silence of SVU’s ground level and slid your finger across the screen to answer. 

“Y/N?” Peter asked, noise filling the should-be silence after he spoke. 

“Where are you, Pete?” you asked, chewing your lip nervously. If you didn’t stop you’d soon have a sore. 

He exhaled loudly, and you could visualize the look of frustration on his chiseled face. “Something came up, but I’m going to make it up to you tomorrow if that’s okay? I’m going to be home late tonight. I know you’re angry and you have every right to be. I have to go. I love you.” 

The call ended before you could ask any questions, or even return the affection to your husband. Tears welled in your eyes as you burst from the door and spilled out onto the street again, your body making full contact with the man who was still standing outside, having a conversation of his own on the phone. 

“Gotta go,” he said quickly and hung up, catching you in one of his arms. “See, I didn’t think you were okay. What’s going on?” 

You wiped your face dry and shrugged him off. It wasn’t fair, but you needed some way to take your anger out. “I’m fine. Maybe you should call her back. It’s rude to hang up on someone.” 

“Trust me, she can wait,” he replied and searched your face for some clue as to what was really wrong. You gave him no answers and merely rolled your eyes - of course she could wait; what a lack of respect. 

“She shouldn’t have to wait,” you huffed and realized that you were taking your anger out on someone that you didn’t know. Your face fell and you felt the guilt sinking in. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who you were speaking to, or why you ended the conversation. I’m having a really awful day and I just want to be someone else.” 

The realization that you wanted to be another person startled you at first, but the more you let your mind wander the more it made sense. Yes, your marriage was mostly good, but the bad was so bad that it was almost reprehensible. Peter was gorgeous and intelligent, successful, passionate, and the list could go on. But the very same mouth that kissed you good morning was often times abhorrent enough to bring you to tears. Surely he had been through plenty, and you knew that, but you weren’t the cause of those issues and you’d done more than your part in making sure he was on the right track. 

Alcoholism was one thing, and you’d worked with him relentlessly, always giving him your shoulder when he was at a low point. That you could handle; your family had a history of substance abuse and you were well versed in the ins and outs. It was the neglect that you’d been feeling for the past three months that was really bringing you to the edge of the cliff and whispering in your ear for you to jump. The neglect was explained simply by one, or two things at a time: women. You knew what you were getting into when you married him, and you’d both made promises to one another to always be open minded and helpful. Where did the line need to be drawn? Were you so far beyond the finish line now that you were starting a new lap entirely? 

“...and that’s why I always tell myself, who gives a shit? Be who you wanna be. Live your life. Be happy. It’s too short and you only get one chance.” 

You shook your head and refocused your eyes on the man standing in front of you. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

“Let me buy you a drink.” It wasn’t an offer, but rather a demand. You were so used to the way Peter talked that when you realized you actually had an option in the matter, you were floored. 

“Okay,” you replied with a nod and walked beside him. “I’m Y/N, by the way.” 

“Sonny,” he replied with a smile. 

Sonny, you thought to yourself. Maybe you were wrong for having a drink with a stranger on your anniversary, but was it any worse than your husband exploring what was easily his third extra-marital affair in as many months? You thought not. And soon, you thought nothing, because your comfort came in the form of red wine and the smile of a man you’d regret meeting if you didn’t go home. 

