Three

The zipper on my coat broke two years ago, and every winter since, I’ve said I’ll teach myself to sew and replace it. Yet here I am, trudging through dirty snow along the Columbus Drive Bridge, wind ripping open the quilted down to curl its frosty fingers around my middle. With each step I take, a fresh surge of icy gray water squishes between my toes, soaking my socks and making my boots squeak like a rat.

I need new boots. I need a new coat.

I need a new job.

I adjust the strap of my giant purse on my shoulder and press my phone more firmly against my ear as I wrap myself back into my coat. “What you really need is a new life,” I grumble into the phone.

No one is on the other end of the call, but I read an article once (at least, I read the top half of it before the site required me to pay) that said women are less likely to be kidnapped and sold into human trafficking if they’re on the phone. And, while I would love for there to be a living, breathing human there to respond to me, there’s no one I can actually vent to. I’ve worked too many hours and rain checked too many times to keep up with the few friends I made in college.

“Why not call my sister?” I talk into my phone like someone will answer while completely ignoring the fact that I’m clearly the most embarrassingly desperate person in all of Chicago. “Hi, I’m Charlotte Thomas, attorney-at-law,” I say, absolutely nailing an impression of her whiskey-smooth tone in the opening line to her newest ad. “And your case is my cause. Call me and start your journey to victory.”

Unfortunately for me, the only calls Charlotte will fit into her perfect lawyer life over in Winnetka, the area’s wealthiest suburb, are from her skeezy, extremely guilty clients.

“Maybe if I rob a bank…” I mutter to no one. “I do need another job. I can never go back to Posh Pulse.”

My phone responds by vibrating against my cheek, and I hold it out in front of me as I approach the bus stop, a wave of hope momentarily warming my stiff fingers.

Mom: You have a date!

Mom: His name is Ernest. He’s 5’2” and still lives at home.

Mom: But really, Hannah. You have to start somewhere.

“I have a boyfriend!” I shout. A woman waiting at the same stop turns her back to me as I approach, angrily smashing my thumbs against my phone in a response my mom will interpret as passive-aggressive no matter my actual tone.

The bus arrives right on time, grinding to a stop near a pile of snow, and I wait for everyone to file in and out before trudging up the stairs, scanning my pass, and sagging into the nearest empty window seat.

“How did I screw up my life so badly?” I whisper to my reflection in the fingerprint-smudged glass. This time, I can’t stop the tears, and they wash salty warm down my cheeks.

“No, Hannah, stop it.” I clear my throat and sniff, wiping my nose with my wet coat sleeve. “Don’t talk to yourself like that. Don’t sit here and cry.” I take a deep breath and pull my shoulders back, letting my exhale fog the window like cleansing smoke. “You haven’t messed up your life. The pitch was just a small setback,” I say to the dark brown eyes blinking back at me from above freckle-smudged cheeks. “See the door and open it.”

Doubt slides into the silence that stretches between me and my reflection, scratching at the scab that’s barely formed over my wounded pride. “Okay, sure,” I continue, feeling like I need to defend myself against the unasked questions my anxiety threatens to barrage me with. “Maybe that wasn’t the door . There will be another door. A bigger, better door. A door that doesn’t leave you talking to yourself on a bus like you’re possessed.”

The bus slows, maneuvering to its next stop, and my gaze flicks up to the street signs.

Grand and Franklin.

Chad.

Before I talk myself out of it, I scramble to my feet and squeeze out the door before it closes all the way, my far-from-watertight boots landing directly into a slush puddle.

I shiver and my boots squeak as I cross Franklin and jog up two blocks to stand in front of Chad’s apartment building, its twenty stories of glass gleaming in the streetlights like an iceberg. I brush the melting snow from my shoulders, adjust my purse strap, and attempt to shake the street water out of my boots before I walk to the front double doors and press the buzzer. One door opens, the doorman nodding as I enter, his long black coat lint-free and snuggly warm in the heated foyer.

“Hi, Stuart, I’m here to see Chad,” I say, my wet boots sounding like a hungry rodent chasing me through the lounge toward the elevators. “Chad Bartley. Sixteenth floor…”

The doorman grunts his disinterest and lumbers back behind his desk. I would think that coming here at least once a week for eight months would get me some sort of polite response, but Stuart is a hard nut to crack.

