I swiftly leave my purse on my desk and join my teammates, squeezing myself between the quality assurance lead and Chiara, the sweet Italian QA tester who sits next to me and is the closest I have to a friend here. It’s the second time this week that I’m late for our daily 9:00 a.m. stand-up meeting, and everyone but Chiara ignores my arrival as they listen to Ellen, the 2D artist, listing the tasks she must tackle in the next few hours. Chiara announces she’ll be looking for bugs in the latest version of Beetle Battle Match 3. I then tell everyone my goal is to make three more puzzle levels before the weekend and tweak the difficulty on some of the ones I’ve already made.
My answer is almost the same every day, and I always fulfill my promise, even if that means working a few extra hours. Sometimes I even make more levels than I say I’ll do, just because I’m efficient. My passion is long gone.
I wonder when I lost it.
I like the place, but I don’t like my place in it. I’m ready for more challenges, to use my skills and creativity without so many boundaries.
But that won’t happen here. And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. Because the lease on my small studio apartment in the center of Copenhagen will expire in ten days with no possibility of extension, and I have nothing else in sight.
Once I sit at my desk, I open my phone to the Beetle Battle Match 3 app and play level 679 to remember what I’ve already done so I can do something slightly different for level 680. A notification then pops up at the top of the screen. I’m ready to ignore the message, but Mom keeps spamming me, so I open the chat.
Mom: Nada de apartamento ainda?
Mom: Seu quarto está te esperando aqui! 🏠 🖤 ☀ 👄 🙏 👍
I take a long, deep breath. She’s asking me if I found an apartment, is saying my room is waiting for me, and is illustrating it all with a row of emojis to remind me of all the love and sunshine I’m missing.
To top it off, she sends me pictures of the room I had in her house. I was sharing it with my cousin Mariana, who was in college and couldn’t stand living with her parents in a satellite city an hour away from the centrally located University of Brasília.
Neither of us paid rent to my parents, which would have been an insult. (Mom would rather pay me to live with her.) I’d have given anything to have my own place—where I could be independent, make my own choices, and find out who I wanted to be in peace and solitude—but I couldn’t afford my living expenses with the jobs I had in Brasília. Besides, Mom wouldn’t have left me alone, no matter how many buses she had to take to visit me.
I get an empty feeling at the bottom of my stomach looking at the tiny room with pink walls full of outdated stickers and posters. The emptiness hits my heart with a punch as I stare at the bunk bed I know still creaks, the narrow desk that hardly accommodates my towering pile of office supplies, the plastic computer chair—all the stuff I left behind.
Which doesn’t at all seduce me or make me nostalgic. They are only reminders of why I shouldn’t go back.
“How’s your apartment search?” Chiara asks me. I blink at her, lowering my phone.
She raises an eyebrow and ties her pink hair up in a ponytail. “Have you found anything yet?”
I shake my head. “No...nothing.”
“Look, I think you should—” she rambles on, and I stop listening, my eyes staring unfocused at the HYGGE mug I bought in a souvenir shop the day I arrived in Denmark.
Everyone tells me that something will come up. They give me names and links. I visit apartments, but other people get them. I find something online, but it’s too expensive or too far away, or I’m applicant number 379. That’s how hard it is to find a place to live in Copenhagen.
I no longer expect I’ll get a place in the next few days. Just as I no longer expect to feel excitement about my work. I’ve accepted that my dream of living a Danish life will never be more than just a dream.
“You need to give it a try, Sol,” Chiara says, her voice startling me out of my thoughts.
I have no clue what she’s referring to. Probably another website for finding rentals. But her words bring out the stubborn part of me I’ve been fighting against lately—the optimistic, hopeful side of Sol Carvalho that says I need to give it another try, just one more.
I look down at the photo. This is what I’m going back to if I give up now. A life where fear suffocates me. Fear of never having enough money to be truly independent. Fear of never having a family of my own with a man who loves me and respects me. Fear of not getting home in one piece when I walk alone in the dark after long hours in an underpaid job that is far from my game design ambitions.
My heart races, and I make a quick decision.
I go to the eleven o’clock design meeting with my hands sweating and my pulse throbbing in my ears. I avoid everyone’s eyes, but when they start discussing new features for the game, I swallow my shyness and pitch a detailed idea I’ve been entertaining for the past few weeks and never dared to bring up.
When I finish, my manager, Lars Holm, says, “That’s an interesting idea.”
Other people nod, agreeing with him, and my heart does a thump-thump-thump in what feels like hope...
Then Martin Olesen, game designer, raises his hand.
“I see a few problems with this,” he says and goes on to destroy my idea.
Ripped. To. Absolute. Pieces.
I want to murder him. But I keep a calm face.
“You might have a point, Martin,” Lars concludes. People nod. “Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing and monitor player response. Jessica, do you have any data for us?”
I look at Martin. He acts as if I’m not in the room. Everyone pays attention to Jessica’s slides, and I want to storm out.
Why is Martin Olesen so fu—fantastically annoying? It’s not the first time he’s obliterated one of my suggestions. He’s always showing a feverish need to be the cleverest, most accomplished person in the room, regardless of who he steps on.
For the rest of the meeting, I don’t see the numbers or charts displayed on the big TV. All I see are the percentages surrounding the current possibilities of my life.
Chance of getting more interesting tasks at work: 0%.
Chance of finding a place to rent in the next ten days: 1%.
There is no future for me in Denmark, that’s the harsh truth. I sigh, looking at my perfect self-manicured nails. I have beauty salon skills because, since I was twelve, I’ve been helping Mom in her business. It’s the job I’ll have the moment I land back home under my mother’s overprotective wings.
When we’re leaving the meeting, a hand squeezes my shoulder. I look back at Lars, who’s smiling at me. “Are you ready for our one-to-one?”
“Sure.” My stomach sinks. No, I’m not at all ready.
We walk to another empty meeting room and sit across from each other.
