Page 253 of Love Me in the Dark
I’m not prone to dramatics. I don’t spiral easily.
But this?
This feels like someone replaced the floorboards under my life while I was sleeping and then called me crazy for suggesting that there’s something different.
I drag my old chair over and fire up my piece-of-shit work laptop, still covered in the little scuffs and coffee smudges that feel like mine. Familiar. Safe.
Just need to see something. Anything. Something to prove I’m imagining it. That there’s some sort of cosmic joke being played on me.
I open my payroll portal.
And stop breathing.
There’s a bonus listed. Not huge, but enough tomatter.A number that doesn’t belong in my account. No explanation, no approval chain, just a line item tagged “Performance Reallocation Incentive.”
I check my shift history just to make sure that I didn’t screw up.
I didn’t.
Next, I check my schedule.
My hours have been cleaned up. Reduced. Tidier. My least favorite ticket types are gone from the queue entirely.
My mouth goes dry.
They’re either buttering me up before they fire me… or someone very high up suddenly decided I matter.
Neither is comforting.
I stare at the raise. Completely separate from the bonus that I already have.
It’s the kind of money that makes you wonder if someone accidentally transferred you to the wrong system. Or the kind that comes with strings attached. Strings that tighten when you least expect it and make you vomit after you eat.
I know how this works.
People like me don’t just get things.
We survive for them. Claw and grasp for them. Bleed for them.
Hurt for them.
Until there’s nothing left.
And I’m supposed to believe it’s all just... here?
My fingers twitch toward the new machine again, but I stop myself. If I touch it—if I log in—it becomes real. Official. Permanent.
Instead, I push up from the chair and head to the tiny kitchen. Open the cabinets. Close them again. I’m not hungry.
I’m not anything but wired and wary.
I know how to code my way out of a locked database. I know how to rewire a corrupted OS. I know how to ghost myself off the grid in under thirty minutes.
But I don’t know what to do with a gift.
Especially one I didn’t ask for.
I can’t sit here right now.
