The rain didn't care. It came down in heavy, soaking through Mae's hair, her collar, the thin fabric of her blazer. She sat at the bus stop with her hands open in her lap, doing nothing with them. The plastic seat beneath her was cold and wet. She didn't move.
The road ahead was empty.
"You are a waste of a position."
His voice surfaced without warning, the way it had been doing for the past hour. She hadn't invited it. It just kept coming back.
"Who did you sleep with to land this job?"
She blinked. A drop of rain slid off her lashes.
She hadn't cried. She couldn't. She had just... stopped. Something in her chest had gone very quiet, the way a room goes quiet after something breaks inside it.
"Look at her. All of you, look."
She remembered the way the others had looked anywhere but at her. it was humiliating for them as well. She hadn't blamed them.
She had needed to explain herself. Had wanted to say: I haven't slept in four days. My mother is on machines that breathe for her, and I'm the one paying for them. I checked the document. And I sent the right one. It was not my fault. But even if she said those words, would he listen? Would anyone listen to her?
But he had already walked away before she opened her mouth. And she hadn't said any of it.
"Pack your shit. Or don't. Someone else can throw it in the trash for you."
She had just stood there. The room had cleared around her And then she had walked out, and kept walking, and ended up here, in the rain, at a bus stop she didn't even need, going nowhere.
She had worked herself half to death for that job. Every late night, every skipped lunch, every hour of overtime she could squeeze out of a day already stretched past its limit. All of it so she could keep paying the hospital. So she could keep her mother's heart beating a little longer.
A little longer.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out slowly, the way her body moved now, like everything weighed more than it should. "Hello? Is this Miss Mae?"
"Mm."
"I'm calling to inform you that your mother... she has passed away." She sat very still.
The thunder came a second later, low and rolling. She looked at the phone for a moment. Then she set it face down on the wet seat beside her, gently.
One tear, just one. It slid out from the corner of her eye and got lost in the rain before it made it past her cheek. She stood up like a lifeless body, Purposeless.
All her effort. All her sacrifices have gone in vain. Her mother was gone.
The sky was gray, just gray, like someone had wrung the color out of the world and forgotten to wring it back. People walked beside her, laughing, hurrying, some enjoying the rain, but all Mae could think was how did life turn out like this.
Mae stood near the casket with her arms at her sides and a white flower in her hand; she hadn't been able to put down yet. One by one, people came. Touched her arm. Said things.
"She was a good woman."
"She's in a better place."
"I'm so sorry."
Mae nodded to each one. A small dip of the chin. A smile that didn't do anything. She barely noticed when most of them left.
"Miss Mae?"
She turned. A man in a gray suit stood a few feet away, steel-rimmed glasses, a black folder held to his chest like a shield. Early sixties. The kind of face built for delivering bad news carefully.
"Jonathan Harvell. Your mother's attorney."
She waited. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to intrude. But there are matters we need to discuss." He opened the folder. "Your mother had an existing private debt. Fifty thousand. Your father originally signed it. After he passed, it transferred to her. She was repaying it monthly."
Mae's eyes dropped to the document he pulled out. "With her passing," he said, quieter now, "the liability moves to next of kin."
A beat. "Me," she said. "I'm afraid so."
He held the paper out. She took it without looking at him. Her fingers didn't shake. Her breathing stayed even.
"You don't have to decide anything today," he added, as that helped.
"Thank you," she said. He nodded and walked away.
She stood alone in the cemetery, holding the document and the flower at the same time. The numbers on the paper blurred slightly. She blinked them back into focus.
Then she turned, laid the flower on the casket, and watched strangers fill her mother's grave with soil.
The rain was worse by the time the cab dropped her off. She stepped out without an umbrella, the funeral file pressed to her chest, and walked straight into it. By the time she pushed open her apartment door, she was soaked through.
The light flickered once before it caught.
She dropped the file on the table without looking at it and went to the kitchen. Her throat was dry. She hadn't eaten and hadn't had water. Her body was running on something that wasn't quite strength anymore.
She reached for a glass and stopped.
There was a small white box on the counter. A note beside it.
"Happy birthday, Mae. And make sure to pay your rent early this time." — M.
She stared at the note.
Her birthday. She had forgotten it completely. And now that she remembered, she couldn't understand why it was supposed to matter.
She opened the box. The cake inside had slumped to one side, edges dried and cracking, a faint green shadow starting at one corner. Something pulled from yesterday's shelf, most likely. About to be thrown out.
She almost laughed. She didn't.
Instead, she found the stubby candle stuck in the box, pressed it into the middle of the collapsing cake, and lit it.
The flame held, small and steady, pushing a little warmth into the stale kitchen. Mae leaned against the counter and watched it.
Her jaw loosened. Her eyes blurred. The candle shrank.
"I don't want this life," she said, barely above a whisper. "I want a new one."
