Rise of the lowly janitor

Distraught

*Jake POV*

It’s been two full months without George’s usual ‘let’s piss off Jake’ stunts. My colleagues think that his grandfather taking liking into me might be the cause, but I can’t help thinking that he is just laying low and ready to pounce when my gut is down.

It is during lunchtime and I am a few steps away from my room when two of my colleagues try to block my way.

I am immediately suspicious, this is very unusual. Their facial expressions tell me this is not a joke either.

“What’s going on?”

They exchange looks before I hear a familiar moan and my heart sinks. I am screaming in my head. This can’t be happening!

“You like that?” George’s proud disgusting voice asks. My heart stops when my fiancée responds.

“Yes! George, Oh! Yes!”

What the f**k? George, I expect anything from him but not Leticia. She is my woman, the one I have been saving all my wages to spend the rest of my life with.

“And that water-boy you call a fiancée?”

I can hear the menacing in his voice as he asks but it’s her response that pierces through my heart.

“Jake has nothing on you, Yes! Harder! Please, I am all yours George. Yes!”

My heart is crushed into a thousand pieces way before I force my way past my colleagues and push my room door wide open.

Nothing, not even my life in the streets prepared me for this. Right on top of my bed, completely naked, my fiancée in a doggy style having s*x with my enemy. They both look at me and continue as if I am not even there. George has a huge grin on his face as he continues pounding on my fiancée. He even slaps her butt cheeks as she moans and screams his name over and over again.

I am suddenly sweating and feel sick as my stomach revolt, threatening to expel everything I took in since morning. I place my hand over my mouth and run out to find the nearest bathroom. The group of my colleagues look sympathetically at me as I pass through them.

A thousand questions run through my mind as I kneel in front of the toilet, throwing up everything until it’s just clear fluid coming out.

George would do anything to get to me, but Leticia I don’t understand. I keep pinching myself just checking if I am not having a nightmare, but it’s all real.

I don’t understand where I went wrong.

How could Leticia do this to me? We were happy and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together. She even wanted to start a family right away. Just yesterday we chatted until midnight. When did all that change for her and why did she have to hurt me this way?

I rinse my mouth and throw cold water on my face before heading out and my nightmare continues.

“Jake, man, I know that this is f****d up, but let it be.” I don’t even know which one of my colleagues says this because my head is now spinning. It’s not a dream.

Leticia is screaming her lungs out at how good and manly George is. She continues to demusculinise me and George cheers her.

I stand against the wall and listen in with the crowd of my colleagues.

An hour later, it’s just me and a few colleagues left. They are silently just standing with me while I can hear my own heart pounding.

George finally walks out with the same huge grin he had earlier on. He comes and stands right in front of me with his chest up.

He knows that I can’t touch him without losing everything.

“You had a good p***y there, water-boy. It’s a pity you could not satisfy her, but she knows how a real man feels like now. It’s not everyday I use a janitor’s room, you should take that as a compliment. You might want to change your sheets though. Let me know if you need cash for new ones,” he smirks and walks away.

I take deep breaths, fighting every urge to run after him tear him apart.

“You need the job and a place to stay, Jake,” that’s enough to stop me. Life in the cold cruel streets of Lily town was no child’s play.

A few minutes later, Leticia also walks out. I can’t help noticing the designer clothes she is wearing and the expensive purse on her hand. The purse alone is definitely more than her five month’s salary, but I don’t remember her being materialistic.

“Why, Leticia?”

I ask her the question that is ringing in my head.

A part of me hopes that there is an explanation for this. A blackmail or something beyond her control, but her response shutters my every hope and shutters my heart into million pieces.

She shrugs her shoulders as if nothing happened. “It’s simple. You are just a janitor. George can give me the life I want, you can’t.”

I guess I have completely misjudged her. Did I see what I wanted to see all along? Did my respect for her father cloud my judgment so much?

Whatever the case is, I have never felt less than a man in my life before, until now.

I have saved enough for a modest life I thought we both wanted but I definitely can’t give her, not even a quarter of what George can give her.

I only nod my head and walk into my room, which has been left upside down. I can hear my colleagues showering Letitia with all sorts of insults. We are like family I and them and they have taken her betrayal personal.

