I was never fond of the smell of cigarettes, but the back-alley’s cold air made up for it. It had been a night that stretched itself thin—longer than it had any right to be—and I wasn’t the only one sneaking a moment’s reprieve from the restaurant’s bustle. The chaos inside was still audible through a door slightly ajar, but here, we were hidden from our manager’s hawkish gaze. A temporary haven before the night’s real trial began.
Cleanup. Some four hundred plates, a tangle of cutlery, and more glasses than I could care to count. Not to mention the pots and pans—those grimy, battered things that never soaked long enough for their sins to slough off.
"Wasn’t efficient," our manager had said, his words dry and squared like something out of a corporate handbook. Better, in his estimation, to scrub until our hands bled than let the quiet alchemy of warm water do its slow, miraculous work. I’d tried, briefly, to imagine explaining it to him—the simplicity, the elegance of letting things happen in their own time—but the thought itself was exhausting. Too many new ideas in his head, too little space for ours.
Maybe I sighed too loudly, or maybe my irritation had a weight to it that hung in the air. Either way, one of my coworkers turned to glance my way. I didn’t usually hope for things, but in moments like this, I hoped they wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t that I disliked them. Not really. But my patience, my energy for people, was finite. And these stolen moments between chaos were better spent staring at my phone than rehashing the same tired grievances.
Yes, that one dinner guest had been an ass. Yes, we were underpaid. And yes, the dishes would be a nightmare tonight. I knew it all too well. What point was there in saying it again, over and over, just to hear it echo back?
But, of course, explaining as much out loud was unthinkable. So when the newest addition to our little band of kitchen refugees—Celia, a university student with a crooked smile and an unlit cigarette—extended her half-burnt offering, I already knew my quiet was doomed.
“Looks like you could use a drag, senior,” she said, her tone somewhere between teasing and kind.
Her smile had a warmth to it that might have been dangerous once, back when I still made the mistake of letting pretty smiles tie knots in my stomach. But time and policy had taught me better. No workplace relationships. Simple enough to say. Harder to live by.
I’d learned that lesson when my best friend got canned for sneaking around with a waitress. Not even on company time, or so he’d claimed. Not that his words had ever meant much. At least they hadn’t when he promised we’d stay in touch. Promises were flimsy things, easily worn thin by distance and unanswered texts. I had learned that as well.
Eventually, I stopped bothering, too.
Still, Celia’s smile wasn’t something to be bitter about. So I took the cigarette from her, though I had no intention of smoking it. “Thanks,” I said, mostly because it was easier than saying anything else.
I hoped she would leave with that, but as she mimed a drag from a cigarette she was no longer holding, her grin too telling, I could only shake my head. “Fine, you got me,” I said, the words as polite as I could make them. I held the cigarette back towards her with a smile that I hoped looked genuine. “It gives me a bad cough. Shouldn’t.”
The smile didn’t last long. Not with the addition of a third voice to our small conversation.
“Don’t waste your time, Greenhorn.”
Jim. Of course it was Jim. He sidled into my corner of the alley, leaning far too close to Celia, draping an arm across her shoulders like some cartoon villain. Short and stocky, Jim was the kind of guy who made life harder for every other short guy in the world. His smirk practically demanded a punch.
“Victor here’s too good for us regular folk,” he continued, his voice all smug bravado. “Likes his phone more than people. Always hunched over, reading instead of talking like a normal person.”
I rolled my eyes, though only in the privacy of my head. He said it like reading was some mortal sin. As if flipping through endless social media posts, talking shit about people you barely knew while spitting phlegm on the pavement was the pinnacle of human culture. And, as usual, he enforced his little jabs around the newest faces, knowing they had no choice but to play along.
Or so he thought.
“Oh, what are you reading?” Celia asked, her voice cutting clean through Jim’s noise. She slipped out from under his arm with an easy, natural grace, like the weight of his presence didn’t register.