Her boss's voice surfaced without warning. 'Waste of space. Embarrassment.'
Her mother's cold, still hands.
'The debt now transfers to you.'
"I hate this dog-like life." Her voice cracked on the last word. "If only he knew. If only anyone knew." She blew out the candle.
The smoke curled up and disappeared.
And then she dropped. Her knees hit the kitchen floor, and her arms wrapped around herself, and everything she had held in all day came out at once, loud and ugly and completely out of her control. "Agh!" Breaking. The sound of something splitting that had been held together too long by sheer will and nothing else.
"I need a new life!" She begged for a long time in the miserable state, and then she stopped and she slowly got up as if to end it all.
-----
Damien sat behind his desk, one hand flat on the table, the other pressed against his temple. Papers spread in front of him, half-crumpled, red-marked, going nowhere. He had been staring at them for hours. The numbers didn't align. The dates were wrong. The version that got filed wasn't the final one. "Sir?"
He didn't look up.
A maintenance worker stood in the doorway, two cups of coffee, building keys in hand. "It's almost midnight. You staying or should I set the alarm?"
"Leave it."
The man set a cup on the desk and left without another word. The door clicked shut. The lobby light flickered once.
Then, downstairs, the front door opened.
A figure stepped in from the rain. Tall. Long black coat, hood pulled low, face swallowed in shadow. They didn't look at the cameras. They walked straight to the elevator with slow, measured steps, like someone who had already decided everything.
They pressed the button. The number 13 lit up. The elevator closed.
A few minutes later, the doors opened again.
Mae stepped out. She walked down the hallway without hurrying.
Inside, she already knew Damien wouldn't believe her, especially when the cause of the problem was his brother; he would never let his brother face consequences, and the moral compass was for everyone else, and it didn't apply to him.
She had come to put the truth in front of him. The final version of the clause she had submitted was time-stamped, logged, and emailed two nights before the meeting. A version that had never been used. A version someone had made sure never reached him.
His brother. The one who walked in smugly every morning and never answered for anything.
After tonight, she didn't care what happened next. She just couldn't leave without saying it. Without making him see it, even for a second. That was the only thing she had left to protect.
Her dignity, and then nothing.
Damien was still at his desk when he heard it.
A soft ding from the elevator. He went still. It was past midnight. Nobody was supposed to be here.
He stood, walked to the window, and pulled the blinds. The building across was dark. Thunder split the sky, and with it, the lights cut out completely.
"Dammit."
He grabbed his phone, turned on the flashlight, and stepped into the hallway.
And heard footsteps. Coming toward him. He raised the light.
'Mae.' Soaked, pale, her eyelashes matted together, lips cracked. She looked like someone who had already been through something unsurvivable today. "What the hell are you—"
"Don't." Her voice cracked out of her like a whip.
He stepped back without meaning to.
She kept walking toward him until there was almost nothing between them. The flashlight threw long shadows across her face. "You destroyed me," she said. "And for what? To protect him? So your pride didn't have to bleed?"
He opened his mouth.
"I have proof." She cut him off. She pressed the folder against his chest, not gently. "You'll read it. You'll see exactly what happened. And it won't change anything, will it?"
Her voice dropped. Went flat and cold.
"Because I'm not here for your apology."
She leaned in, just slightly. "I want you to live a long life, Mr. Damien. I want you to go home tonight and wake up tomorrow and keep going, year after year." A pause. "I want you to remember my face every time you almost feel good about yourself. I want to be the thing that makes the quiet unbearable." He stared at her.
"What you did to me in that office, in front of everyone, knowing full well who was really responsible and still putting it all on me. I won't forget it. Not in this lifetime." Her voice didn't shake. It was worse than that. It was steady. "You didn't just fire me. You killed whatever was left inside me." She looked at him like he was nothing. "Congratulations on that." She pushed him and started to walk again, and that was when she saw it.
A figure at the far end of the hallway. Standing still in the dark, arm raised, a glint of metal aimed directly at Damien's back.
Mae didn't think. She didn't weigh it. Her body just moved. She stepped into the path. Bang.
The impact drove her back. She hit the floor hard, the wet smack of it echoing down the hall. Blood spread beneath her fast. The figure was already gone.
Damien lay stunned beside her, blinking, and then he saw her, and everything else stopped.
"No." He dropped to his knees. "No, no, Mae—"
His hands hovered over her, useless and shaking, not knowing where to press. She was looking at the ceiling. Then, slowly, at him.
Her lips moved. He leaned close to hear her. "I hope you remember this day and suffer for the rest of your miserable life." His face broke.
She reached up and caught his collar, fingers barely closing around the fabric, pulling him down just an inch closer. "I hope you choke on your pride."
Her eyes stayed open a moment longer, looking at him like he was something very small and very far away.
Then she was gone.