Hangover or Hang Over

I blinked. Harder. Trying to unravel the supposing-secrecy behind the effect of my hangover. Maybe it was a typo.

Maybe my brain was short-circuiting from dehydration and bad decisions. Or just punishing me.

But no—those words were still there, smug and sparkling like a diamond ring from a man you didn’t think would ever look your way. One subject hanging like a delusional opportunity.

One from MY fucking phone.

Still in shock, I commenced, reading the subject again before looking below its content, my frantic heart beat almost knocking my sanity.

My concentration could be felt in the room, just the way the world seemed to freeze when I stared at my name.

“Dear Miss Olivia Hayes,

We are pleased to inform you that your application for the Executive Marketing Assistant position at GrayHill Enterprises has been shortlisted for the next phase of our recruitment process.

Your interview has been scheduled for **Thursday, 9:30 AM** at our Manhattan headquarters located at One Vanderbilt Avenue. Details are attached below.

Please come prepared with all required documents. We look forward to meeting you.

Warm regards,

HR – GrayHill Enterprises.”

—-

Shock.

I was fucking astounded, every sentence echoing in the depths of my brain box, one which was contaminated last night. But now, the effect wasn't from the tequila.

My jaw fell open, the kind of open that catches flies and maybe regrets.

No. Freaking. Way.

I had to reread it. And again. My heart thudded against my ribs like it was trying to escape, and honestly? I wasn’t far behind it.

I forgot I even applied to GrayHill. Back when desperation was new and I was still in the stage of throwing applications at corporate walls like spaghetti hoping something stuck.

GrayHill was a dream job. And by dream, I mean completely-out-of-my-league fantasy.

They were the Manhattan elite—home of scandal, fortune, wealth, and power. That company had its name inked across buildings taller than my ambitions.

And now they wanted me?

A broke, hungover girl with an upside-down life, a mother on the edge of death, and stage IV cancer riddled through her own body?

My insecurities instantly kicked in, and out of reflex, I trembled as I blinked at the screen, the shock greater than its impossibility.

GrayHill Enterprise.

The GrayHill, the world’s biggest conglomerate owned by the richest billionaire in New York City— Ethan Grayson— is now willed to his heir and handled by Ezekiel Grayson.

The company with its name carved into the Manhattan skyline. The place you read about in Forbes articles and saw featured in documentaries narrated by British men with velvet voices. A corporate colossus that reeked of power, privilege, and impossibly expensive cologne.

The ones worshipped on TV, spoken about on radio stations, and high above, meticulously struck on billboards.

When I say worshipped, I meant worshipped. They were like gods. Humanity’s greatest living entity is built on billions, soaring through the air in its reputation.

They weren't just powerful. They were power itself, bending the world to their will.

And they wanted… me?

I wanted to feel special, but swallowed the lump down my throat instead.

Me, Olivia Hayes. A broke, exhausted twenty-year-old who could barely afford a MetroCard, currently surviving on instant ramen and boxed wine. A girl with a mother in hospice care. A girl with her own stage IV diagnosis hanging over her like a guillotine. A girl who hadn’t seen “hope” in months without a sarcastic filter.

I should’ve been thrilled.

Instead, I panicked.

“Oh no no no no no—” I bolted upright, nearly tripping over last night’s throw pillow of shame as I ran out. My brain was trying to compute the cosmic joke. Was this a glitch in the simulation?

From the kitchen, Sophia peeked her head around the corner, cradling a mug of something that looked too sophisticated to be coffee.

Her skin glowed, her hair was effortlessly twisted into some P*******t-worthy bun, and she looked impossibly poised for someone who held my hair while I threw up in a potted plant just six hours ago.

“Please tell me you’re not drunk again,” she said, eyeing me with that mix of concern and exasperation that only a best friend of over a decade could master.

I shoved the phone toward her like it was radioactive. No, like it was a fucking ticket to Narnia. “Interview. GrayHill. Tomorrow.”

The words fell off my lips before I could process them.

The blend of emotions rushed into my tone, sharp and quick enough to raise the apartment.

“Calm down,” Sophia coaxed, staring at me in confusion. If I were still under the effect of yesterday’s tequila and today’s hangover.

