I cannot be forced back into that house with no exit, no self, no space to breathe.
So I search, even as my palms grow damp and my heart hammers, even though I feel like a fraud playing at independence. Even though every step feels like a lie.
Who am I to look for work?
Who am I to walk these streets like a person with options?
I am the woman who cleans. I am the woman who survives.
I am not the woman who chooses.
The boards are blank. The windows are empty. And every empty window makes the fear worse.
When the door is locked and the staff heads to the terrace, I slip out the back entrance. I cannot sit on the terrace. I cannot sit where Maeve might come, might see me, might have to decide whether to ignore me or speak to me or pretend I do not exist.
When the door is locked and the staff heads to the terrace, I slip out the back entrance and sit on the small wooden bench near the back entrance. Alone.
I don’t belong up there anymore.
Maybe I never did.
Today, the crunch of footsteps on gravel breaks the silence.
The footsteps are soft, unhurried. They do not belong to Maeve—her steps are quicker, more decisive. These steps are slower. Hesitant. The steps of someone who is not sure he should be here.
Kieran lowers himself onto the chair beside me, moving it slightly to the side. He does not look at me right away. He settles in, stretches his legs out, lets out a breath.
We sit without speaking for a long moment.
He lets out a long breath. “Don’t give up on Maeve.”
I stare at my folded hands. My knuckles are ridged with tension. I didn’t notice I was clenching them. “I’m not—”
“You are,” he says gently. “You think she hates you now.”
I don’t respond because he isn’t wrong. The wordhateis too strong, maybe. But a tether has broken. The current that was warm between us has gone cold.
“She was way out of line,” he continues. “And she knows it.” He runs a hand through his hair, the same gesture I have seen him make a hundred times when an order is wrong or the espresso machine is acting up. But his hand is slower now. Heavier. “Just… don’t misread her. She was coming from a place of care, even if it came out all wrong.”
Care.
The word tastes strange in my mouth. I roll it around. I try to fit it into the shape of what happened on the terrace. The anger. The sharp voice. The words that landed like blows.You are choosing this.You’re choosing to be a victim. Is that what care looks like? Is that what it means when someone cares about you?
Maybe care wears different faces in different houses, and I have only ever seen the faces that hurt.
I voice the fear that has been consuming me.
“Is she going to fire me?”
The words come out smaller than I intended. They are not the words of a woman who has been working for three months, earning her own money, building her own life. They are the words of a girl standing outside a locked door, waiting to be let back in. They are the words of a wife who knows that everything she has can be taken away in a single sentence.
Kieran turns to me, his eyes wide.
His whole body shifts. His shoulders straighten. His mouth falls open, just slightly, as if I have said something that does not compute.
“What? No.” He sounds genuinely stunned. The words rush out of him, quick and certain. “Of course not, Nora. Why would you think that?”
I look down. My hands are still folded. My knuckles have gone bloodless and numb, frozen into the shape of my panic. I cannot seem to unclench them. “She’s been… avoiding me.”
