The city's evening hum followed Cynthia all the way home, a constant reminder that life didn't stop just because her workday ended. She unlocked the door to her small apartment with a dramatic flourish, half-expecting the building to clap for her survival. No such luck. The apartment greeted her with its usual chaos: laundry baskets overflowing,a stack of unopened mail teetering on the counter,and her cat mr whiskers,glaring at her
"Don't give me that look," Cynthia muttered, setting her bag down and kicking off her heels. "I survived another day without any printer explosions. That's worth something, right?"
Mr. Whiskers blinked slowly, clearly unimpressed. Cynthia sighed. Sometimes she wondered if the cat secretly judged her life choices more than Alexander Kane ever could.
She dropped onto the couch, kicking the pile of laundry aside, and pulled out her phone.
She wandered into the kitchen to fix a cup of tea, only to find her spice rack in a state of mild rebellion: containers toppled, a faint sprinkling of paprika dusting the counter. "Perfect," she muttered
Once the tea was brewed, Cynthia curled up on the couch with her laptop, thinking maybe she could finally relax and catch up on a show or two.
Her apartment, in contrast, was her tiny fortress of control—messy, yes, but hers. She could decide which papers stayed on the counter, when the laundry got done, and where Mr. Whiskers could sleep without interference from anyone else. No boss, no deadlines, no hovering colleagues. Just her—and a quiet sense of ownership that felt almost revolutionary.
Cynthia's thoughts drifted further, landing on the small, framed photo on her desk: a picture of her younger self with her parents, laughing on a rainy day in the park. They had always been her anchor
Her tea forgotten, Cynthia leaned back, letting herself think without judgment. She realized she hadn't really stopped to breathe in hours—maybe days. The city moved relentlessly, the office demanded more, and yet here she was, finally in a space that belonged entirely to her. A place where mistakes weren't catastrophic, where laughter could happen for no reason at all, and where she could be the slightly awkward, overly sarcastic person she really was.
Mr. Whiskers leapt onto her lap, startling her. "Fine, fine. You want attention too? I get it," she muttered, adjusting him comfortably. The cat's purring was almost therapeutic. Cynthia laughed quietly, shaking her head. "one day I'm going to write a manual: How to Survive Work, City Life, and Cats."
As she scrolled through her emails at home she noticed something odd. A message from the office, timestamped late afternoon: Reminder: Client files need final review tomorrow. Ensure everything is in order. Nothing alarming, just routine. But for some reason, Cynthia's mind couldn't stop racing.