“Once I have my own key fob, we’ll stop meeting like this.” My laughter skips across the concrete floor and leather chairs, landing flat at his feet. “Not that I expect Chad to give me a key. I mean, it’s been long enough for everything to start feeling serious, but we haven’t talked about it like that. Keeping it relaxed, you know. No big titles or anything. Don’t want to scare him off.” I hold up my hands like bear paws and claw the air.

With a yawn, the doorman crosses his arms over his barrel chest and leans back in his seat.

“Okay, well, it was nice talking to you, Stuart.” I let out another shrill laugh and escape into the elevator. I press the button for Chad’s floor and pull out my phone to text him that I’m on my way up when a wave of coquettishness stops me. “Make it a surprise.” I smile, pushing my hood back and doing my best to smooth down my hair. “Something to turn this shitty day around.”

The elevator comes to a halt, and the doors open soundlessly as I press my cold fingers to the skin beneath my eyes, willing the post-cry puffiness away. Unlike my shoebox apartment with its paper-thin walls and baseboard heaters that cost a fortune but never get the place above sixty-six degrees, Chad’s building is warm. Warm and…empty. I look up and down the deserted hallway, my stomach flip-flopping with another racy idea.

I bite my lip and shrug out of my coat. If there’s one thing that can take my mind off the disastrous pitch and my complete and total career failure, it’s getting laid. A grab-the-headboard, wake-the-neighbors bang session is exactly what I need to get out of my head. My own kind of sex magick. Again, I check my surroundings, my cheeks already hot with the thought of taking Chad for a ride, and unbutton the row of pearl buttons along the front of my dress to shimmy it down.

Footsteps sound in the distance, and I collect my dress with one hand and drape my coat and bag over my shoulder with the other as I rush to Chad’s door and press the doorbell. My heart races while I wait, looking down at my mismatched bra and panties.

Doesn’t matter , I tell myself. I won’t have them on for much longer.

“Plus, this vibe is so hot. Chad is going to die.” I suck in my belly, stick out my boobs, and tilt my hips in the perfect pose, completely empowered and emboldened by my sudden surge of sex appeal.

Who needs a job when my boyfriend’s making bank and has a gorgeous apartment in the city? I bet he asks me to move in. This will totally push him over the edge. Screw brand management. Screw the expensive degree I’ll never pay off. I can take a break from work. Find something new. Figure out my passion while I play house girlfriend and pretend to clean in nothing but a tiny black apron and heels. God, that would be a nice change of pace.

The door swings open, and a juicy wave of Dior Sauvage wafts through the air, mingling with the subtle scent of sweat and skin as Chad leans shirtless against the doorframe. The sight of his bare chest, hard abs, and the deliciously sharp sex lines that create a perfect V disappearing beneath his jeans sends a tantalizing shiver down my spine.

“Hey, baby,” I purr, holding my dress up in front of me before dropping it on the floor.

His blue eyes flare as he whispers my name. “Oh, Hannah…”

I let my coat and purse drop, the soft thud when they hit the hardwood barely registering as I close the space between us and press my bare skin against his. My hands wander along his waxed chest, his firm muscles rippling under my touch. My fingers trail lower, teasing along the waistband of his denim.

“I need you. I need you so bad, baby,” I murmur and kiss the corner of his lips, my mouth tingling with the anticipation of his tongue brushing against mine.

“Is it Nobu?” a voice calls out, high and bright and distinctly female.

I tense, my blood chilling, my fingers halting around the button of his jeans. The woman tucks herself under his arm, her fiery-red curls falling across his bicep. I snatch my hands away and stumble backward, taking in her flushed cheeks and bare legs like porcelain stems stretching out from under his signed Jay Cutler jersey.

Chad’s eyes find Red, and he gives her a smile before returning his gaze to me. “You should have sent me a text, Hannah.”

“I should have… What? Chad, you—you—” I stutter, taking another step back, my boots squeaking against the floor. “I’m not even allowed to touch that jersey.”