To my surprise, she boldly hits back at them. I have never heard such a foul language from her before. Her blasé responses make me wonder if I knew at all, because the woman who does not seem to care about anyone’s feelings is a complete stranger to me.

I am even glad that her kind and gentle father is not around to witness any of this because I am certain that it would crush him too.

Looking at my bed feels like I have been punched really hard on my tummy. I get that they wanted to embarrass, crush my spirit and stop my pride, but they could have achieved that without using my room and my bed. I can’t even respond when one of my colleagues tells me to take the rest of the day off and offers to cover for me.

It takes a moment before I catch my breath and strip my bed linen. I drag myself to the nearest bin, the scent of their betrayal rushing into my nostrils and inciting a crushing pain on my heart.

Returning to my room, I pack all of Leticia’s belongings into a bag and drop them next to her at the reception without saying a word.

I am walking away when I hear a metal hitting the tiles and my mother’s ring rolls past me. Someone bursts out in laughter behind me. George must have been around the reception area when I was dropped Leticia’s bag. He moves past me and kicks the ring away.

I take a deep breath, a familiar feeling brewing inside me. The biggest test is always getting myself to walk away from this man who had made it his mission to crush my soul. The worst part as Ty puts it is I can take him any day and wipe this floor with his privileged stupid head, but then I would lose the least that I already have.

I walk towards the coffee shop instead, following the trail of my mother’s ring. My biggest worry is it rolling to the drains. It is the only thing I have left that belonged to my parents. Leticia knows how much this ring means to me, yet she throws it away like this.

Mr Spencer senior as having his afternoon coffee in his usual table. I was hoping he would not notice me, tough luck.

“Hello, Mr Anderson,” Spencer senior greets with a big smile which I can’t return because his grandson has just shuttered my whole world.

“Good afternoon, Mr Spencer.”

My hoarse voice sounds strange even to my own ears as I greet the old man who has taken so much liking into me.

“I heard you got engaged. Congratulations!”

I flash him a weak smile. I have no doubt that he is being sincere.

“We broke up, Sir.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Did you cheat on her with the Miss Asherway model? What’s her name again? Yes, Tanya”

I am completely shocked that he would even think this. I have never even thought of Tanya that way and I am certain that neither has she thought of me like that.

“No, Sir. She said I was too poor.”

I paraphrase the words that broke my heart.

“Too bad, her loss.”

“Thank you, Sir,” I say absentmindedly as I look around for the ring.

He opens his palm, exposing the ring and I sigh with relief.

“Looking for this?”

I nod frantically. “Yes, Sir.”

“Very unique, yours?”

His eyes are sparkling as if very interested in the simple emerald ring. Maybe he is really bored and needs someone to talk to and pass time. I usually don’t mind entertaining him because unlike the other filth rich people we serve here, he is very kind and considerate, but I am dying inside today.

“It was my mother’s, Sir.”

He looks at me as if studying me.

“Classy lady, I’d like to meet her some day.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Sir. She died thirteen years ago.”

I can feel a heavy weight on my chest as I say the words.

“I am sorry. You must have been just a boy.” His sincere response pulls at me. His earlier jovial expression is suddenly dark and depressed like mine.

“Eight years old, Sir.”

“That’s sad, I hope your father treated you well.”

I clench my teeth not knowing if I should depress the old man more.

“He did treat you well, right?” his hopeful question says a lot about the person he is.

I take the ring from him, my whole life’s miseries already coming crashing at me.

“He died the same day as well. Good afternoon, Sir.”

“I am so sorry, Son.”

I can hear the tremor in Mr Spencer’s voice as he shouts his apology behind me but. I don’t look back as I walk away from him because I can’t afford to get pulled into that emotional turmoil. I never talk about my parents because their loss left a massive wound that nothing in this world can fill.

Back in my room I shut the door and lock. I want to scream and punch something but all I do is sit on the bare bed and let the nightmares play over and over in my head.

I can’t help but wonder if staying here and taking George and now Leticia’s s**t is worth it. My head is already heavy and a splitting headache hits me as I force myself back to exactly a year ago….