But I was ‘hanged over’ in ecstasy. A dream I never even imagined. One of fright and happiness.

“Tell me what happened-” But I cut off before she finished, rushing towards her.

“I just got an email from Grayhill Enterprise, and I have been shortlisted! I’ve gotten an interview!”

My voice elevated in confusion, impossibly fast that even the neighbours had to take a peek through their curtains in search of what was about to bring off their ceiling.

Her eyebrows shot up so high, I thought they’d launch into orbit. “GrayHill? As in THE GrayHill?”

I nodded frantically, jaw still slack.

She took the phone and read the email silently, her perfectly shaped brows slowly coming back down into a frown. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack,” I muttered, already half-sprinting toward the disaster I called my bedroom.

“Holy shit.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve been shortlisted.”

“Yes.”

“As an executive manager.”

“Yes.”

“To Grayhill enterprise.”

“Yess.” I couldn't handle my squeak and she ran, throwing me into her arms.

“You’ve got a job!” Her happiness elicited mine and I smiled, for the first time in two days.

Genuinely smiled.

Then a beat passed. Her smile vanished, replaced by the cold sting of reality. “Do you even have anything to wear?”

I froze. Midstep. My closet. Crap.

Eighty percent thrift-store finds. Ten percent of impulse online buys. Ten percent “I’ll grow into it someday” optimism. Not a single power suit. Not one pencil skirt that didn’t ride up like a mini. I didn’t even own a pair of heels that didn’t squeak.

“I can’t go in there looking like a hot mess in clearance clearance-rack polyester,” I groaned, flopping back onto a stool, my happiness slowly giving way to the early morning’s mood.

But Sophia was already marching into her room like a woman on a mission, grabbing my hands along. “Get up. We’re not doing this. Not today. If GrayHill called, we answer—and we do it in style.”

A flicker of something lit up in my chest. It wasn’t courage. Not yet. But it was something close. Something I hadn’t felt in… weeks?

Hope.

She threw open her closet with a dramatic flourish and pulled out a navy blazer that probably cost more than my monthly rent. “This with the black silk blouse, my beige slacks, and your confidence.”

I snorted. “You know I pawned that last one around February.”

She tossed the blazer at me. “Then fake it till Thursday.”

I held the outfit against myself, glancing in the mirror. I looked like a girl playing dress-up in her rich friend’s closet.

But somewhere in that reflection, behind the frizz and the fatigue, I saw her. The version of me I used to dream about—confident, collected, put together. The woman I thought I could become before life had other plans.

I still had her inside me. Buried. Beaten. Bruised. But still breathing.

Difficult to reopen again. What if this shatters me?

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered.

Sophia stepped beside me, her voice soft but fierce. “Yes, you do. You’re just scared.”

I looked over at her.

“And that’s fine. Be scared,” she said. “But show up anyway. That’s what survivors do. And you, Olivia Hayes, aren't just a survivor. You are you, the one the world is dying to meet. So go out there and kick some asses.”

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. My mind raced with everything I didn’t have— money, time, stability. But then I thought about what I did have: a reason.

Mom.

Even if I only had little time left, I needed to make them count—for both of us. And if this interview was the first step to pulling us out of the quicksand, then I’d walk in there like I belonged… even if every cell in my body screamed otherwise.

“I’m going to need coffee,” I muttered.

“A gallon of it,” Sophia agreed. “And maybe a crash course in corporate buzzwords. We’ll study tonight.”

She handed me her laptop, already pulling up interview prep videos and Googling “GrayHill Enterprises + scandals + CEO.” The kind of deep-dive sleuthing only she could do at lightning speed.

As I sank onto the couch, wrapped in the borrowed blazer and adrenaline, I realized something:

For the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t just surviving.

I was moving.

And tomorrow?

I was going to walk into that towering Manhattan office building, sit across from whatever intimidating suits they threw at me, and somehow—somehow—convince them that I belonged.

Even if my knees shook.

Even if I had to fake every confident breath.

Because the truth was, this wasn’t just about a job.

It was about reclaiming the life that was trying to slip through my fingers.

And maybe—just maybe—the universe wasn’t trying to screw me over.

Maybe it was finally offering me a way out. An opportunity to see a dying girl can survive the world filled with rouges and bitches.

***