Chapter 5
Five
Madison
One shitty pillow under my head, three under my knees, and two more wedged at my sides.
Celeste did this. Celeste, who eloped and robbed me of the only bachelorette party I’ve ever cared about planning.
She tucked me in with the tenderness of a mother tucking in her firstborn.
She also brought her new husband.
Julian Blackwood carried me to bed, which was humiliating enough, but it wasn’t as bad as when he looked down at me, smirked, and said, “Look at you. You’re a princess.”
I felt my dignity float out of my body and lodge itself in the ceiling fan. It’s still there, spinning gently above my head, beside a line of dust I can’t stop staring at.
It’s fine.
I’m fine.
I’m also heavily medicated and possibly still flirting with the concept of death.
The hot doctor’s prescription has taken the edge off the pain. My back still throbs, but the sharp pain is now buried under something thicker. For the first time since yoga tried to kill me, I can take a full breath without bracing.
The problem is that my brain has decided to celebrate this by becoming feral.
I stare at the dust on the ceiling fan.
I notice more.
Then more.
Now I’m mad.
Why is it that the moment your body forces you to stay still, your apartment suddenly becomes a catalog of all your failings?
There’s a sock on the floor that didn’t end up in the laundry basket.
The coffee table in the living room looked crooked earlier, and the throw blanket was halfway off the couch.
I want to fix everything. I want to get up, clean the apartment, rearrange my furniture, maybe even paint a wall. My body feels confident enough to try. Right now, I feel like I could lift a fridge.
But I’m not an idiot.
This is the medication talking. The meds are masking the pain, not curing it. If I start hauling furniture around, I’ll wake up tomorrow with my leg numb, explaining to an emergency doctor why I moved my couch at midnight.
No, thank you.
I need to work tomorrow.
I made it through today by dragging my laptop to the couch and balancing it on a pillow. I couldn’t sit in my office because my chair requires bending, and bending is currently beyond my skill set.
So I worked horizontally. I answered emails and took calls while managing a situation I didn’t cause but will absolutely be blamed for if I don’t fix it.
That’s the job.
I didn’t mean to do this for a living. I studied business. Thought I’d be in a glass office wearing a blazer, giving presentations, and pretending to care.
Then I realized businesses aren’t numbers; they’re people, and people are disasters.
Now I manage reputations. I take self-important men in expensive suits and stop them from making things worse. Sometimes I reframe the narrative. Sometimes I bury it. Sometimes I stand two feet behind a client as they give a public apology they don’t mean, and hope no one zooms in on my expression.
Tomorrow’s client: a politician who went viral after flipping off a reporter.
His team wants me to make it go away, or better yet, turn it into a redemption arc. Something that makes people say, he’s just under a lot of pressure.
Which means I’ll spend my morning digging for a sob story, a character-building childhood trauma to explain why a fifty-year-old man has the emotional maturity of a child.
Sometimes my job feels soulless. Like I’m standing at the edge of a moral cliff, toeing the line, wondering whether I’m helping people or just making sure consequences don’t land where they should.
But it’s not always the case.
There are good clients as well.
I worked with a women’s shelter last year when they were dragged online after someone twisted a fundraiser story into a scandal. I helped them issue a statement that didn’t pander, and watched donations triple in forty-eight hours.
I still keep the thank-you email printed in a drawer in my office, like a reminder that I’m not completely dead inside.
I don’t work with criminals.
I don’t work with men who hurt women.
I don’t accept money from people who make my skin crawl.
I’ve turned down big offers because being good at what I do doesn’t mean I’m for sale.
I’m the best at this.
Which is why I can’t stay in this bed for another day.
I stare back up at the ceiling fan. The dust is still there, mocking me.
I exhale slowly, letting myself sink into the pillow, the warm fuzz of the meds wrapping around my brain again.
I can do this. I can sleep. I can rest.
I’ll go back to work tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll wear flats.
The horror.
I’m mid-thought, eyes finally heavy, when a thud hits the ceiling above my bed.
My eyes snap open.
Another.
Then another.
The rhythm picks up fast.
They’re running on a treadmill. I know because it feels like they’re in the room with me.
Thud. Thud. Thudthudthud.
“What the actual fuck.”
Someone’s getting a head start on their Olympic training.
“You have got to be kidding me. Shut up!” I yell.
Nothing.
The noise keeps going, louder now. Unbothered by my pain. Unbothered by the fact that I’m lying here, stitched together with prescription drugs.
I miss Mr. Rogers. He shuffled.
I shove a pillow over my head.
It doesn’t help.
Ten minutes pass. Then fifteen.
Still going.
Still pounding.
I check the time.
1:03 a.m.
My eye twitches.
I throw the pillow off my face and stare at the ceiling again. “I’m going to strangle that stupid asshole.”
My body doesn’t want me to move, but I do anyway.
This stops tonight.
I sweep the pillows off the bed and brace both hands on the mattress before I sit up.
“Okay,” I breathe, teeth clenched. “Fine. Didn’t need a spine anyway.”
I swing my legs to the floor and breathe. The pounding overhead continues.
“Of course you’re still at it,” I mutter. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
I push to stand, but my back fires a warning shot down my leg, so I grab the dresser to stay upright.
“Fuck off,” I whisper to no one, just generally.
I shuffle to the chair in the corner, where Celeste left a care kit like a proud mom. Granny slippers and a fluffy robe.
I step into the slippers—they’re the kind with a little arch support, bless her—and shrug into the robe.
Thudthudthudthud.
The hallway is quiet when I step out. The elevator is waiting for me. I stare at it.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
I could just walk in, press one button, and be done in thirty seconds, but my chest already tightens just thinking about it.
Nope. Absolutely not. I can’t do it.
I turn and march—well, shuffle—toward the stairwell.
Step by step, I climb with one hand gripping the railing.
By the third step, I’m sweating.
By the fifth, I’m swearing.
By the seventh, I consider death.
“Whoever you are,” I pant, “I hope you step on a Lego. I hope your milk goes bad and you don’t notice until you drink it.”
I can’t hear anything out here because the entire building has amazing soundproofing, except for my ceiling.
“Look at me,” I mutter, hauling myself up the final step. “Look at the life you’ve forced me into. I’m in a robe. I’m on drugs. I’m climbing stairs.”
I pause at the landing before lifting my chin. “I am going to ruin your night.”
And then I keep going.