Page 1 of Winter Glam in Amsterdam

Summer

Dear Ms. Shepard, we regret to inform you—

I don’t even continue to read the email before I hit delete and throw my phone somewhere on the bed behind me with a sigh so deep it feels like I’m exhaling my soul. And my will to continue this hopeless job hunt while I’m at it.

I let myself fall into the mattress with a force that makes the bed squeak, and I’m groaning right along with it.

How difficult can it be to find a job after university? It’s not like I expected to be handed job offers left and right, companies fighting over my expertise, but naive as I was, I thought finding a job within half a year would be realistic.

One year later, I know better.

If I pulled up my spreadsheet for tracking applications to turn yet another row red with this newest rejection email, it would mark company number 247 that has no interest in hiring me. But hey, there are still eight-hundred-something jobs that haven’t replied to my application at all. Whenever I turn at night, sleepless, I like to tell myself ‘your dream job is among those, they just haven’t gotten to your application yet.’ At this point I’m not sure whether to laugh at that optimism or just succumb to my desperation.

Slowly but surely, I’m losing my hope.

"Make sure study something you have fun with.”

“If you turn your hobby into a job, you won’t work a day in your life.”

I remember my family’s voices like it was yesterday, only now they sound taunting to me instead of encouraging. Over the years, I’ve lost count of how often my aunts and uncles gave me this advice, but look where it got me. Jobless and throwing up in my mouth a bit at the memory of their words.

Who could have known that studying computer sciences as a woman would quickly become dreadful instead of fun? I love computers, always have. My parents used to joke that they were my calling, that I was better at typing than writing with a pen and would one day create the computer used for world domination.

It used to be fun. Before the judging stares came with it. The ‘Sweetheart, are you sure you’re in the right lecture?’ questions and condescending mansplaining.

A ruckus downstairs tears me from my thoughts, an annoyed sigh falling from my lips as I bury my face in my hands. Right. Luca wanted to come over today. I get up with a groan, pausing once I’m on my feet for a deep breath.

It’s draining.

These past months, it’s felt like my bones weigh triple what they should, breathing like the air is a heavy sirup. It’s just so damn frustrating.

But what can I do aside from straightening my shoulders and sending out the next 300 applications, receiving more applications and dancing the turns of this vicious cycle?

My hand is on my doorknob when it flies open without warning, and I jump back to not be hit in the face, and suddenly my brother’s way-too-happy face is right in front of me.

“There you are! Hey, Summer, my loveliest, wonderful—” Then he freezes when he sees my face that’s probably set with a tightened jaw and frustrated frown at this point.

“What’s going on?” he asks quietly and softly closes the door behind himself, worry washing over his face. “Did anything happen?”

I force the corners of my mouth upwards. “It’s nothing,” I assure him through gritted teeth and try to slip past him into the hallway.

Mom and Dad have been looking forward to him coming home for weeks at this point. He used to live three houses down from ours, popping in whenever he had a break and eating all he could find in our fridge.

That used to be their compromise when he became an actor: he could travel the world, shoot his movies wherever, as long as he kept the home base nearby and came over at least once a month.

Then he got together with Millie, one of the girls of world-famous popstar-duo The Sirens, and moved in with her in a city that’s an hour away. A house with security measures like Fort Knox, located halfway between our parents and Millie’s, close enough to an airport to hop on one of their private jets and pay their families a visit, but it has gotten less either way.

And I get it. I just hate to admit to myself that my brother, the very person who almost chopped his finger off while peeling an apple, has his life figured out, and I don’t.

Jealousy is not a good look, though, so I’m keeping that little tidbit to myself.

“Take it slowly,” my parents always say when they see how frustrated the job search makes me. I know they mean well, but I don’t want to take it slowly. I want to stand on my own two feet,move out without needing any of them to lend me money and just become independent.

Whenever I check social media, which is very often considering I don’t have much else to do, I see former classmates living it up. They go on their dream vacations, travel the world and party it up on the weekends, while I’m at home fighting the urge to throw my phone against the nearest wall when it shows me just another rejection.

“You know I can tell when you’re lying.” Luca grabs my hand and pulls me right back into my room, shaking his head at me. “You’ve had the same tell ever since you were three years old.”

“I totally don’t,” I object with a glare, trying to wrestle my wrist out of his grip.

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