The laughter rippled through the room. It felt like being back in high school, but worse. This was my livelihood. I couldn’t lose this job. I needed the insurance for Lily.
Veronica turned back to me, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. She stepped into my personal space, her expensive perfume clashing with the smell of my bleach bucket.
“Tell you what, Ethan,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You fix this helicopter. You fix a ten-million-dollar machine with your mop bucket wisdom. If you get this bird in the air in the next hour, I’ll kiss you right here in front of everyone.”
The room erupted. The engineers were slapping their knees. Security guards were chuckling.
“And if you touch it and break it,” she added, her voice dropping to a cold whisper, “you’re fired. And I’ll make sure you never work in this city again.”
She turned on her heel and walked away, dismissing me like I was nothing.
I stood there, frozen. The laughter died down as everyone went back to their confused huddles, ignoring me again. They didn’t think I’d dare. They thought I was just a janitor. They didn’t know about the medals in my drawer at home. They didn’t know about the nights I spent keeping birds in the air when failure wasn’t an option.
I looked at the helicopter. I looked at the clock.
I thought about Lily. I thought about the pharmacy bill sitting on my kitchen counter with a big red “OVERDUE” stamp on it. I thought about the way Veronica looked at me—like I was debris.
I took a deep breath. I pushed my mop bucket to the side.
