Day 32

PENALTY!: The truth is that last night was not in my control. Now that I’m working and the holidays are coming up, there are going to be some new additions to the rules. Starting with the Friday addendum: I stay at work as late as possible on Fridays and get home just before sundown, so I really won’t be able to post in that time. So, for working Fridays, I’ll post 500 words on Saturday. Since, I’m just making this now though, I did 1000 words for tonight. PROMPT:The story starts when your protagonist cheats on a partner.
Another character is a producer who believes your protagonist is a long-lost family member.
From http://www.archetypewriting.com/muse/idea_generators.htm

“Shit… Shit.” She couldn’t remember a time when she put her clothes on faster than this. “Uh, yeah it was great for me too…” She turned toward Gregory. “I’m not really in the mood for your coy bullshit right now.” He rolled his eyes and began to sit up. “Alright, would you just… come on, relax for a second, okay?” She shook her head and then brought her hands to her face, not sure what to do with herself. “I can’t relax! I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin. I have to get out of here.”

He stood up on his knees and came toward her, placing a hand on her face. “Listen, I’m not going to say it’s okay; I know you better than that I think.” She let out a sob. “But I will say this. I care about you Kristen. This wasn’t just sex for me. I don’t want to see you get hurt, but I can’t remember a time when I was happier than I was with you just now.” She forced a smile and leaned into his hand, letting him kiss her one more time before she ran out and tried to think about what she was going to say to Matthew when she got home tonight. How she was going to act normal, as if she hadn’t cheated. “Thank you. I care about you too. I just… need to sort some things out.” He laid back on the bed. “Okay. I’ll be around.”

She walked in to work fifteen minutes late. She didn’t know where the time had gone. She had the same sick to her stomach feeling that she’d had since last night. She couldn’t recount what she’d talked about with Matthew last night. She didn’t know how she’d looked him in the eye. How she’d shared a bed with him. How she brushed her teeth next to him this morning. It was almost like betraying him over and over with every passing interaction. She was happy to throw herself into work and try and forget for a few hours.

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“Morning Kristen,” she heard as she walked into the office. She turned to see her new producer, Michael, standing with his hands in his pocket looking nervously at her. “Hi Michael. I’m sorry I’m late traffic was a nightmare today.” “Oh that isn’t… I just still wanted to talk to you about that thing from the other day?” She didn’t even remember what he was talking about but she smile and hit a hand on her forehead. “Right, I’m so sorry about that. Can it wait until a little later?” He looked taken aback. “Yeah, um, sure, no problem.” “Great thanks Michael.” “Yep.” And he left her to get all of her stuff in order for the day.

She had two meetings in the morning and then two hours to get everything she needed for the show tonight. She had to be in the control room at 3:30 and she would definitely be cutting it close, but she would get it done if she could manage to stay focused. She tried to completely zone out. Compartmentalization had never been her strong suit, but somehow she did it and the hours flew by without incident or any particular onslaught of guilt. She was back in her office by 5 and working on tomorrow’s show.

Michael found her shortly afterward and asked to speak to her again. She didn’t see how she could keep brushing him off so she invited him to take a seat by her desk. “What can I do for you? Is this about last Wednesday’s show, because I spoke to the guy’s agent and I swear we will not be using any of his talent again any time soon.” He looked confused for a moment. “No it’s not that at all. No, it’s… something personal actually.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly at him. Kristen had only known him for a few weeks, a month and a half at most. To say they’d had no personal interaction outside work seemed like an understatement.

“I’m not quite sure where to start,” he said, completely frazzled. She had no clue how to help with that. “I guess I should say that I’ve known from a young age that I’m adopted. I didn’t spend much time thinking about it to be honest. My parents were my parents, and I never felt differently until they died.” She nodded cautiously. “I started looking for my birth parents about ten years ago. Partly because of curiosity. Partly because I got tired of leaving my family history questions blank on the doctors’ forms.

“It took me a while to find anything at all. I barely used google at the time and I had no idea how to approach this at first, but to make a long story short- believe it or not, I ended up finding out that my mother was an unwed young woman who had given me away when she was nineteen. Classic story really, and I understood. But when I started trying to find out more about her I found that she had gotten married about ten years later, and had three kids. One of the kids even worked in television, like me.” He paused, maybe because he wanted her to figure it out from there, maybe because he wasn’t quite sure how to break the rest. Kristen was still at a loss as to what this had to do with her.

“Kristen, that women was June Leary. Her married name is Pellin.” She suddenly got where he was going. “My mom?” He smiled tentatively. “Yes.” “My mom gave you up for adoption when she was nineteen?” “Yes.” “So I’m your…” “Sister, yes.” She stared at him for a long time in silence. “Wow.That’s…” “Yes.”
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She had made her excuses and gotten out of there as fast as she could. All she wanted to do was go home and tell Matthew about this, but the night before suddenly came rushing back. She pulled her phone from her pocket and stared at it for a minute before dialing Gregory’s number. “Hey can I come over?”