am I being let go?"

Lana ignored my question. "We wish you the best as you move on, Gia," she said, picking up her glasses and perching them on her nose again.

A plethora of feelings coursed through me in the space of mere seconds. I couldn't scream, shout, or laugh. I couldn't process what was happening. I was numb.

And now here I was, in a cab on a Monday afternoon with my personal items

in a box on my lap. Watching people bustle around the city, meeting friends and colleagues as though it were any other day. People who’d go back to work after having a filling lunch. Something I was missing out on.

I shifted the box that was beginning to slide off my lap and took in a deep breath.

Yep, I, Giana Brookes, was now officially a hater of Mondays, courtesy of my now ex-boss, Lana. Lana had never really liked me since she took over for my former boss, but the fire got stoked at an office party about four months ago when her husband complimented me. She’d had it in for me since then. The funny thing was, I wasn’t the least bit attracted to her husband, nor was I the type of woman to entertain a married man.

The cab came to a stop in front of my apartment building. I swept away a few tears that had fallen down my cheek again, this time dragging with them smears of my mascara. I paid the driver and heaved myself out of the car. Propping the box against my hip I slogged up the stairs to the second floor. As I climbed the stairs and my door came into view, I could see a pink slip of paper stuck to my door. It had not been there when I left the house this morning. When I got to the top of the stairs, I laid the box on the floor, careful not to upset or break the picture in it of my mom and me that was taken eight years ago. I snatched the slip off my door and glanced over it. I already knew what it was. My rent had been due for a few weeks now.

I threw the slip into the box, then pulled my purse out of it and fished out my key. I jiggled my door open, pulled the box closer with my left foot, and crouched to pick it up. Somehow it felt like I was carrying my life’s problems in my hands. The box was as heavy as my heart was.

As soon as I made it in, I plopped the box on the table with a little less care and flicked on the light switch. I moved to the window to pull open my light blue linen curtains. I lingered a little, staring out of the window. Then I moved to the other side of the room, behind my soft blue sofa, to pull apart the other set of curtains. As the curtains moved further apart, I imagined it like my life splitting in two. I stood, taking in my living room. When I got this apartment, I'd been so excited. It was a place I could call my own. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me. I bought soft blue sofas from a furniture store and bought a lot of vintage stuff, a filtered lamp that cast glows of yellow at nighttime, two white high stools that I put at the kitchen counter, a rectangular coffee table, and an Arabian rug placed in the middle of the room underneath it. I'd done quite a nice job. I looked around and let out a sigh, then walked into my bedroom.

I still felt like I was in a daze. I felt like I was dreaming. Was I really back on the job market? Or would I wake up from this bad dream soon? I came to a stop before my full-length mirror. No, it wasn't a dream. The image of myself in my beautiful green dress, my blonde hair splayed across my face, which was smudged with black eye makeup, was real as real could be.

I lowered myself onto the low stool in front of my dresser, and as my butt landed on it, a flood of tears found their way out. My head fell on the dresser, my neck unable to bear the weight as my body convulsed as I wept. After a few minutes of uncontrollable sobbing, my breathing slowly came back to normal, and I raised my head. I thought I looked crazy when I first caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked crazier now. My hair was plastered on my

forehead, covering one eye, and my eyeliner had joined my mascara in coloring my face black.

I pulled aside the hair obstructing half of my vision and put my fingers to the not-so-visible scar on my forehead that had begun to itch. I scratched at it lightly and stood up to pull off my dress. I left it lying on the floor as I made my way to the bathroom. I filled the bathtub with cool water, unhooked my bra, slipped out of my silk panties, and plunked into the water. It did well to soothe my body a little. As the water cooled and soothed my muscles, I shifted to the edge and laid my head on it.

When I came to this city after college, I thought things would play out differently. I studied psychology at Brown University, and I was excited to start my own practice, but I had to work first to save money. It had been five years, and I was still working with barely any savings. Manhattan was not a cheap city to live in, but it was my lifelong dream.

And what was worse? I was jobless now.

I lowered my head until the water covered my face, opened my eyes, and let out a scream. A muffled scream. A silent scream. My neighbors couldn't hear me because the water had cut out any sound. That was exactly how I felt right now. I felt like the universe, or something out there, was against me. I was screaming for help, with no one to come to my rescue because no one could hear me. When I was beginning to feel woozy, I raised my head out of the water and wiped my face with my hand.

I didn't have lunch; neither did I have dinner. I sat on my sofa with my knees drawn up to my chin, my feet covered with a fluffy blanket, my left hand holding it in place and my phone in my right hand. I needed to talk to someone. Not just anyone, but Zoey, my friend back home I’d been close with since we were teenagers.

I needed to get my thoughts out or I’d go crazy.

“Gia! I was just thinking of calling you when I got home. Had too much work to do today. Just finishing up. Cakes are delicious, but boy are they difficult to make.”

When I didn’t say anything, she asked. “Gia, are you okay?”

I sighed hard. “I’m not. I got fired today,” I said in an unsteady and resigned voice.

“Oh my God, that bitch!”

Zoey had been my rant absorber; she knew all that Lana had put me through.

“She finally got rid of me. She did.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Did anything else happen?”

“No, I didn’t do anything wrong. She called me into her office this afternoon and gave me the sack.”

“Gosh,” she said, and I could hear her sit on something, the sound of a chair against a marble floor.

"I only have a couple hundred dollars in my account. And the shittiest thing is rent is past due. I don't know where to start. It'd be easier to find a needle in a haystack than to find a well-paying job in New York right now,” I said, wrapping my fingers around the blanket on my feet.

"They should give you severance, at least."

"Nope, no severance, no benefits, no nothing. I was tossed out like an over-sucked orange."

"You should sue her."

"Where do I get the money to hire a lawyer? I'd rather use any money I can get now to pay my bills."

"I could help you with some money," Zoey said, almost quietly, because she knew how much I didn't like to depend on people, least of all her.

"You know I can't do that. I'm sure I'll get a job if I search hard enough. There has to be a travel agency hiring and, with my experience, it shouldn't be too far

out of reach," I said, even though I didn’t believe my own words.

Zoey exhaled, but she didn't mention giving me money again because she knew I'd refuse.

"Why don't you come back home? I mean, if you look for a job and can’t find one, you can always come back.”

I stretched my legs out, the blanket falling to the floor. “Back to Providence?

What would I be coming back to? Why?”

“Why not?” Zoey asked rhetorically. “You could start over here, and when you make enough, you can go back to New York. It's easier out here. Well, things are getting awfully expensive now, but I know it's not as bad as a city like Manhattan."

"You know there's nothing in Rhode Island for me. I'm still going to be homeless over there, and you know that. You know our house was foreclosed after Mom died and I couldn't pay the mortgage."

"I am highly offended, Giana," Zoey said.

I sat up. "What? What did I do?"

"How could you say such a thing when I have a house here that you can stay at?"

"I'm so sorry. You know I don't like to impose."

"I know, but you also know I'd never watch you go without. Why are you so stubborn about doing everything on your own? I'm your friend. What are friends for if we can't help each other?"

I swallowed and bent to pick up the blanket from the floor. "But you never need help from me. I'm always the one needing help."

"Well, I’m not complaining, am I? My door is always open to you. Providence is a good place to stay until things go back to normal. You could get a job here and save some money."

"I'm not so sure, Zoey. There's nothing waiting for me there. I grew up there just aching to get out. I can't go back."