Page 16 of 32 Days in May

How I had taken that for granted.

The rashes, deep red swatches that spread from my ears down my cheekbones, were from stress. The headaches were from dehydration and PMS. My brain was distracted and oversaturated, not foggy, and my sluggishness could be more than explained by sixty-hour workweeks. I was grinding myself down—not just on this project but every project.

And when I wasn’t working on writing the perfect script, I was very busy fucking my boss, a demanding and temperamental art director named Kai who looked like a wish.com Oscar Isaac. Our relationship was imploding. Kai was a collector—of objects, experiences, people—and I had a feeling I was keeping him from expanding his palate. Dating him was exhausting and inescapable.

Kind of like my job.

But I was fine.

This was what adults did. This was what work was.

I just needed some time off, a beach vacation where I got to totally disconnect.

The horror that enveloped me when I realized I had overslept for the most important meeting of my career was second only to the migraine that kept me pinned to my bathroom floor for the next forty-eight hours.

“It will never, ever happen again,” I swore, cheek pressed against the cold tile, blinds shuttered against the milky November sunlight. Between phone calls, I would retch into the toilet and force down sips of Coke. “No excuse, I know. But I promise . . .”

There was a lot of we don’t want to do this, but we have to do this.

saFLeY hadn’t noticed I was missing from the meeting; my team had been able to cover perfectly fine without me. Our account manager presented the deck without any issue, aided by copywriters I’d tasked with memorizing and performing the script for the client as if they were at a table read. That was the real issue. I’d gone ahead and handed over proof that I was nothing more than an expensive, unreliable overhead cost that the boss was sick of seeing around the office. All my shine had been rubbed away.

“Take this time to find yourself, Nadia,” Kai had said, leaning across his desk to offer me his hand one last time. He had one of the only offices in the Foster & Honey building, an old converted warehouse in Fishtown. Exposed pipes and concrete walls, imported espresso machines and bean bag chairs, all provided the perfect cover for tattooed, vegan narcissists.

I didn’t take his hand. “I know who I am.”

It was the last moment I would feel confident for months.

I pushed my company laptop across the desk, dropped my badge on top, and ordered myself an Uber home. Then, I slept for thirteen hours.

Former coworkers reached out. They wanted one last dinner that turned into karaoke and tequila shots and eventually breakfast sandwiches. But even after my headache eventually passed, I’d noticed my hands were shaking and my bones hurt. They hurt so deeply I could imagine the marrow inside them calcifying, turning to useless dust. I didn’t reply, and those coworkers never reached out again.

I was tired down to my very nerves, which sent haphazard electric zaps up through my knees, into my lower back. Tiny, little cries for help.

Probably just the flu, I told myself over and over. Worst flu of my life.

I wake up feeling like I’ve been bludgeoned. The evidence of last night is strewn across my bedroom. A trail of sand details a path from the door to my abandoned, filthy overalls to the bed.

My mouth feels like it’s caulked shut. The effort of trying to move my lips makes my skull throb.

Am I naked? I feel around under the sheets. Yes, I am naked.

How did I get home?

A memory arrives in my brain with the pain and power of sudden noise; like cymbals crashing together.

Marco called an Uber. Took it with me. Walked home.

What a gentleman.

Did we fuck?

No. We tried. Heaven knows, we tried.

My joints won’t work, so I literally roll out of bed, taking a sheet with me. I keep rolling until I reach the kitchen.

My phone vibrates on the countertop.

Soph. Fuck.