Every morning I ride the light rail into the city with a crowd of people who look half awake. I wear the same few faded shirts. I grab cheap coffee from the lobby machine. Then I sit at my desk and try to make buy local beer sound fresh for the 10th time. Outside, my life is not much better. I rent a small one-bedroom in a rough part of Capitol Hill.
The paint is peeling, the heater rattles, and the neighbor’s dog barks at random hours. At night, I eat takeout burritos, stare at my laptop, and send what little money I can back home to my mom in Texas. Mom is 62. She lives alone in our old house outside Austin. My dad used to fix trucks for a living until his body gave out.
Last year, he got lung cancer. The hospital bills came like a flood. We paid what we could, but it was not enough. When he died, the bills did not stop. I took out loans, maxed my credit cards, did anything to keep mom from losing the house. Now I am over $50,000 in debt. The number lives in my head like a weight.
Two weeks before all this started, my landlord slid an eviction notice under my door. 3 months behind on rent. No more extensions. I tried taking freelance jobs, selling my old camera, even texting college friends I had not talked to in years. The answers were always the same. Sorry, man. Wish I could help. By the time that Monday morning came, I was hanging on by a thread.
I got to the office early, head pounding from another night of no sleep. I opened my email and saw a wall of overdue notices. Medical bills, credit cards, a second warning from the landlord. It all blurred together. I was still staring at the screen when a new email popped up. No subject line, just a short sentence. Meet me in my office. 9:00 a.m. sharp.
Luna s Luna Sterling, vice president, daughter of the founder, my direct boss. People called her the ice queen when they thought she could not hear. She wore sharp suits, had a perfect dark bob, and eyes that made grown men fumble their words in meetings. She never came to happy hour. She never joined small talk in the break room.
She walked through the office like she owned it because in a way her family did. I had only spoken to her a few times. Quick comments on my work, a nod in a team huddle, a question about a tagline. She never wasted a word. So why did she want to see me? By 8:59, I was standing outside her door on the 36th floor. Her office was all glass and clean lines with a huge window that showed the Rockies in the distance.
I knocked. “Come in,” she said. She was behind her desk, eyes on her computer. She did not stand. She pointed to the chair across from her. “Sit.” My palms were sweating as I sat down. I waited for her to tell me I was fired. Instead, she closed her laptop and slid a thick folder toward me. “Open it,” she said.
