My brother’s new girlfriend sneered at my worn-out coat during his housewarming, loudly joking I was homeless and likely there to beg for a bed. My father just laughed, telling me to stop being sensitive.
Then she bragged about her new boss— not realizing that boss was me.
This is where the story truly begins, and you won’t want to miss what happens.
The exhaustion was a physical weight, heavy and dragging, settling deep into the marrow of my bones. It wasn’t the kind of tired you get from a long jog or a bad night’s sleep.
It was the cumulative, crushing fatigue of a six-month merger that had finally, finally closed three hours ago.
I sat in the driver’s seat of my 2014 Honda Civic, the engine idling with a familiar rattling wheeze. The air conditioning had given up the ghost somewhere around mile marker 40 on the highway, and the late afternoon heat was stifling. I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, breathing in the smell of old upholstery and stale coffee.
I should have gone home.
I should have gone to my actual home, the penthouse apartment downtown with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the climate-controlled wine cellar that I rarely had time to visit.
I should have ordered takeout from that sushi place that charges $50 for a roll, drawn a bath hot enough to scald, and slept for fourteen hours.
But I couldn’t.
Today was Jard’s housewarming party.
My phone buzzed in the cup holder. It was a text from my father, Thomas.
Everyone is already here. Try not to look like you just rolled out of bed, Vanessa.
Jarred has important friends coming.
I stared at the screen, the backlight stinging my dry eyes.
Important friends.
The irony was sharp enough to cut, but I just swallowed it down the same way I had swallowed every slight and dismissal for the last decade.
I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror.
Thomas wasn’t entirely wrong.
I looked wrecked.
My hair, usually pulled back in a severe, professional bun, was fraying at the edges, strands escaping to stick to my clammy neck. I was wearing a hoodie I’d grabbed from the back seat to cover the fact that my blouse had a coffee stain from a clumsy intern earlier that morning. I had dark circles under my eyes that no amount of concealer could hide, even if I had the energy to apply it.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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