My thoughts spin, a violent tornado of questions and—

“Oh, fuck,” I mumble, a black cloud of realization settling over me. “Oh, fuck !” I step into my discarded dress and try to yank it up and hide myself from Chad and his…his… “You’re cheating on me?”

He tilts his head to the side, his sandy-brown hair falling over his creased brow. “I thought we were on the same page, babe. We’re not together like that.”

Red leans against his shoulder and offers me a pitying smile as I struggle to get my arm into the sleeve, before—

Fuck it!

I bend over and grab my coat and purse in an attempt to cover myself. “I thought…I thought we were serious. It’s been eight months.”

Chad lets out a snort, and Red hides a smile behind her well-manicured hand. “Babe, look, maybe this is a good thing. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while.”

No, no, this isn’t happening. Not tonight. Not right now.

My life cannot completely fall apart.

“Things aren’t really working out,” he continues. “You and I…we’re just not compatible. I’m a VP now, and I’m hoping to make partner next year, and I’m looking for someone more…driven.”

“What?” My grip slackens, and my dress slips down to my belly button before I catch it and drag it back up. “I’ve spent the last three years working my ass off, and—” My gaze lands on Red, her plumped lips pinched to keep from outright laughing. “Excuse me, could you give us some privacy, please?”

Red shrugs a thin shoulder and blinks at me through her eyelash extensions.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I mean,” Chad says, adjusting his arm around Red. “You work hard, but you’re just…”

“I’m what?” I ask, anger burning my cheeks. “I’m what , Chad?”

“You’re so desperate and smothering. You can’t take a compliment, and you’re, like, really focused on what you don’t have.” He runs his hand through his hair, and I send up a silent wish that it all falls out. “I’m growing and evolving and shit, and you’re just—”

“Stuck,” Red offers with another shrug. “It’s that scarcity mindset, hon. I see it in my practice all the time.”

I ball my hands into fists in my discarded clothes, tears streaming in hot rivers down my cheeks. “I might not be perfect, but I’m trying,” I choke out around a sob. “And I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by a woman in her underwear.”

“You’re in your underwear too, hon,” Red says, pressing her palms together and resting her chin on her slender fingers. “We’re both just out here, baring it all, searching for that nurturing abundance.”

“Fuck you.” I’m crying now, ugly crying, and tripping over the dress that slipped down once again and is pooling around my ankles. “Fuck both of you.” I sob. “But mostly you, Chad. You—you—you fuck !”

I storm to the elevator and bash the down arrow. The elevator doors open, and I throw myself inside, my back turned to their pitying gazes. The mirrored walls reflect infinite versions of me, all blubbering, racoon-eyed messes.

“I am not desperate!” I shout, albeit desperately.

The doors close, and I swipe the mascara melting down my cheeks and try to wiggle back into the dress I accidentally pulled up backward in the absolute embarrassment that is currently my life.

I finally get one arm through the correct sleeve when the elevator reopens. A man enters, the hood of his jacket covering everything but his strong jaw and full lips. He clears his throat and politely turns his broad shoulders to face the unmirrored button panel.

“Here you go.” His voice is rich and deep and warm as he extends his muscled arm behind his back.

“Thanks.” My fragile whisper breaks apart between us, and I’m not sure he heard me as I take the handkerchief he offers. I get my other arm through its sleeve and blow my nose into the soft monogrammed linen before we reach the lobby.

“Keep it,” he rumbles with a slight lift of his thick shoulders.

The elevator doors open, and I stuff the handkerchief into my handbag and rush past him, yanking my coat on over my unbuttoned dress.

The doorman stands at the double doors, his thin brows lifted, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “Good night, Miss Thomas.”

“Screw you, Stuart!” I shout and hurry out into the cold.

The snow has turned to sleet, and I brace myself against the icy gusts.

“So much for being a house girlfriend,” I mutter, the frozen rain stinging my cheeks. I stare down at the sidewalk and keep my arms out at my sides to steady myself against the layer of ice building on the pavement as I trudge back to the bus stop.

You’re 100 percent going to have to move back to Kankakee, live in your childhood bedroom, date tiny hobbit men, and become another Gen Z statistic.

“I’m a failure. A total failure.”

