12

The termination letter sat on the kitchen table for three days before Shane finally picked it up, coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. His eyes moved across the page, slowing when he reached the reason for my dismissal, and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

“Fired,” he said, dropping the phone beside his mug. “You got fired for causing a scene in the lobby.”

“You caused the scene. I just stood there.”

He looked at me for a moment, then crumpled the letter in his fist and threw it toward the trash. It missed by a foot, landing beside the table instead.

“Doesn’t matter who caused it. What matters is there is no more paycheck coming. How are we supposed to pay rent now?”

The question landed harder than it should have because the answer was already sitting in my head. My final check would barely cover half a month’s expenses, the electric bill was overdue, and whatever money made it into our account had a way of disappearing into Shane’s debts before I could use it for anything important. The numbers never worked, no matter how many times I added them.

“The sure thing,” I said, keeping my eyes on him. “The investment you were waiting on. Did it come through?”

His expression changed immediately. “Don’t.”

“Shane.”

“I said don’t.” His mug hit the counter hard enough to send coffee over the rim. “It fell through. The guy backed out. Happy now?”

“No.”

I looked down at the termination letter on the floor. His sure things always seemed to fall apart at the last minute, yet somehow the blame never landed on him. There was always a person who had betrayed him, a market that had turned, or some mistake someone else had made. I had heard enough versions of the same story to know where this one was going.

“I’ll find another job,” I said, reaching for the letter.

“You do that.”

He grabbed his jacket from the hook, shoved his arms into it, and headed for the door.

“I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”

The door closed behind him, leaving his cold coffee on the counter and the crumpled letter beside the trash. I stayed where I was for another moment, staring at the mess, until the pressure behind my ribs became too much to ignore.

Cleaning gave my hands something to do, so I started with the kitchen. The dishes went into the sink while the counters were wiped down, and when I reached for the trash bag, my fingers caught the edge of the thin folder tucked between the old books on the shelf.

I stopped.

My professional certificate was inside.

I pulled it out carefully and ran my thumb over the raised seal. Years of studying after hotel shifts, exams taken while Shane complained about the lights being on too late, mornings spent memorizing things I had been told would never matter. He had made me hide it because, according to him, I had a husband now and did not need a career.

The paper felt solid in my hands.

I put it back where I had found it, tucked the folder deeper between the books, then reached for my bag. The library was only three blocks away, and their computers were free.

By the time I reached the back corner of the library, I had already decided I was going to make the résumé as good as I could. The old version looked worse on the screen than I remembered, so I deleted most of it and started again, keeping the useful parts of five years in hotel work while stripping away everything that made it sound smaller than it was.

VIP guest services. Conflict resolution. Event coordination.

The words looked different once they were sitting together.

A man at the next computer lost another game of solitaire and muttered under his breath before starting over. I kept my eyes on my screen, but the corner of my mouth lifted anyway.

My résumé took longer than I expected. I changed the wording, read it again, changed it back, then finally stopped touching it before I ruined it by trying to make it perfect. Three applications went out before my library session ended, and watching each confirmation appear on the screen gave me a strange little jolt.

It was not a job.

It was not money.

But it was something I had done without asking Shane first.

Outside, I stopped at the corner store for milk and bread. The cashier was a teenager with bright pink hair and a nose ring, and she was humming along to something playing from her phone while she scanned my items.

“Long day?” she asked, sliding the bread into a bag.

“Long week.”

She glanced at her wrinkled shirt and laughed. “Same. My cat threw up on my uniform this morning, so now I’m wearing my roommate’s shirt.”

I looked at the stain near her sleeve.

“She is going to be furious.”

The girl grinned. “He is dramatic. He will probably do it again tomorrow.”

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. It felt strange enough that I looked down at the bag in my hand.

“Hope your cat’s okay.”

“He is fine. Unfortunately.”

I carried the small bag home with the faintest trace of that laugh still sitting somewhere in my chest.

Shane was already on the couch when I walked in. The television was loud, one boot rested on the coffee table, and a beer sat in his hand while his eyes followed me from the kitchen doorway.

He did not ask where I had been.

I put the milk in the fridge and set the bread on the counter, keeping my movements steady under his stare.

“Any luck?”

“I sent out a few applications.”

He took a drink before looking back at the television. “We’ll see.”

The words were quiet, but they carried enough weight to make my fingers tighten around the refrigerator door.

“Bills don’t wait for ‘we’ll see,’ Adeline.”

“I know.”

He said nothing else, and that was almost worse. The unpaid bills were still there. His debts were still there. Losing my paycheck had not changed any of it, except now there was one less thing between us and the consequences.

I made dinner without asking what he wanted, ate at the counter while he watched television, then left the dishes in the sink when I finally went to bed.

Shane was asleep by the time I pulled my phone beneath the blanket. The apartment had gone quiet, and the screen cast a small square of light over my hands as I went back through the job listings.

Most of them asked for experience I did not have or qualifications I could not afford to chase.

Then I saw the personal assistant position.

The pay was better than anything I had expected to find, and the benefits were enough to make me read the listing twice. Vale Industries was the company name, and although I knew the name, I did not know much about the position itself beyond what was written there.

The responsibilities were familiar enough.

Scheduling. Organization. Communication. Executive support.

Things I had already done in one form or another for years.

My thumb hovered over the application button while every reason not to apply came rushing in at once. I had been out of work for only a few days, I had no idea what the company was looking for, and there was no guarantee anyone would even read my résumé.

I submitted it anyway.

The confirmation appeared on the screen.

For a moment, I simply stared at it before locking my phone and slipping it beneath the pillow.

The next morning, I found the response before Shane woke.

An interview request.

My thumb stopped over the screen as I read the message again, making sure I had not misunderstood it. Monday morning. Vale Industries.

The phone remained in my hand while I sat quietly at the edge of the bed, staring at the interview details until the screen dimmed.

I touched it once to wake it again and read the message from the beginning.