Ask Alexa

I woke up nearly an hour before my alarm and tried, but failed, to find sleep for another half hour. Knowing I had no chance at any more sleep, I hopped out of bed and padded out to my kitchen. I popped a bagel in the toaster and scrolled through Instagram as I waited for my Keurig to fill my mug. I stopped amid the normal feed of #ootd and party pictures to see what looked like an engagement ring.


I grabbed my bagel and coffee and sat down at my island and looked closer at what made this picture stop me. It was posted by Justin, of course, with the caption, 

"A beautiful ring to show the beautiful promise to honor a beautiful woman. #mylove #promise".

What shocked me even more was that it appeared to be the same promise ring he had given me. When we were in high school. I rolled my eyes and grabbed a screenshot  as I finished the last bite of my bagel.

Am I the only one that thinks promise rings are for high school kids that think they're in love?

I typed under the picture and hit send. I had hardly set my phone down when it vibrated with an answer from Lyndsey.

That's the same one he gave you! That's so tacky! Plus they're way too old to be doing promise rings. Like wtf?

I laughed and told her that was why I loved her.

I set my phone down and headed to my bathroom to get ready for the day. Justin and I hadn't even broken up a year ago and he was already giving Ashley a promise ring, my old ring nonetheless. I couldn't believe the way things were going. Not wanting to have a negative start to the first day of my new job, I pushed the thoughts from my mind and focused on preparing myself. An hour later, I was on the way to the clinic. I found a parking spot  and walked through the employee entrance 15 minutes early.


As I approached the front desk I was instructed to when I accepted my job offer, a man I guessed to be near 30 looked up and smiled at me. That smile made something stir deep inside of me and I struggled to keep my cool as I approached him. He had dark brown hair with the deepest green eyes I had ever seen, and just enough facial hair to make any woman swoon. When he stood to greet me, he towered over me by much more than a foot and his toned upper body filled his Polo quite nicely.


"Hi, I'm Gregg, I'm one of the full-time trainers and the clinical coordinator. I'll be helping you through this week and you'll report to me for the most part after that."


I shook his outstretched hand with a firm handshake and smiled as he continued, "The clinic isn’t going to give you your own office for a while. Even though you’re employed here, they want to wait until you at least finish your clinicals. For the time being, you’ll have to share an office with me,” he flashed another perfect grin.


“If you’ll follow me I can show you your new office and walk you through the process this week.”


I followed him past the front desk and down a hallway, where Gregg stepped aside and gestured for me to enter a spacious room.


“It’s not much,” he winked, “but this is the office space you and I will share. I moved a desk in here for you and had IT set up a computer for you, but if you want more furniture or want to move stuff around just let me know,” he grinned at me.


“You’ll find yourself spending nearly the entire day in here sometimes and other times you’ll hardly see your desk. It’s always something different here, and that’s what makes this job so exciting.”


I sat down at the desk that was to be mine and surveyed the room. Gregg had put my desk in front of a large window, across the room from his. There were a couple of filing cabinets on the wall farthest from the door between our desks and a large whiteboard above each of our desks. While mine was bare except for a computer, Gregg’s desk was filled with calendars and notes, as well as pictures of friends and family, and one with a strikingly gorgeous raven-haired woman in his arms in front of a lake. I had a few more moments to take in my surroundings before Gregg was explaining company policies to me and walking me through my first week.


By the end of the week, I was so exhausted I could hardly think straight. My head was swimming with policies, procedures, names, faces, everything. While Gregg and everyone had been undoubtedly helpful through my orientation process, I would be referencing all of my materials and taking a long time to remember the locations of all the schools we served.


I would be primarily working as Gregg’s assistant at least through the completion of my clinical hours but I would be branching out and doing a few things on my own. After that, who knew what was next for me.


I laid on my couch and scrolled through delivery options on Yelp, searching for something that I didn’t have to leave the house for. I settled on a Mexican place and called in my order. While I waited, I made myself a short grocery list and promised myself to go shopping the next day so I could stop eating out of to-go containers and have some real food. I had spent most of the day meeting with a contractor which was going to finish up most of the work on my house.


The day had raced by with picking out fixtures, flooring colors, and all the other odds and ends. Maybe finishing up this house would make it feel more like my new home and make this feel more like my new life. I spent the rest of the night as a couch potato, only getting up to grab my delivery from the door and to go to bed.