I need to write because I’m feeling emotional about a bunch of instagram comments that just resulted in a giant twitter rant but I think I got most of it out. Today was alright. I had my alarm set for 11:30 for my job interview at 1:30. So I started getting ready, doing my make up and all that, getting my suit on and was ready to go by 12:30. This one wasn’t far from me, one of the only offices not located downtown but rather a good bit north. This wouldn’t necessarily be an improvement though, because I’d still probably have to be at court every day in the loop, so it would just mean breaking up the travel more during the day but would still take a good bit of time. I got there just around 1, which would normally be the point I found a coffee shop or such to chill in for a bit, except now that I wasn’t downtown there wasn’t one within sight, so instead I ended up going into the sports bar across the street (which was mostly empty given it was the middle of the day on a Thursday) and told them I had a job interview across the street in half an hour and asked if it was cool if I got a soda and chilled there for a bit and they said sure, so I got a coke and chilled out there for a bit, then went to their bathroom to make sure everything was in working order. Went over a few minutes before 1:30, waited a few minutes, then got called back to the office. The first few minutes were awkward because he couldn’t find the resume I sent him which he had printed out for our phone conversation the other day and he was like “you don’t have one with you?” and I had to be like yeah no....generally if they have it in advance that’s not something I need to do. so that was kinda awkward but then he found it and it was all good. It was a pretty good interview I’d say, I could definitely tell that they liked me a lot, they were very impressed with my class rank (top 15% baby) especially the other lawyer who came in to help who was an alum of my school, so that was good. The subject matter is basically the same as my old job would be, personal injury stuff, which obviously is not my favorite, but it is what it is. Whenever I go into an interview with this stuff I end up talking about working with my dad and they’re all like “well why aren’t you just working with him?” and of course the answer is because that’s not the type of law I actually want to do but I can’t say that, so I just throw in a line about how my brother’s eventually going to take over the business and I do not want to work with him in a professional environment (they were pressing me a bit about this like “well why not?” is he just an asshole?” and I was just like “yeah he’s an asshole 😂😂😂 and that was about it). I know I do a good sell in interviews about my previous experience applying even if it’s not the same subject matter because I have experience doing all the major components of a law practice (court, motions, all that good stuff) and my main goal is to help people, and that translates of course because personal injury is still helping people, just not quite the way I’d want to, but I can make a fairly good argument for that. When they asked about where I’d like to be down the road I went with the whole well I want to be with a nonprofit and for that I need to know the civil law system, so I’m gonna get experience with that here, which was the game plan with the last job, so it makes sense. But yeah it went pretty well, they definitely liked me and told me as much, though I’m still rather conflicted over all of it. I used the bathroom before I left only to find I had a giant lipstick smear across my teeth and I was like !!! men!!! they don’t tell you these things!! lol but oh well. I was originally gonna take the bus back but then the app said the next one wasn’t coming for 17 minutes, so I went to get an uber pool but that was taking forever to load, and while that was still trying to figure that out a bus pulled up (the tracker app is wrong sometimes) so I just cancelled the uber (before it was set so I didn’t lose any money) and got on the bus, then took that down to the red line which I took north and got off at the Target because I needed to pick up prescriptions and a few random items (like lemonade, pretzels, flour, sugar, and seaweed) which I got and then did an uber pool home which was a bit of a mess because we were supposed to pick up another passenger after me and the guy didn’t know what he was doing and I was trying to help but the car was moving in the wrong direction on the app and it was a whole big mess and the other rider ended up cancelling so it was like welp just wasted 5 minutes trying to figure that out. Oh well. Dropped me off close to home and walked the rest of the way, I was starting to get cramps at this point (period started today, happy valentines day to me) so I kinda just wanted to curl into a ball and die at this point. but I put the groceries away and changed back into my pajamas and flopped in front of the tv to watch some of the Americans, which I ended up watching through the season 3 finale. I’m going through it a lot faster that I thought I would, probably because the seasons are only 13 episodes. I’ve been craving bubble tea like all week, so I finally got some of that, and then a bit later decided I was gonna get my rice ball so I ordered one and a small pizza (the delivery minimum was $15 and the rice ball was only $3 so I needed more) so I got to enjoy that (the rice ball wasn't quite as good as I was hoping, but definitely still enjoyable). I switched over to tv shortly before Brooklyn 99 started and then watched that, which was such a quality episode I loved it. when that was done I went to netflix to watch some more of Reign, but of course netflix still wasn’t cooperating and keep freezing every 3 seconds which was super annoying. At some point I called my dad to talk about the interview and everything. The thing is I’m so close with OPG on the horizon and so close to being within grasp I really don’t want to get stuck at a job I really don’t want- and tbh I really don’t want this job because it’s not at all what I’m interested in, and they also made it clear they were looking for someone who was going to stay late several days a week and work on the weekends and like.....I can’t do that, I have a life, I don’t want to be working 70 hours a week, I don't think my body could even sustain that. But I mean, if I get offered the job it would seem foolish to turn it down.....but I mean at this point if it happens I might have to do that because I don’t want to get stuck. At this point I’m definitely not going to apply for any more jobs, I talked to the temp people the other day and they said they hadn’t had an applicable projects yet but probably would soon, so the ideal situation would definitely be to work with them being very flexible until the OPG situation works itself out, so I’m just hoping that’s what I’m able to do from here on. It just stresses me out because I’m already stressed about money and I’m hesitant to book any more con plans without having some income (and there’s at least two that we want to book right now) so I’m hoping the temp stuff will get me some soon. so I vented all of that on my dad and he pretty much agreed with me that I should wait for the job I really want, so that’s encouraging at least. It was a good convo, talked to my mom a bit too before going back to netflix. so yeah, lots of feeling going on today. I watched Reign for a while longer until my roommate got out of the shower and I started getting ready for bed, then while going through the few instagram accounts I check daily I stumbled upon a conversation about a person asking if God still loved them even though they were gay, and that gave me a lot of emotion so I left a long comment there and then went on a whole twitter rant about it, which is probably influenced by me feeling extra emotional because I’m on my period, but oh well, it was good stuff and I don’t regret it. and yeah, after that I started writing this and now I am here. Tomorrow I’m free during the day and then going to the Kpop concert at night, then super early Saturday morning we’re flying out to New York for the weekend, seeing The Cursed Child parts 1 and 2 on Saturday then spending Sunday and Monday with my family, so that should be good (I’m just probably going to get very little sleep Friday night since our flight leaves at 5:50 am). But yeah, should be good, and that’s it for now, it’s almost 1:30 am so it’s definitely time for bed. Goodnight loves. Happy Friday.