“Excuse me, miss?” the woman behind me in the Starbucks line said at eight a.m., touching me gently on the shoulder to move me along as the long line crept forward. I shot her an apologetic smile. She looked back at me with an irritated expression, clearly just wanting to get her coffee and move on with her day.

“Oh sorry, sorry,” I mumbled, shuffling forward awkwardly. I was spacing out again. This was the second time she’d had to prompt me to move. My brain was too full to multitask at the moment. Standing in line and thinking at the same time was beyond my current capabilities.

I had no idea what I was doing. Not about being in Starbucks; I was there for coffee, obviously. But everything else had me completely confused. The whole business of being an adult, having romantic relationships, living independently, having a career, all of it. I was just winging it on a day to day basis. Just making it up as I went along and hoping for the best.

Nika said that was perfectly normal and everyone felt the same way, but I wasn’t so sure. Other people seemed to have themselves figured out. Nathan definitely seemed to know what he was doing with his life. He had it all so together that he was literally out of this world. But me? I could hardly keep my car running, my rent paid, and my head above water. With my paltry bank account balance and no job, I shouldn’t even be treating myself to a Frappuccino, but I wanted one, dammit.

My phone rang when I was two people away from to the counter, and I fumbled to answer it. I could practically feel the eyes of the irritated woman behind me boring into the back of my skull. She already thought I was an idiot. Now she was going to think I was a rude idiot for talking on the phone in line.

“Hello,” I answered cautiously. I recognized the area code as Tallahassee. But the number wasn’t Nika’s, and I didn’t recognize it at all.

“Hi, is this Zoey Atkinson?” The female voice on the other end asked.

“Yes, it is, may I ask who’s calling?” If it was a telemarketer I was gonna hang up on them in 3-2-1.

“This is Gillian Schmidt with the Tallahassee Picayune,” she said, and my finger froze on the button. My stomach seized up in anxiety. Gillian Schmidt was the editor in chief I’d interviewed with the night before. She was calling so soon! Was it good that she was calling so soon?

“Hi Ms. Schmidt,” I exclaimed, my voice going high and nervous as I moved forward another step toward the cashier, “how are you?”

“I’m doing well, thanks for asking. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve talked it over with the rest of the editorial staff and we’d like to make you an offer to join us down here in Florida. We’d start you at a salary of thirty-two thousand dollars and would like you to start in two weeks—sooner if you can get here that fast. What do you think?”

“I think yes!” I blurted ecstatically and heard her chuckling as the line moved forward again, “I-I mean I accept,” I finished weakly in a more normal voice.

After more than a year of JuicyNews, the offer was everything I’d hoped for. It wasn’t my dream job (that would be editor-in-chief of the New York Times), but it was an enormous step forward in my career. A sizeable piece of my heart was already missing Nathan desperately, but I knew I had to accept this job. Only an idiot would say no.

“Great!” Gillian said enthusiastically, “I’ll work on the paperwork and have human resources email everything over as soon as possible. I think you’re really going to like it here, we’ve got a great team. We’re excited to have you join it.”

The rest of the conversation passed in a dizzy, inconsequential blur. I also had to be ‘that girl’ who awkwardly ordered via improvised sign language while on the phone. My ridiculous pantomime earned me a very nasty look from both the barista and the woman behind me, which I certainly deserved, but it was unavoidable. My drink was also wrong, another unavoidable consequence I unequivocally deserved. It didn’t matter, though. I had a job.

I had a job!

You never can tell how things will work out. This week had changed the entire course of my life. I wouldn’t have aced this interview with the Picayune and gotten this job if I hadn’t been motivated by the necessity of finding another job. I wouldn’t have needed to find another job if I hadn’t quit JuicyNews. I wouldn’t have quit JuicyNews if I hadn’t met Nathan. And wouldn’t have met Nathan if I hadn’t interviewed Angelica. At the end of the day, I had gold-digger and fame-whore extraordinaire Angelica Hunt to thank for my newfound journalistic credentials. I wondered if I should send her a thank-you note?

A hysterical giggle over the grand irony rose and died in my throat when I thought about Nathan. He was going to do something he cared deeply about today, something that I thought was unnecessarily risky. When I’d called him earlier, I had every intention of trying to talk him out of his launch when I got to his office at noon. I’d even picked out a particularly sexy set of lingerie I was wearing under my black dress today to aid me in being extra convincing. But now, knowing that I would be moving to Florida in less than two weeks, my conviction wavered.

Was the reason I wanted to stop Nathan from test piloting the launch because I was in love with him? Was it because it was the objectively right thing to do? Was it really for his safety, or my comfort? Was I just being selfish about a man I was about to leave, a man I barely knew? I was too confused to come up with an answer.

Employed or unemployed, I was just making it all up as I went along. My maybe-boyfriend was going to maybe explode, and my Frappuccino was wrong and probably made with soy milk, but at least my car was starting today. I refused to wallow in self-pity when I had just achieved my goal of getting a real job. I was going to be happy whether I wanted to be happy or not. I drank my incorrectly prepared Frappuccino and smiled through my breaking heart.