THE CEO AND ME!

"That would be $12.80!"

The cashier slid the receipt to her, packing her weekly minimal grocery. Tinsley paid the money and got out of the general store.

She walked up to the bus stand and waited for the bus to appear in about five minutes timing along with other people.

At first, it was weird how she had to wait with everyone. Madi and Lana had offered to buy her a second-hand car but she declined.

She could not take advantage of their help just like that because they were offering nonstop.

She wanted to start living up for herself, be independent and earn her own living.

It was hard to start earning, looking for a job in a brand-new city where nobody knew you enough to let you in for a job.

After a week-long of not having any job, she had finally landed one in a baking shop.

They only let her in the packaging department because their baking area was full.

She was a beggar with not many choices she could make so she took what she got. With the money landed by Madi, she had managed to pass the monthly expenditure in San Francisco.

And as one month turned to two and three, she had eased her way into the baking area and started designing the icing of every cake and cupcake, doing overtime at weekends.

It made her have enough money to start buying her first canvas and paints, paintbrushes to start painting once again.

The old last next door liked her art and bought one of her paintings for dollar fifteen.

She took whatever she got. Her days were packed. She landed another job in a dinner, late-night shift.

The salary in the dinner allowed her to start paying a small rent by the end of the month to Lana, even when she declined it several times, but Tinsley insisted.

She wanted to feel like living by herself in the true sense. She did not want to be a charity case anymore.

Whatever free timing she got, she used it up for painting and lately, had been heading to the city centre by bus and try to sell some of it, displaying in the city corner, like most of the local artist.

With three straight days of disappointment, nobody even sparing one eye at her paintings, she felt so dejected and a sense of failure crept in her heart.

Painting...she had learnt it from her mother, who had borrowed it from her mother, grandmother, Cecily...she had no idea if the old woman was still alive.

But after the fourth day, when one passerby bought her small painting, a girl painted in all lavish pink, staring up at the sky.

It was her...she was in that painting. She was always dressed in lavish pink, she had everything from diamond to Gucci...yet there was always an urge to touch the sky...the freedom, the kind she never had.

Now two or three paintings being sold became regular. It was not much because she sold them all cheap, afraid that none would be sold if she raised her price up.

The money she got, she used it up for buying the painting materials for another time.

Life was going on like the smooth surface of the river, water flowing in the direction of the flow...no cry of objection. It was natural.

Her day would start exactly at nine in the baking shop and it would not end until five in the evening.

The lunch break of one hour which she would get, she spent it working away or sometimes, coming out to eat the apple she had bought from home.

She was saving up money for what cause she had no idea of yet. She was just saving up, wasting very little.

Eating the apple in her hand, she would walk around the footpath, seeing so many people ranging from women and men on business too, a lovely couple strolling around being silly...

It was these sights that would pierce her heart so deep, reminding her of her failed marriage and a shot at lifelong love.

She would not lie if she did not think about him. She did...hell, all the time. The first two months were the hardest...living alone was a dead cause.

Sleeping all by herself on the bed, with his naked body not playing beside her to give her warmth...she had stopped sleeping on the bed and would roam around the studio like a ghost in the night...painting her feelings on the white canvas and ending up dozing off on the floor.

The more difficult it got when she would come to watch him on tv, in the news, or on the front page of the business magazine or his face on the billboard in the city centre.

He had gone up not down at all, one bit. Recently he had stepped into the line of being another billionaire for the states.

His brand was going global even to the countries of the third world. He had only grown to be more successful than he had ever before.

And sometimes, in the middle of the nights, when she would wonder if he was miserable just like her...or thought about her one bit like she did, even for a second...his success story made her think otherwise.

If he wanted, he would have found her...would not he??

If he wanted her back, he would have come back for her...would not he??

If he loved her, he would have never let her go...would not he??

But did he even ever love her...or at least feel anything for her??

She wondered and thought of where did she ever saw or smelt love in him for her?

And there would be so many scenes that would come to her head where she indeed felt love and showered in it from him.

But were they real or just in her head??

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