“Where are you going?” Tom comes over right away after my meeting. I take my bag and start to put personal things from my desk into it.

“What are you doing? What’s going on, Ellie?”

I shrug. I don’t want to get into this now in front of everyone. But I know Tom, he isn’t the type to take a hint or to let something go.

“I just quit,” I say. Actually, given what happened, I’m not entirely sure how accurate that is. I mean, I was going to quit in two weeks, but Carrie said I should go right away. Does that even count like a quit? Or did I just get fired?

I can’t keep track of all the thoughts that are running through my head anymore. And I definitely don’t have any answers to any of it.

“What? Why?” Tom gasps.

I shrug. “It was a long time coming,” I say after a moment. “I mean, I can’t really write long advertisements disguised as articles anymore. Or stupid quizzes.”

Tom knows exactly what I’m talking about. He was a political science major at Yale. He's a political junkie and, despite the fact that he’s really qualified and engaged to the editor, he still spends most of his days coming up with quizzes like, “Design a dream apartment and we’ll tell you who you are and This Ben & Jerry’s Quiz will tell you which Hogwarts House you belong in.”

After stuffing my purse with almost everything that I brought into the office, I wave good-bye to some of my other colleagues and walk out to the elevators. I’m not friends with anyone here except for Tom, and we all live nearby so it’s not like I’m not going to run into them again. Tom follows me.

“Ellie, what’s going on?” Tom asks, grabbing my shoulder. I shrug him off.

“Nothing. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I mean, this place is fine, but I just can’t work here anymore.”

“This is one of the top places to work in New York if you want to be a writer,” Tom says. “I mean, I know that Carrie can be a real bitch sometimes. What did she say?”

Did he really just say that about his fiancée? I shake my head.

“It’s not her. It’s everything. I want to write what I want to write, Tom. And I’m sick of being here. My mind is made up.”

We ride down the elevator together in silence.

“But what about money? Do you really want to depend on Mitch for everything again?” he asks.

“Wow, really, Tom? You’re going to bring that up?”

We’ve been friends for a long time. And, as a result, he is very well familiar with my issues with my stepfather. I grew up in a very middle-class family that pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck. But after my parents divorced when I was eight, my mom took a job tutoring Mitch Willoughby’s five-year-old daughter. Mitch was a widower and a vice-president at one of the top investment banks in New York. They fell in love and married soon after that and they have been happily together for many years now. I don’t really have any issues with Mitch except that he wants to do a little bit too much for me. He wants to pay for everything and, sometimes, even takes offense when I want to pay for my own things. One of the reasons why I really wanted to take this job after graduation was that I wanted to pay my own way, at least as far I could. He still pays for my share of the apartment that I share with Caroline because there’s no way I could afford it otherwise. Given the fact that Tom’s dad is also quite wealthy and he lives in a crappy fourth-floor walkup and refuses to take any money from him, I thought that unlike anyone else we know, he would really understand where I’m coming from.

“I just don’t get what you’re doing, Ellie. Suddenly, when things get a little tough, you’re just going to quit? You know you would never really be able to do that if it weren’t for Mitch, right?”

It’s hard to believe that his pride is one of the things that I actually admired about him before.

“Are you really going to make me feel guilty about this?”

“Yes! I mean, no. I don't want to make you feel guilty. I just want you to stay. I mean, you’re like my only friend there.”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

He stares at me.

“Carrie? The editor in chief? Your fiancée?”

“Yes, of course. But you know what I mean. She’s from another world from us. You’re the only one who really gets it.”

Now, I feel insulted.

“The thing is Tom, that you’re from a rich family. Your dad is a famous attorney at one of the most prestigious law firms in Boston. You summered on Cape Cod. You went to Yale. You’re marrying into the Warrenhouse family, which owns half of New England. Mitch might have money, but my real father doesn’t. He’s a teacher. You may sympathize with the poor and live like you are poor, but it’s not real.”

“Fuck you, Ellie. I don’t take any money from my dad. I live on what I make here. And thirty grand doesn’t buy much in New York.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I agree.

“And you don’t think I don't want to quit this? You don't think I don’t want to go on the campaign trail and follow and report on politics as it happens? Of course, I do. But I also want to pay my own way.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t,” I say. “I mean, if your dad is willing to pay for you to start your political journalist career, why not let him? He loves you. You’re not getting anywhere just working here, doing what you don't really want.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” Tom says.

To be honest, I don’t really believe it much either. This was definitely not the opinion that I had even last week. I admired what Tom was doing. Living life on his own terms. But now, with almost a quarter million dollars in my bank account, I feel a little different about money. There’s a freedom that comes with it. The freedom to not do crap that you don’t want to do. Now, I don't have to waste my time writing pieces that I don't care about. I can write what I want to write and really pursue my own dreams. And getting the money wasn’t all that bad either. It was actually exciting. Shivers run up my body as I think back to last weekend.

“Ellie? You’re not listening to me,” Tom says. He has been talking for a bit, but I have no idea what he said.

“Listen, what’s done is done. I’m going to go home now. We can talk about this more if you want later,” I say and walk away from him.

I don’t know if it’s the money or just meeting Mr. Black, but I no longer feel like a love-sick puppy around Tom. Before last weekend, I’d spend my days waiting for him to come and talk to me at my desk. I’d live for the moments of banter that we exchanged during lunch or on a coffee break. I obsessed with his relationship with Carrie and their engagement. But now, things are different. Tom is still a friend, but the feelings that I had for him seemed to have all but dissipated. It was like a balloon had popped and all the pressure that was built up inside had vanished.

When I get home, I don’t even bother to unpack my bag, but just drop it to the floor. I sit down in front of my laptop and open a new document.

The story that I start isn’t entirely fully-formed in my head, but I do have the beginning. I don’t know where it’s headed, but for now I have the insatiable need to write down everything that happened. It takes me a moment to decide where I want to start: with Caroline getting the invitation to the luxurious yacht party. I type the title of the work at the top, Auctioned to Him, and begin. With that, the words just start to spill out of me. My fingers can’t type fast enough to keep up.