It caught me off guard. Her curious gaze had found its mark, and despite the stronger waft of cigarette smoke as she leaned in, it felt like the wrong moment to complain.
“Probably some weeb virgin shit,” Jim said, barking a laugh. He folded his arms across his chest, his muscles tense with the effort of being ignored. He reminded me of one of those small dogs that yaps louder the less attention you give them.
What’s this? My inner voice narrated the scene with biting commentary. Draping your arm over her didn’t make her swoon at your manly prowess? Shocking.
But, as usual, I kept my mouth shut. Too much effort.
“Like comics?” Celia pressed, never glancing Jim’s way. Her tone carried a genuine interest that was impossible to ignore. “Or Eastern stuff?” She spun her arm in an exaggerated motion, her fist swinging wide. “Rubber-rubber punch?” she said, then shifted to touch a finger to her temple with mock seriousness. “Or… X-Men, assemble!”
I couldn’t help it. I choked out a laugh, the kind that sneaks past before you know it’s coming. Celia grinned, and for a moment, the cold alley didn’t feel quite so oppressive. Even if the smell of smoke still lingered.
Oh, old, traitorous heart of mine, don’t start fluttering now. I’d promised myself I’d stay out of the dating game for a long, long while. Maybe forever. The last time had left its mark: my ex of five years leaving me for a mutual friend. “Don’t see a future together,” she’d said, as if that conversation wouldn’t have been better held before I found her tangled in someone else’s sheets.
Not much to ask for, is it?
Jim muttered something colorful under his breath, his parting gift as he kicked the trash container on his way out. “Fuckin’ weirdos.”
Classic Jim. Always the first to crow about workplace dating being a bad idea—loud and obnoxious, just to make sure everyone heard him—but let a cute girl show up and he’d start circling like a dog that hadn’t been walked in weeks.
If there are any young men out there in dire need of a life guidance, look no further than Jim. Then do everything in your power to go the opposite direction. You’ll end up a decent human being by default.
Further down the alley, he started barking at some of the other juniors, demanding a cigarette in the kind of voice that makes you wonder how he’s not already hoarse. I didn’t even bother hiding my eye-roll this time.
“Such an asshole,” Celia huffed in agreement, her voice only just low enough.
The comment pulled an unbidden smile from my lips. “Don’t let him hear you say that,” I warned. “Or you’ll find out just how tightly his puckered sphincter can clench.”
“Well, hello there, Shakespeare,” Celia snickered. “I’m used to ‘fucker,’ ‘bitch,’ and ‘asshole’ around here. ‘Puckered sphincter’ is fresh.” Her gaze dropped to the phone still in my hand. “So, what’s the real fine poetry you’re reading? Keats? Angelou?”
“Visual novel,” I said, flipping the screen to show her. The image displayed a misty mountain range, with a staircase carved from jagged stone stretching endlessly upward. A lone figure stood there, a young man caught in the limbo of waiting for my next choice. To push on or retreat. “More of a game than any fine literature. Level up. Cultivate. Choices matter kind of deal.”
Celia leaned closer, her head tilted. Beneath the sharp scent of cigarette smoke, there was something else—something faintly sweet. “I knew it was going to be something eastern.” She grinned triumphantly. “Martial arts? Oh, what’s it called… Wuxia?”
“More like a Xianxia wearing the hat of a Wuxia,” I said, mindlessly clicking the Press On button. A heartbeat later, the character keeled over, felled by some kind of bad miasma. No warning. No way to avoid it. I groaned as I mashed the reset button. “All the familiar tropes are there—ancient sects, politics, demonic practitioners—a battle of good versus evil. But the more you scratch beneath the surface, the more it starts to seem…like a gauntlet for something bigger? You know, immortals, demonic beasts, mythical creatures creeping at the edges of what otherwise seems like a normal martial arts story. A need to constantly face odds that seem damned near impossible to beat…”
I let my exasperation bleed into my voice. How many times had I reset this game? A thousand? Ten thousand? The counter didn’t even matter anymore.
