Good. I feel like breaking things.
That was undoubtedly the worst phone call of my life.
I fling myself onto the couch, bury my head in the pillows, then emit one long, drawn-out scream of utter frustration.
Three weeks ago I was a key member of a professional team put together to design a worldwide ad campaign for the client company’s upcoming launch of a new tech product. A combination of Apple TV, Roku, and all the top-set videogame consoles that have been so popular since the Xbox launched in 2005. It had all the potential to take the world by storm.
I was a key member of the lead team for the entire ad campaign. I was the one with the most valuable insights, the most exciting ideas. Everyone on the team recognized that. I got along splendidly with my coworkers. And even though I was just an intern, and they were full-time employees of the firm, not once did I feel disconnected from them.
Two weeks ago, the summer internship ended. While our work was far from finished, I was proud of my contribution. I thought I could expect a glowing letter of recommendation from my boss.
What I got instead blew my mind:
A year-long contract to stay with the firm and see the ad-campaign through to its launch. The value of the contract? $120,000, base, plus another fifty percent in performance bonuses.
If I earned the bonuses, I could wipe my college debt clean when I returned to school.
Of course I signed. I was even offered accommodations for the length of my full stay, not a block away from headquarters in Palo Alto. That incentive was worth another thirty or forty grand.
The paperwork was done in two days. I emailed my resident dean and told him I’d be taking a year-long leave of absence. He replied instantly expressing his excitement for me, and reminded me that I’d be welcome back next year. All the Ivy League schools are good about things like that. They want to maintain a pitch perfect graduation rate.
Next came the hard part: Phoning Sonja and Fey and telling them that I’d be bailing on our rooming arrangement. I expected them to be pissed.
Instead, like the good friends they are, all they said was how happy they were for me.
It felt like a dream come true.
All that brought me to today.
For the last few days, the client has been increasingly distant in communications with my team. I shrugged off the warning signs. Stuff like that is expected from time to time. These are huge multinationals, after all. No matter how much they might be paying my firm, they have other products, other responsibilities to take care of.
It was a slight annoyance at the worst. Nothing to lose sleep over…
That is, until the head of my team found us at noon today and asked us to go home early.
He said we have been working hard and deserved a break. Since it was Friday, we’d essentially be getting a three-day weekend.
That should have set off alarms in my head. But it wasn’t like I was the only one who’d been asked to leave. The whole team was dismissed early. We made plans to meet for dinner and drinks tonight at a swanky hipster bar.
No big deal, I thought… until I got the phone call from HR five minutes ago.
The client pulled out. The project was over. I’d be paid, prorated, for the two weeks of work. But no more. I’d have a week to give up the apartment.
It feels like my whole world is collapsing on itself. Good-bye, financial freedom. Good-bye, start of new life. Good-bye, beautiful Palo Alto.
In the span of thirty seconds, I’d basically been told that I am homeless, jobless, and have absolutely nowhere to turn.
Yale doesn’t take late registrations. No way. Never. Even coming back for the spring term would be a stretch. They like to have their students there from the start of the year. They work hard to build up a homey community, and don’t want it disrupted by newcomers halfway through the year.
Besides, most of the kids at Yale come from rich families. It’s not like they would hurt much if they fell into the same hole I find myself in.
Belatedly, I realize the pathetic futility of my threat over the phone. If I show up at my boss’s door tomorrow morning, I will wait two full days without seeing a soul.
The building is closed on the weekend.
I scream into the pillow until my voice is hoarse.
Where will I go? What will I do? My mother—
No. She might be the only family I have. But I will not go crawling back to her. We haven’t spoken for six years. She caused the rift. The onus is on her to repair it. I promised myself I would never be liable for her mistakes again.
So where does that leave me?
Broke, unemployed, and heavily in debt. That’s where.
Even worse, I’ve now lost the next twelve months of my life. Poof, they’re gone, just like that. I can’t go to school. I can’t work on anything that will help me in the future.
But, I intend to stick to the other thing I said. I will not lie down and take this without a fight.
They will have to drag Lilly Ryder kicking and screaming through the pits of hell before she gives in.
Chapter Eighteen
(Present day)
I come to with a shudder.
It’s dark. Always, so dark.
I can’t feel the entire left side of my body.
Shit.
I’ve been sleeping on it and lost circulation.
I struggle to a seated position and fight off the wave of dizziness that overtakes me. There are white spots in my vision. Even worse, the spotlight and tray of food is gone.
I try not to think about what that means. Is that it? Is the contract off the table?
Did I… win?
The only thing you won is a slow, grueling death for yourself, the voice inside my mind taunts. Way to go, Lilly!
No! I shake my head. No! I don’t want to die.
The contract promises five years of servitude before my release?
Fine. Fine! I’ll take it. I’m far beyond desperate.
“Hello?” I squeak. My voice is frail and thin. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
There comes no answer.
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
I wait five long breaths. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The lights stay off. I try to stand, hoping to trigger the motion sensor—and end up falling flat on my face.
On the floor, I can no longer feel. Neither cold, nor pain, nor hunger holds meaning to me. I exist in a void of blackness.
I ache desperately for human contact. Any human contact. What is life devoid of joy, of warmth, of love?
How do I hold onto the crumbling pieces of myself? How can I retain sanity in a place designed to break me completely?
Eyes closed or open, it makes no difference. I am numb. I am forgotten.
I am nothing.
Chapter Nineteen
(One month ago)
I stalk out of my Monday morning meeting with the head of HR. The warm morning sun does nothing to dispel the ice in my veins.
I am in a worse mood than when I arrived. Not only did I have to endure a nearly hour-long wait in the firm I worked for, but I was also dismissed as easily as a girl scout selling cookies. Mind you, this was by the same PR person who greeted me so warmly when I arrived at the start of summer!