New Life New Me: Urban Romance by Christine Mandeley

Chapter
One
     
    I t is hard to define what finally pushed Cynthia to the crazy lunatic that she had become on that fateful day. She slapped the door shut and went out to wherever she could play out her madness. As she battered the pavement with her wide feet in buckled shoes she was sure not to ever go back to work again. She was quitting her job and the source of much strain in her life. The sun heat rose from the pavement and crept into her body from the legs. She was starting to sweat and her afro became heavy. She knew exactly where she would go as soon as she hit her apartment.
     
    She got home and started to pack. She had no idea really what she was going to do next. She had just resigned from her job and she did not have any other. Although she had worked for her employer for the last eight years, she found that continuing to work for him was impossible.
    You see Cynthia and her employer were in a relationship, they were engaged even. At least that is what she had thought for the last eight years. The arrival of a new office assistant drove a wedge between herself and her man Mike. In a few weeks the new woman, with her well-manicured hair and nails had become the main woman in the boss’s life. Cynthia knew that this was a war that she could never win.  Although she had withered many storms in her relationship before, there was no way she could win against a woman who was now carrying the baby of her fiancé.
     
    All the good and bad memories that had defined the last decade in her life started flooding in. She had no life outside that of her work. She defined her work to be her life. She called her co-workers her friends. They were her social circle and her clock. Everywhere she went work was involved. When she went out in the evening, it was because she was going to meet co-workers to discuss a project. When she went to a wedding, it was either a co-worker was getting married or a family member for a co-worker. Funerals were no different and so were going to church and many other social events.
    She had been the last to get the news about the identity of the baby daddy of the new office assistant. She felt cheated and betrayed by everyone she knew and loved. All her friends were in on it. Not a single soul had told her about it. They continued to eat, work, play and pray with her but they just omitted to tell her about her man and the office assistant. Her whole community had lied to her and there was no reason for her to stay anymore.
     
    When the morning sun rose, she was exhausted. She had hardly slept. Her eyes were red shot from a night of much sobbing and deliberation. She finally made up her mind. She was going to leave. She was going to pack up her life and leave the place that she had called home for almost a decade. She wanted a fresh start. She wanted to go as far away as that place as she could get. She wanted to leave it all behind, all the fake friends and the unrewarding job. She was going to start over but where?
    She dragged herself out of her bed to get some coffee. Half way through the cup, she decided that she needed to get the paper to see if she could get another job. She did not really care what kind of job she could get. As long as it would be out of town, she was ok with it. Without even as much as washing her face or pulling her hair back, she was out the door and pedalling the street on the way to the corner shop.
     
    She returned home to an ice-cold half cup of coffee. She knew she did not even have to worry about that now. All she wanted was a one-way ticket out of town. A new job in a new town was all she wanted. She started making calls and found an opening at a freight company on a small coastal town. There she was going to take a position of a receiving clerk and that was enough for her to get started in the new town.  She started collecting her meagre possessions and packed them into boxes.
    By the fall of sunset, she had organised the movers and she was finally leaving. It