I glanced up at Celia with a tired smile. “Nerdy stuff.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” she said, crouching down beside me. “Trust me, you have to try to be less fun than what’s going on over there.” Forced laughter echoed from the far end of the alley, punctuated by Jim’s gravelly bark and the scrape of a boot against loose stones. They said it might snow tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Maybe I should try that game,” she continued, her voice lighter than the night deserved.
“Don’t,” I cautioned, already clicking through the menu to start fresh. “It’s a shitty game. Less skill, more memorization. The kind of thing that’ll make you hate yourself if you let it.”
“And yet you’re playing it?” Her eyebrow arched, a look of quiet amusement as she leaned over to look at what I was doing.
“I’ve come too far to quit now,” I said, speed-mashing through the tutorial. The same dull choices, the same dreary text, as though mocking me for my persistence. I knew them by heart. “Besides, I… guess I like the characters?”
That was an understatement. The story had caught me hook, line, and sinker. Even if the mechanics were shit, I’d keep playing.
“That so?” Celia didn’t mock me for it, though there was something playful in her tone. She watched quietly as the introductory cutscenes flickered by on the screen, their sparse animations somehow endearing in their simplicity.
“Isn’t there usually a walkthrough for games like this though?” she asked after a moment. “Online, I mean.”
“I doubt anyone is dumb enough to play this game but me,” I said. “I haven’t heard of anyone, at least. Besides, even if someone was, the mechanics are so convoluted it wouldn’t matter. Look.”
I tilted the screen so she could see. A grand courtyard filled the frame, bathed in the dim light of pre-dawn.
“This is the start of the game,” I explained. “Usually, I arrive here at midday once the tutorial ends. But I must’ve clicked something different this time, or faster, and now everything’s off. No NPCs. No dialogue options. Just this.”
I flicked the phone off with a sharp click of my tongue, sliding it into my pocket like a gambler folding a losing hand. “Like I said. Shitty game.”
“Then how are you supposed to beat it?” she asked, her curiosity unflagging. She sat closer than I’d realized, her presence a faint reminder that there was a world outside of the screen. “If everything keeps changing all the time?”
“Memorization,” I said without hesitation. Truth be told, my mind was already turning over the choices I hadn’t tried, the ones I’d been too cautious—or too careless—to explore.
“But I thought you said—”
I nodded. “The choices are never the same, but the world and the characters are. That’s what makes it so good. So bad, but so good.”
She didn’t look convinced, so I pressed on. “That mountain path you saw earlier? There were two of the Tang clan’s needles embedded in one of the trees. They formed a cross.” I held up my fingers in a rough X. “If I’d noticed them earlier—” if I hadn’t been distracted, “—I could’ve spent some energy to circulate my Qi before heading up the stairs. Would’ve given me a little more time to react to the miasma.”
“You need to pay attention to needles in trees to play?” Celia grimaced, pulling back slightly as though the very thought of it offended her. “Yeah, no. I’ll pass. That does sound like a shitty game.”
I laughed, a quiet, tired thing that came more from relief than amusement. “You’re smarter than me, then.”
I leaned my head back against the rough brick wall, staring up at the blinking light that flickered like it had its own private grudge against the world. The evening sky beyond was a muted gray, stubbornly refusing to reveal a single star. It really looked like it would snow tonight, but my mind was elsewhere.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Actually…If I’ve reached the orthodox faction earlier this time, post-tutorial, what is stopping me from hitting up the alchemy shops before the obligatory trials began? I’d already cataloged half the game’s ingredients and recipes, tucked away in a hundred spreadsheets on my laptop back home. I wouldn’t have to wait. If I use my starting gold to lean into the cheesing strategy, who is to say I can’t bulldoze my way through the early-game even harder? Even a few hours of head start could make all the difference in the world…
I was halfway to convincing myself this was a good thing as a sharp voice sliced through the chilly air, grating like rusted nails on old iron.
