The next afternoon, with 30 minutes to spare, Harper prints the mock-ups.

“You look terrible,” she laughs.

“I feel terrible.” If I had a body scan right now, it would show that I am 90-percent coffee, and yet I still can’t keep my eyes open.

“You should walk in there and forcibly shove these up his ass,” she says.

“That would kind of defeat the purpose of staying up all night.”

She sighs. “Yeah, well, you you shouldn’t have done that either.”

I grab the mock-ups and knock on Timothy’s door. “I’ve got your stuff for that meeting.”

He takes a cursory glance at the pieces and hands them back to me. “The meeting was cancelled, so you’ll have a little time to get these cleaned up. Looks like they need it too.”

He returns to whatever he was doing before. I’m forgotten. The stuff I just spent 24 hours on is forgotten. This is where Olivia and Brendan might turn violent, but I’ve never thrown a punch in my life. I’ve never even pulled someone’s hair.

“I stayed up all night working on this.”

“You wouldn’t have had to stay up all night if you’d gotten it done sooner.”

My voice trembles. “I didn’t know you needed it done until yesterday afternoon.”

“Well, now you have extra time to go over these and refine your work,” he says.

I cross my arms over my chest. I hate him. I really fucking hate him. I do not make less than Olivia’s nanny to stay up all night and put up with this shit.

“My work is about as refined as it’s going to get, Timothy,” I reply. “If you need more refinement, consider giving me a damn raise. In the meantime, I’m going home, and I’m going to bed.”

He calls after me, his voice stern and full of reprimand, and I just keep walking, straight to the chancellor’s office, because he needs to put a face with the work he demands at the last minute all the time.

I’m exhausted, running on nothing but rage at this point. I must look like I’m running on rage too; when I step into his secretary’s office, she appears slightly alarmed.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

I tell her who I am. I add that I’m a former student, and that I know the chancellor from my days on the track team, which is a bit of a stretch. I only met him a few times, and I guarantee he doesn’t remember me.

A few minutes later, I am ushered into his office. It’s clear by the look on his face that he has no idea who I am. I introduce myself, mentioning that we met a few times at events in honor of Olivia, who’s probably the only ECU graduate to go on to even marginal fame. That softens him up a little. Olivia, in the years since she left, has put our athletics department on the map. He asks what he can help me with.

“I have the marketing campaign you asked for,” I tell him, trying my best not to sound as pissed as I feel. “These pieces are a little rough, since we didn’t learn until yesterday that you needed them, but I thought I’d bring them by.”

It only occurs to me as I slide the pieces forward that I’ve just bypassed our workplace hierarchy. I’m going to be written up for this, at the very least. Probably worse.

The chancellor looks confused. “Marketing campaign?” he says. “I didn’t ask for this.”

I stare at him in confusion for a moment, and then my body goes cold. I think of all the last-minute requests Timothy’s made, and realize most of them coincided with times he wanted to punish me for something. I wonder if any of those requests came from the chancellor.

I can’t believe I’m just figuring this out now. And I can’t believe I just risked my job for no reason at all.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Timothy gave us this project late yesterday and said they were needed today. I thought it must have been something important, given the turnaround time.”

“I didn’t ask for any of these,” he says. He looks at the pieces again. “How on Earth did you get all of this done so fast?”

My rage is gone, and the exhaustion hits me so suddenly I think I could curl up in this chair and sleep.

“We stayed up all night—me and one artist,” I say, rising with dejection pressing down on my shoulders. “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

I did all this work for nothing and may very well have gotten myself fired the first time I tried to do something about it.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asks. “Last-minute projects like that?”

“It happens every week.”

He nods slowly. “And do you see much of Olivia these days?”

“I went up to watch her run Western States a few weeks ago, and I’m godmother to her kids, so I’ll be back for her daughter’s christening in a few months.”

He tells me to say hello for him. I get the feeling my connection to Olivia matters far more than the marketing pieces I just left on his desk. I can only pray it matters enough that he doesn’t rat me out to my boss.

* * *

I tell Brendan the story later that night.

He groans. “Please explain to me why the fuck you’re still there.”

“Normal people require this thing called money, Brendan. I have bills.” I don’t expect him to understand, though. Brendan comes home each night raving about the tour he gave that day, spilling over with plans for bigger and more extensive adventures. His income is almost an afterthought because he has a job he’d do for free.

“But you act like that place is the only job in the entire world,” he argues. “There are lots of jobs, and there are lots of jobs you might enjoy, or have a chance of getting promoted at, or not have to deal with a tool like your boss.”

“But I like ECU. In terms of marketing jobs, it’s a good cause. What if my next job is marketing cigarettes to children? Or cocaine?”

He cocks a brow. “I haven’t seen a whole lot of cocaine advertising directed at kids.”

“And I might not make what Rob makes, but I’m sure I could make less. If my dad gets fired again, my parents will need help. And Sean always needs something. That’s not changing anytime soon.”

He slaps his palm to his face. “Are you fucking serious right now? You’re talking about two grown-ass men who can handle their own shit.”

“I’ve just made a lot of huge changes at once,” I tell him. “People do that when their lives suck, but mine didn’t suck. It just needed improvement. And I’m worried that if I keep changing everything, I’m going to look back and regret what I’ve done.”

“Are you talking about work?” he asks, not looking at me. “Or are you talking about Rob?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Three months ago I had job security and a fiancé and a very nice home. I had 20k in savings. Now I have none of those things. Sometimes people burn a bridge because they must. But you’re not supposed to burn them all at once.

* * *

I spend the next day waiting to be called into Timothy’s office, feeling sick. The call doesn’t come, but it makes me realize just how often I’ve waited here, exactly like I am now, to be punished for something, and typically something that isn’t my fault.

It’s time to face the music: I love my office mates, and I love my school, but my time at ECU has run its course.