The next day, I woke up feeling energized and went for a quick run before showering and heading to the store. I had a short list, but by the time I had made it almost around the store my cart was full. I was browsing the produce section when I noticed a familiar-looking blonde watching me. I brushed it off, who isn’t guilty of people watching in the grocery store? I kept browsing the avocados and noticed she was still watching me.


I looked up and gave an awkward half smile as she approached me, “I’m so sorry for looking like I’m stalking you. You looked really familiar and I couldn’t place it at first, did you just start at the clinic under Gregg?”

So that’s why she looked so familiar. I must have been introduced to her in my first week. “I must have met you at some point but I don’t really remember your name,” I answered sheepishly.


“Oh don’t worry. That first week is so overwhelming. When I was the new guy, I called my boss the wrong name for two weeks until he finally corrected me,” we both laughed, “I’m Alexa, the patient coordinator at the clinic. You new here?”


I smiled at her, appreciative of her friendliness, “I moved here a couple weeks ago from the Milwaukee area for grad school, which I start in a few months. So, yeah,” I finished, feeling my anxiety kick in and finding myself unable to make conversation. Why did I have to struggle so hard with meeting new people?


“I know what it’s like. I moved here from Washington a year ago and felt like it was so hard to make friends and meet new people that I had something in common with. Here, why don’t you give me your number, and maybe later today we could grab something to eat and a few drinks?”


I took the phone Alexa offered and entered my number as I smiled at her graciously, “This actually means a lot,” I handed her phone back to her.


“I will text you in a few hours and we can make some plans, yeah? I’ll let you get going!” She happily waved to me and I walked toward the checkout, excited at the possibility of making a friend here, even if she was from work.


A few hours later, I heard my phone vibrate on my counter,

Hey it's Alexa! If you're not up to anything, text me your address and I'll swing by to pick you up!

I sent Alexa my address and went to change before she picked me up. 15 minutes later, I heard a knock at the door and let her in.


“Wow, this is pretty nice,” Alexa said as she looked around.


“It’s ok, there’s a few improvements but the landlord is letting me make whatever changes I want, I just have to send him the bill.”


“That’s really cool!” Alexa said enthusiastically as I led her around my place.


I smiled, genuinely liking how easy it was to get along with her, 

“I’m not going to extravagant with anything  I just hoping being able to put my touch on it will make it feel more like my new home,” I paused, missing my home, “in a way, I love home improvements. They remind me of growing up with my dad. He builds houses for a living,” I clarified in response to Alexis curious glance. Just talking about my dad made me yearn for him and home even more.


Alexa must have picked up on my shift in moods, because she joined me on my side of the island and gave me a genuine smile, “Hey girl, I know how tough it is to move  a good distance away from everybody and to be on your own.  It takes a while, but it gets better. Lucky for you, I’m here to help,” She nudged me and I gave her a small smile.

“It will get easier, I promise. Now, how about we eat our weight in half-price apps!”

I agreed, again grateful for Alexa and how much we had in common.

We chatted on the short drive to Applebee’s and Alexa pulled into a parking space near the door. As we were seated, we both ordered margaritas right away and perused the menu. After the winter came back with our drinks and put in our order, Alexa began filling me in on the important details of the clinic that I didn’t get from my orientation.


“And always bring a change of clothes on payday Fridays. There’s a group of us that gets together for drinks after work and some of them demand we go right away. Also, Gregg can seem pretty flirtatious at times, but he doesn’t mean anything by it. He has a girlfriend he’s been with for 5 years, he just has a really friendly personality.”

I made a note to not let myself fall for any of Gregg’s flirting and asked Alexa a little more about herself.

On the way back to my house, the conversation somehow made its way back to me. I gave Alexa the details on my relationship with Justin and everything I’d put together recently.

“And now I’m pretty sure my dad is now dating this girl’s mom. So there’s that,” I shrugged as we pulled up to my house.

“Girl, didn’t you say you’re from the Milwaukee area? How small of a world can it be?” Alexa questioned.

“Pretty fucking small, apparently,” I laughed.

“That’s pretty shitty, seriously. But you’re doing something new with your life. My advice would be to get under someone else to get over him,” we both giggled at this, “but truthfully, stay focused on what you’re building for yourself here and don’t let him come back into your life.”

I thanked Alexa for the ride, grateful for the friendship we were forming and she pulled off as I opened my front door.