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“You must really have the guts, for you to raise your voice at me, just because of women rights?” my misogynist boss, yelled back at me, as soon as the words I had said left my mouth.

“At this point, I’m tired and fed up with your crap. You have absolutely no respect for women, and that is very annoying,” I knew she was really pushing it with my boss, but I had reached a point where I had no choice but to voice out my thoughts.

It was a normal Monday at work, I was having a one on one meeting with my boss, I was his secretary. We were talking about what our main customer base would be for our newest product, though Henry, my boss always had the opinion that women weren’t part of our customer base, and it always upsets me. Henry was fond of harassing women, even his staff, he always belittled them as people who didn’t matter, but this day, I was totally over it, I had to shout out my opinions, even if it would cost me my job. With which it actually did.

“You know what? I’m also tired and fed up with your disrespect, I would make sure to prepare your letter of dismissal this afternoon, so make sure to clear out your desk as soon as you leave this office,” Henry threw back at me.

“I will gladly do that, it would definitely keep me away from your annoying self,” with that, I walked out of the office, and straight to mine. I packed up my things eagerly, while a tear rolled down my cheek.

I’m Anastasia Farrow a 26 year old independent woman, what can I say? I’m ambitious and I always stand for what is right. Even if I have to stand against my employer, I didn’t mind, so long as it was for the good of others. I am competent, precocious and excellent at whatever I do, I hate to fail at anything, mainly due to the failed marriage between my parents. They had gotten separated when I was 16, I was in high school and had to leave New York with my mum, and move to Europe, Ireland. Which was about 7 to 8 hours away, I had no way of going back to see my dad.

“I guess I would have to find a more satisfying job,” I said to myself as I cleaned off the tears from my face. I picked up the card board box with which I had packed most of my things in, then walked out of the large building, with my head held up high.

I hailed a cab, then took it straight home, to the house I shared with my mum. Once I got to my destination, I walked up the little stairs to the apartment building, and greeted the house warden who was sat at the house entrance as usual. My mother and I stayed at one of the middle class apartment buildings in Ireland. The building had about 24 apartment flats in it, each flat had their kitchen and two rooms. But the laundry was a shared space on the underground floor.

I walked up the stairs to the second floor, where my apartment was located. The apartment’s elevator had been faulty for months now, and the building owner had refused to fix it since the last twenty times they complained. My mum and I didn’t have much of a problem, since our apartment was located on the second floor, and it wasn’t that far from the ground floor.

I got to the entrance of my apartment in no time, I could hear some weird sounds coming from the other side of the door. It sounded like giggling and moaning, ‘My day can’t get any worse,’ I thought to myself, as I shoved my keys into the keyhole. I pulled open the door, and was met with what I had prayed I wouldn’t see. My mother was on the couch half naked, with an unknown guy under her, also naked. There were several bottles of alcohol all over the room, on the table, couch and also on the floor.

“Hey darling, why are you back home early from work,” Sara slurred, as soon as she finally turned to face me, I was standing right beside the door in shock. The whole living room reeked of alcohol and sex.

“Mum! Who on earth are you shagging again, and why are you drunk this early in the day? How is it that all you think about is having sex and getting drunk, you never do anything reasonable with your time, you never help me make money, you never pay any bills, you just stay at home and eat whatever you like, with all the bills on me! Don’t you have a conscience?!” I yelled at her. I didn’t care that I was passing my aggression on my mother, all I knew was I was fed up with cleaning up my mother’s mess and taking care of her extra expenses.

“Daughter, what has got up your pants? This is my new boyfriend, Julius.” She looked unaffected by Ana’s outburst.

“He looks half your age, you make me more disappointed every day,” I told her, then walked out of the living room, and into my room. I stayed there and cried for about twenty minutes, before going off to sleep.

A sudden urge to eat woke me up at 7pm, I got up from my bed then stretched out my tense muscles. I walked out of my room, passed through the living room, and into the kitchen.

“Hey darling, how did you sleep?” my other asked me as soon as I walked into the kitchen. She was stirring something on the oven, “I’m sorry about what you met when you got back from work. I don’t know what has been up with me since Fred and I got divorced, I know this shouldn’t be an excuse and I’m so sorry.”

“Mother, can I ask you an honest question?” I had been thinking about this question for a while now.

“Yes, you can,” she had an expression which showed that she really cared about me.

“Why did you really agree to a divorce with my father? Also, why did you fight for me to be with you?” Sara paused from turning the constituents of the things in the pot on fire. She never really expected that I would ever ask such…