“What are you lazy bastards doing out here?” it yelled. “No one’s leaving tonight until every last speck is scrubbed off every single pot in there! You hear me?”
Celia and I shot to our feet like soldiers hearing the crack of a drill sergeant’s whip. The instinct wasn’t just strong—it was primal. Survival 101: Do not, under any circumstances, incur the wrath of our manager. PTSD from past encounters didn’t discriminate.
Our colleagues were already scurrying toward the door, heads low and steps quick. Celia glanced at me with a sly smile, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Any fancy insults tucked away for a monster like that?”
“How fancy do you want it?” I asked, hurrying around the trash container alongside her.
“As fancy as it goes.”
“Fine,” I murmured, lowering my voice and making an exaggerated flourish toward the manager’s hunched back. He was mid-rant, tearing into the fresh hires who were nearly tripping over themselves to escape his line of fire. Several looked dangerously close to tears. He wouldn’t notice.
With a quiet, theatrical cadence, I declared, “Ah, behold! The maestro of inefficiency, conducting an orchestra of chaos with the grace of a drunken peacock and the foresight of a candle in a hurricane.”
Celia’s laugh burst out, loud and unrestrained. The manager’s head snapped in our direction, his bespectacled eyes narrowing into thin, razor-edged slits.
Celia, unbothered, gave me a wink and darted ahead before he could level his fury at us. Her lips moved silently as she mouthed, “I’ll just stick to calling them assholes.”
Then, as she slipped through the door, she glanced back and added one last parting shot, her grin sly. “See you inside, nerdy boy.”
And just like that, she was gone. The faint scent of cigarette smoke and something sweet lingering in the space she’d left behind.
----------------------------------------
It was with all the enthusiasm of a man who’d stared down a mountain of grease—and barely survived—that I turned the key, locking the restaurant’s back door. According to our dear manager, as I’d been the last one inside after our illicit break, I would also be the last one to leave tonight. He’d made sure to inform me of this right before vanishing precisely at 9:45 PM, as if the universe would collapse should he spend a single unpaid second longer at the restaurant.
Which, of course, meant it was my responsibility to stay and ensure tomorrow’s prep was finished, the kitchen spotless, and everything lined up just so. Otherwise, all hell was sure to break loose tomorrow morning. Not that I’d be there to see it. But still.
At 1:04 AM, dragging my feet down the alley, I rubbed at my face in an attempt to dislodge the exhaustion clinging to me like a second skin. The cold gnawed at my fingers, slipping past the thin shield of my scarf and collar. I yawned, the kind of yawn that felt like it started somewhere in the soles of my shoes.
The nightmare wasn’t just in the dishes or the late hours. It was in knowing I still hadn’t seen a single cent from the last five times I’d been roped into staying this late. Our dear manager had a policy of "fixing payroll issues next cycle." A generous man, really, so long as it didn’t involve his time or money.
Still, tired as I was, even if I’d stumbled into bed that very moment, I wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon. Tomorrow was my day off, and Dao of the Divine had kept my mind churning through hours of painstaking vegetable prep and dishwashing. A hundred fresh ideas for how to beat the game buzzed in my brain, each more promising than the last. Maybe this time I’d finally reach one of the good endings.
Assuming there were any good endings.
But, as always, the universe seemed determined to remind me that there were no easy victories. Before I even reached the parking lot, a voice broke through the quiet hour.
“I’m telling you, my car’s warmer than that asshole’s. Just get inside before—”
Jim.
Out of his work uniform, he looked twice like the attention-starved bulldog, his bald head glinting under the orange glow of the streetlamp. His bulk loomed, all sharp angles and sour energy.
And there, half-dragged toward Jim’s oversized pickup truck, was Celia. Her heels had dug furrows into the fresh snow, and her expression—a tense mix of frustration and unease—left little room for interpretation.
“Victor!” Her voice carried across the lot, relief and urgency bound together as she jerked her arm free and hurried in my direction.