I really shouldn’t be surprised. Pretty much every one of my relationships has ended in some version of being left for another woman. It’s practically genetic. My dad cheated on my mom and left our family forever to be with a swimsuit model from Orlando.

And isn’t your mom stuck and desperate too?

She has been working the same job since she dropped out of college and married my dad. Plus, she also still gets a perm and hairsprays her fluffy bangs the exact way she did in her high school yearbook photo.

“Oh god,” I groan. “I’m becoming my mother.”

Headlights gleam against the slick sidewalk, and I look up in time to see the bus drift to the stop two blocks ahead.

“Wait!” I raise my hands, flapping like a seagull as I run to meet the bus, wet boots slipping in the ice-covered snow, purse swinging like an anchor around my shoulder.

Through the windshield, I lock eyes with the driver, and I’m almost there, only a block away, when I hear the mechanical squeak of the door.

“No!” A fresh sob grips my throat as the bus pulls away from the curb and lumbers down the street. I slow to a stop and dig through my bag, searching for my phone to check the schedule even though I know there won’t be another bus for twenty minutes.

As I paw through my oversize purse, the delicate handkerchief slips out and is caught by a stiff gust of wind. It flutters away, straight into a pile of dingy snow a few feet in front of me.

“That’s literally the nicest thing I own.” I sigh and shuffle forward to retrieve it.

Just as I’m about to reach it, my boot hits an unsalted patch of sidewalk. My legs fly out from under me, and I crash onto my back. Pain explodes through my body as my head smacks against the unforgiving concrete.

“Ow! Fuck!” For a moment, I just lie there, defeated, the cold seeping into my bones, the sky above a slate-gray blur.

I finally roll onto my stomach, my vision swimming as I push myself up onto my hands and knees. “This night can’t possibly get any worse,” I choke out, snow biting my fingertips.

The edge of the linen handkerchief flutters just in front of me, and I reach for it, pausing as a glint of silver shines amid the gray snow. My hand is red and stiff with cold, but I can’t stop myself from digging for the coin. Hysterical laughter climbs up my throat while I scramble for loose change.

You’re so desperate.

I let out a barking laugh at Chad’s judgment that’s now become my own, adding itself to my arsenal of internal critiques that have always been better at knocking me down than building me up.

I snatch the silver from the snow.

I am desperate.

So very clearly desperate that I need any bit of money I can find. But it’s not a coin.

I tilt my chin and wince at the pain jabbing the back of my head.

“The tarot card.” Foreboding squeezes my chest as my fingers trace the shimmering silver pentagram from the back of the card, glinting in the streetlights.

I rise to my feet, almost in slow motion, my movements weighed down with confusion and a throbbing headache that pulses in sync with my heartbeat. My balance wavers, and I sway on my feet like I’m at sea. I take a breath and steady myself. I know what it’s going to say. I know it’s going to tell me to see the door and open it. I know that it’s all nonsense. Isn’t it?

I smooth down my rumpled dress and bite the inside of my cheek. I can’t shake the apprehension tightening my chest, quaking through my limbs.

This time when I flip the card over, words do not appear. Instead, it’s a clear and vibrant image of a woman on a throne. Her expression is still and serene as she gazes into a mirror. Her flowy dress is a vibrant red that matches the swollen pomegranates framing her, and a delicate tiara rests on top of her braided hair. Surrounding the throne is a lush garden that bursts with yellows, blues, and greens against a deep-cobalt sky speckled with twinkling stars.

I stare, transfixed, warmth seeping into my fingertips in a gentle swell that washes up my arm like the first rays of sun after a snowstorm. It pours into my chest, comforting yet unnerving. My vision starts to blur, and the edges of the world soften, the colors bleeding into one another.

Beneath my feet, the solid concrete shudders, and the mantra—my mantra—the one that didn’t work, the one to which I pinned all my hopes, echoes loudly and insistently in my ears, its words a buoy keeping me afloat as the world around me comes undone.

See the door and open it .

As if bewitched by my thoughts, the snow-covered Chicago sidewalk swings open. The world tilts, and I stumble forward and fall head over heels into endless velvety black. A scream catches in my throat. The card falls through with me, the image of the woman on the throne flashing in and out of focus, her eyes following mine, a Cheshire smile stretched across her lips.