I applied to forty-seven jobs in two days.
Naomi made a spreadsheet. Color-coded. Company names, positions, dates applied, follow-up dates. She was better at this than me — I was still learning how to be a person again.
Monday morning, 9 AM: first application. A small marketing firm looking for a contract coordinator. I had the skills. I had the experience. I hit submit with trembling fingers.
Monday afternoon, 1 PM: second application. A tech startup needing a legal assistant. I'd written more NDAs than I could count. Perfect fit.
Monday evening, 7 PM: third, fourth, fifth. Administrative roles. Operations roles. A project manager position at a nonprofit.
By Tuesday night, I'd sent out twenty-three applications.
By Wednesday afternoon, forty-seven.
And by Wednesday evening, I had received exactly zero responses.
Not one email. Not one phone call. Not even a form rejection.
Just silence.
Naomi tried to reassure me. "It takes time. HR departments are slow. They're probably flooded with applicants."
But I knew better.
I'd been on the other side of hiring. I'd screened candidates for Derek's company. I knew how fast responses could come — or how deliberately they could be withheld.
Someone was blocking me.
I just didn't know who.
Wednesday night, 11 PM.
Naomi was asleep. Miso was curled on the armchair. I sat on the couch with my laptop, refreshing my email every few minutes like a gambler pulling a slot machine lever.
Nothing.
I opened a new tab. Typed my name into Google.
Sloane Hayes.
The first result was my LinkedIn profile. Barely updated. A photo from three years ago, when I still smiled. The second result was a wedding announcement from five years back — Sloane Elizabeth Hayes weds Derek Michael Vance.
The third result made my blood run cold.
It was a post on a professional networking forum. Anonymous. Dated two weeks ago — the day after Derek handed me the divorce papers.
"Heads up to anyone in the industry: Sloane Hayes is unstable. She had a breakdown after her divorce and has been making false accusations against her ex-husband. Proceed with caution if she applies for any roles."
I read it three times.
Unstable. Breakdown. False accusations.
The words were surgical. Designed to destroy without leaving fingerprints. No names mentioned — just enough detail to identify me, just vague enough to avoid defamation lawsuits.
Derek hadn't just emptied my bank account.
He'd emptied my reputation.
I scrolled further. Another post, different forum, similar language. "Sloane Hayes has a history of emotional volatility. Not a team player. Would not recommend."
Another. "I heard she was fired from her last position for inappropriate behavior."
I'd never been fired. I'd never even had a real job with Derek — I was his wife, not his employee. But that didn't matter. The lies were out there now, multiplying like bacteria, infecting every search result, every background check, every potential employer who bothered to look.
Forty-seven applications.
Zero responses.
Now I knew why.
I closed the laptop.
My hands were shaking again. Not from cold this time — from rage. A deep, slow-burning fury that started in my chest and spread outward until my fingers tingled and my ears rang.
Derek had taken my money. My home. My marriage. My time.
Now he was taking my future.
I thought about calling him. Screaming at him. Demanding that he remove the posts, retract the lies, tell the truth for once in his pathetic life.
But I didn't.
Because I knew what he would say. The same thing he'd always said when I confronted him about anything: "You're being dramatic. This is why people don't take you seriously."
He would gaslight me. He would deny everything. And I would be left standing in the wreckage, holding proof that didn't matter, because the damage was already done.
No.
I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.
I opened the laptop again. Took screenshots of every post. Saved the URLs. Documented everything.
Evidence.
In case I needed it.
In case I decided to fight back.
Naomi found me at 2 AM, still sitting on the couch, still staring at the screen.
"Go to bed," she said.
"I can't."
"Did you hear back from any of the jobs?"
"No."
She sat down next to me. I showed her the posts. Her face went through several expressions — confusion, disbelief, anger, and finally a cold, quiet fury that matched my own.
"This is defamation," she said.
"I know."
"You can sue him."
"I can't afford a lawyer."
"Then we find a lawyer who works on contingency."
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. Even if I win, the posts will still be out there. The damage is done."
Naomi was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, "What about the Farrow interview?"
"What about it?"
"That's not a response to an application. That's a direct invitation. Someone reached out to you."
"Which is weird."
"Which is weird," she agreed. "But weird isn't necessarily bad. Maybe someone there knows something about you that Derek couldn't erase."
I wanted to believe her.
I wanted to believe that one door was still open, that one person in this city hadn't read those lies and decided I wasn't worth the risk.
But I'd been married to Derek Vance for five years.
I knew how thorough he was.
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe it's a trap."
"Why would Julian Farrow want to trap you?"
"I don't know that either."
Naomi took my hand. "Then go to the interview and find out. Worst case, you're right where you are now. Best case, you get a job that changes your life."
I looked at the laptop. At the screenshots. At the forty-seven applications that had vanished into the void.
"One interview," I said. "That's all I have left."
"Then make it count."
I closed the laptop.
For the first time in days, I didn't feel like crying.
I felt like fighting.