Page 90 of A Fae in Finance
I called Jordan and we talked for over an hour about fan theories for the last book in one of our favorite trilogies.
I called my dad and told him about lunch with Lene and Gaheris, about avoiding the Gray Knight in the hallways, about my job—but never about how hopeless I’d begun to feel. One day, I told him another truth instead:
“I regret telling Mom I was trapped here,” I said, staring at the ceiling.
“Mom’s only trying to help,” Dad said. I could hear the steady beeping of a heart rate monitor behind him. He was probably between patients.
“Mom’s stressing me out by asking the same questions about it every day.”
He sighed. “Miri, if anyone can fix this, your mom can.”
“Mom can’t accept when things are unfixable.” I gnawed on my lower lip.
“You need to decide if you like that about her or not,” he snapped.
“Youmarried her,” I said. “I didn’t choose her.”
“Don’t talk about your mother like that, Miriam. She wants to protect you.”
I sighed. “Can you ask her to lay off?” I asked, my tone bitterer than I’d meant it to be.
As always, my dad took pity on me. “I’ll talk to her. But how are you otherwise?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Teaching a class on human methods of washing dishes tonight. The faeries don’t really understand the part where we don’t use magic to clean everything.”
He chuckled, but it was tense. “You shouldn’t be teaching anyone how to wash dishes.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
My dad snorted. “Okay, I have to go see my next patient,” he said. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I said, but he’d already hung up.
I stared at the phone screen. The Games Games Games chat was popping off, Jordan planning a new campaign.
I missed my friends. I missed them, and, as often as I could bear it, I ignored their calls.What if I couldn’t get out?It was better to cut them off quickly than to watch them fade away over time.
Week seven was numbing.
Corey called again, to talk about Kayla.
“Miri, you know it’s easier for women to get this job than men,” he said. “You don’t have to be as qualified as we do.”
“Excuse me?” I put down the pen I’d been playing with.
“Because they’re trying to even out the numbers,” he explained, which was not the part I objected to.
“So you think that I’m not as good as you at our job?”
“No, no, you’re good,” he said quickly. “It was probably just easier for you to get hired. Lower bar, you know.”
And I realized: It didn’t matter how good I was. If I succeeded, I would be considered a fluke. If I failed, it would be expected. There would be no systemic change because I existed: I could only be an anomaly, or a data point proving why women shouldn’t be hired.
Nine and a half years.I needed to make it nine and a half years. If I didn’t rock the boat, if I kept my head down and pretended I didn’t exist—
“Sounds like you think I’m not as good as you,” I said, ignoring the blood rushing in my ears and the knowledge that I should just be quiet.
He huffed. “Miri, stop twisting my words, or I won’t call you anymore.”