Even Jim, for all his bluster, seemed to realize how the scene might look. He let her go, though his glare was a mix of irritation and something else, something brittle.
Had I been the main character in Dao of the Divine, this would have been the moment for something manly, something bold. A cutting remark or a righteous challenge that would put Jim in his place.
But, well, I wasn’t the main character in anyone’s story. If my life were a visual novel, my anthem would have been the […] option.
I turned to Celia, deliberately ignoring the simmering anger radiating off Jim. “I thought I told you to head home over an hour ago,” I said, my voice steady, as if there weren’t a five-foot-seven wall of muscle glaring holes into the side of my head. “The streets aren’t exactly safe this late.”
I could have sent Jim a meaningful look at those words, but I didn’t. Triple-dot option—that was me. Lukewarm, middle of the road, never taking risks unless I absolutely had to. A normal guy, I guess? A “Victor” kind of guy.
“Guess I must’ve missed the last buses,” Celia said with a smile that managed to look only half innocent, like a cat sitting next to a broken vase. “I was hoping you might be able to give me a ride home?”
“Hey!” Jim’s voice cut across the alley like a dull saw. “I’ve been offering to give you a ride for the past thirty minutes.”
Both of us ignored him. I shrugged. “Sure. It’s the blue—”
“Toyota, right?” she said, already heading across the parking lot, her steps light, like she wasn’t dancing away from a scene she didn’t want to be part of anymore.
“The blue rust bucket,” I corrected with a sigh, trailing after her. Yeah, she’d missed the bus on purpose. That much was obvious.
My Dao of the Divine time, slipping away into the cold, frostbitten night.
I was halfway to catching up when Jim’s voice turned sharper, louder. “Hey, asshole! Are you just going to keep ignoring me?”
I was, actually. Until he stepped directly into my path, his broad shoulders and shiny bald head blocking my view of everything else. He loomed far too close, the faint smell of sweat and beer wafting off his oversized jacket.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, giving a young, pretty coworker a ride home after work?” His tone carried the smug self-assurance of someone who believed every syllable dripped with authority. “No dating in the workplace, remember?”
I blinked, caught off guard by the sheer absurdity of the accusation. “What does her being pretty have to do with anything?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Speed-clicked the wrong conversation option. Shit.
Jim’s snort was loud and ugly. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been ogling her legs all shift.”
That made me blink again, harder this time. I glanced back toward Celia. She was rather poorly dressed for the weather—short skirt, sheer tights, jacket hanging loosely off one shoulder. But I’d been lectured by Joanne one too many times about how women wore miniskirts in winter “because it’s cute” to even register it anymore.
“All the more reason to get her home before she freezes to death,” I said flatly, trying to sidestep him.
He didn’t let me. A firm hand shoved against my chest, pushing me back a step.
“Hey, smartass,” he growled, voice dropping to a near whisper, like Celia wouldn’t hear him. But the night was far too quiet for that—only our voices carried, bouncing off the alley walls and the towering buildings around us. She probably caught every word. Maybe that was the point.
“I’m taking her home,” he said, each word packed with unwarranted aggression as another shove forced me further back, “because I don’t trust you, you sleazy fuck. You’d probably feel her up before you even left the parking lot. So, fuck off before I make you.”
Every now and then in my life, there would come a scenario where the […] choice didn’t appear, like the option I needed most had been misplaced or—more likely—snatched away. This was one of those moments.
While Jim wasn’t the tallest man you’d meet, he carried himself with a kind of deliberate weight, the type that comes from hours in the gym, not an ounce of effort spared. That, and something more than just red and white blood cells made his veins bulge. Steroids? Ego? Raw, unbridled spite? Whatever it was, it didn’t leave much room for reason.
“Victor?” Celia’s voice broke through the tension, a quiet plea with an edge of unease. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I saw my own nervous energy reflected back at me. She wasn’t stupid; she’d picked up on the way things were spiraling. This wasn’t work. This wasn’t something you could just ignore and wait for it to disappear.
There was an option blinking bright and ugly in the back of my mind: Leave her behind. But no. That wasn’t happening.
“Look, man,” I began, raising my hands in what I hoped passed for placation. Smiling wasn’t my strong suit, but I gave it a shot. “She and I live close to each other—” A lie. A blatant one, but one that sounded just true enough. “—so sometimes I drop her off on my way home. It’s no big deal.”
Jim grunted, his mouth twisting into something halfway between a sneer and a grimace. “No big deal, huh? That what you’re saying? I’m no big deal?” He flicked his jacket aside, just enough for me to catch the dark outline tucked inside the inner pocket. “How about I make it a big deal? Don’t think I don’t know your game—slobbering over every cute girl that starts working here with your chef friend.”
A gun. He was carrying a fucking gun.
“Victor,” Celia whispered, her voice taut. My blood turned to ice. My thoughts scattered like dry leaves in a bitter wind.
“For fuck’s sake,” I hissed, feeling the tremor in my own voice. “Chris hasn’t worked here for over a year, Jim. Can you just let it go? This isn’t worth it. Look, I’ll call a taxi for her, okay?” I pulled out my phone. “You can watch her leave. She’ll get home safe, and this doesn’t have to turn into... whatever this is.”
Jim stepped closer, his hand shoving hard against my chest. I staggered back, barely keeping my balance. My phone went flying, skidding against the frosted asphalt. Yeah, he was stronger than me, alright.
“Oh, look at you,” he spat. “So fucking smart. So quick with the words. Go home yourself if you’re so goddamned clever. Don’t involve yourself in my business again, you hear me? I know it was you who reported me. Yeah, you.” A thick finger jabbed me in the chest. “Got my pay docked. They pulled leftovers out of my fucking salary. Think that was funny? Think I didn’t notice you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
The words sparked something hot and sharp in my chest, but I swallowed it down. “Three cans of caviar and a vintage bottle of wine isn’t leftovers, Jim,” I wanted to say. Hell, I wanted to shout it. I wasn’t even the one who reported him, but the whole fiasco had become infamous. The cops got involved. A whole thing.
Still, none of that mattered now. What mattered was the gun, the simmering rage in his eyes, and Celia, standing just behind him, too close to all of it.
“And I know you’ve been talking shit behind my back,” Jim growled, stepping closer again, his finger still jabbing at my chest like punctuation. “You think I don’t hear about it? Now all the juniors are acting weird around me. Always going to you for advice, even though I’ve been here longer. How the fuck do you think that feels?”
With his face inches from mine, the scent of booze hit me like a slap. Not the faint whiff of someone nursing a bad day, but the sour, acrid stench of someone deep in their cups. He’d been stealing bottles again. The idea of reasoning with him—the slim hope that logic might offer me some way out—drained away like water from a cracked jug. My eyes darted to Celia, desperate for some sign she’d seen the writing on the wall and slipped away.
Instead, my stomach knotted. She stood frozen, her phone in hand, her face a mask of poorly concealed panic. No. This wasn’t a Call for help moment. This was a Get the fuck out of here moment.
Jim noticed as well.
“What the hell are you doing, bitch?” he snarled, turning to her, his voice slurring but sharp.
“She’s just calling a taxi,” I interjected quickly, stepping between them, my hand brushing against his arm in a gesture I hoped was calming. It wasn’t. He swatted my hand away with a scowl.
“Hey, bitch!” he yelled, his voice raw and ragged as Celia flinched, the phone pressed against her ear. She began to backpedal, her movements frantic but jerky, the fear written all over her. “I’m talking to you! Put the fucking phone down!”
The moments that followed came in pieces, scattered like shards of glass on the floor of my memory. I didn’t piece them together until much later. If I’d been watching this unfold on a screen, if I’d been given some omniscient vantage point with neatly labeled options to choose from, maybe I would have seen the signs. Maybe I would’ve picked the choice that led to a better ending.
But life isn’t a game, and you don’t get to pause and think. Not when someone raises a gun.
Jim wasn’t going to shoot her. Not even he was that far gone. He was spiraling, yeah, lashing out at the world as it crumbled beneath him. A two-week notice none of us could have known about, a desperate grab for some sense of control. He was a mess of a man, but he wasn’t a killer.
Not until I moved, at least.
Because when someone points a gun at another human being, your body doesn’t wait for reason. Instinct kicks in. And instincts? They’re idiots.
The rest was a blur. A snarl. A struggle. A sound that tore through the air and left it ringing in my ears. And then, cold. Cold and wet, snow soaking through my shirt as warmth spread across my stomach. My blood. I blinked, trying to piece it all together. Somewhere, I heard the distant wail of sirens, the screech of tires as Jim’s car peeled away, and Celia’s voice, high-pitched and frantic, breaking through it all.
I wasn’t a hero. Lying there in the snow, my blood staining the world red, I remembered that in stark, unflinching clarity. Maybe I’d forgotten for a moment, too caught up in some half-baked narrative where I got to be the brave one, the clever one. But heroes don’t end up like this.
And all I could think about, as my vision dimmed, was a stupid game I’d never get to see the end of.
Maybe that was the anthem of my life—always distracted, always missing the things that mattered most. Looking back, my mind had probably been wandering long before Joanne left me, drifting off into some other world where consequences were just suggestions—where a reset button could always let you try again. Today had been no different. If I’d only been paying attention, I might’ve seen the signs. Just like the crossed needles of the Tang clan, threads of a bad ending woven right in front of me.
Jim had been unusually tense that night, snapping at everyone like a fraying rope about to break. Thinking about it now, he probably got his “you’re fired” notice shortly after our break. Celia, sweet and stubborn, had been leaning closer for weeks. I should have been firmer when I told her no, but I wasn’t. And then there was the overtime—someone was bound to be stuck with it. Instead of spreading the load, I’d let my juniors head home before me, taking the weight on my own shoulders.
I could see it all so clearly now. Too clearly. But clarity is no use once the choices are made, and the consequences are bleeding into the snow.
“I—I’m sorry,” Celia sobbed beside me, her voice raw and cracking. “I-I should’ve gone home when you told me. All of this is my fault… it’s all my fucking fault.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I murmured, the words weak and wavering. My hand pressed against the wound on my chest, as if I could will the blood to stay where it belonged. It didn’t work, of course. The cold was spreading too fast. “And don’t blame yourself. This isn’t on you. Jim’s just an asshole.”
I chuckled, though the effort sent a spike of pain through my ribs. It wasn’t much of a joke, but it was all I had. I knew she would blame herself anyway. She’d carry it for years, the way we all carry things that were never really ours to bear. And then, eventually, she would forget me. Not all at once, but piece by piece, until I was nothing more than a ghost in the back of her mind.
That was fine. It was better that way.
“It was nice, though,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper now. “Having someone to talk to these past few weeks. Helped pull me back to reality, you know? Made it feel like it wasn’t all…” I blinked, my gaze drifting up to the dark sky. Snowflakes spiraled lazily down, catching in the glow of the streetlights. “…all shit.”
The sound of approaching vehicles cut through the night, their lights painting the snow in harsh streaks of red and blue. Blurry figures moved through the chaos, voices sharp and urgent. I could feel their presence, but they felt far away, like shadows on the edges of a dream. Too late. They were too late.
Not that it mattered. Nothing about my life had really mattered. Too many bad choices. Too many missed opportunities. I’d spent so much time lost in my own head, waiting for something better, something brighter. And now? Well, now the waiting was over.
Still, as the last fragments of consciousness slipped away, a thought lingered like a stubborn ember. If life had a Reset button, what would it look like? A lever, a key, a single red switch? And if I could press it just once, how much could I change? Would I know where to start?
Or would I end up here again, no matter how many times I tried?