A harsh, shrill voice pulls me out of sleep. Shit. Sleep. I look up into the face of Helen Arnott, Editor-in-Chief of the Long Beach Times Daily – the newspaper where I work. Helen's eyes are narrowed, and her face is pinched with anger. A wave of confusion washes over me as I look around and try to figure out what's going on.

Oh god. I'm still slumped over the table in the mailroom where I laid my head down during my lunch break. I snatch my phone off the table and realize that was over an hour and a half ago. I slept through my alarm. Again.

Crap.

“My office,” Helen says, her voice flat and cold. “Now.”

“Helen, I can –”

She turns and leaves the mailroom before I can even finish my answer. This is the third time this month she's found me asleep in the mailroom after oversleeping. She warned me last time that I'd be in big trouble if it happened again – and here we are.

Shit.

I grab my things and stand up, slowly walking out of the mailroom, my heart sinking lower with every step. If she’d listen to me, I’d tell her there's a perfectly good reason I can't stay awake here. As an intern, I don't make crap for salary and keep a second job to afford my bills. That second job is working overnight and late into the morning at a bar downtown.

Which makes being awake and functional during normal business hours slightly harder, to say the least.

As I walk through the small newsroom, the silence is deafening, and tension permeates the air. I notice that everyone is trying their best to avoid looking at Helen and me. Suddenly, their computers or something as trivial as the box of paperclips on their desk, have become endlessly fascinating and all-consuming.

Which tells me I'm in deep shit. All I need is to hear somebody calling out, “dead woman walking,” to complete this professional walk of shame.

I step inside the doorway of Helen's office, my body stiff, my heart thundering erratically in my breast. Helen looks up at me as the frown on her face deepens.

“Come in and shut the door, Emma,” she says. “Have a seat.”

I don't want to. I really don't want to, since I have a pretty good idea what's coming next. Actually, I would rather just turn around and run back to my cubicle and pretend like none of this ever happened. That's really what I'd rather be doing.

Slowly and reluctantly, I shut the door behind me and slink over to the chairs in front of her desk. Trying to maintain some sense of dignity and decorum, I take a seat, keeping my back straight and my face neutral – which is no small feat, since I feel like I’m on the verge of simultaneously vomiting and crying.

“I'm not going to sugarcoat this, Emma,” Helen says. “You've been warned about sleeping through your lunch hour now, twice. And –”

“Helen, please,” I beg, my voice cracking. “I have to work a second job at night to keep up with my bills, and I –”

She sighs and folds her hands together, the look in her eyes softening – slightly. “You're enormously talented, Emma,” she says. “But, I'm not going to lie. I'm really disappointed with your dedication to your craft. Or rather, your lack of dedication to it. You miss deadlines –”

“I missed one deadline, Helen,” I say. “One. And that was over six months ago.”

“And this whole sleeping on the job thing –”

“Like I’ve explained before, as an intern here with intern pay, I have to hold a second job,” I argue. “I have to pay my bills somehow.”

“I understand that,” she says. “But, at the same time, it's your job to impress me. To make me take notice of you. And you've done that. Just – not necessarily for the right reasons, I'm afraid.”

“Helen, please,” I say. “I can't afford to lose this job. Just in terms of experience alone –”

“Like I said, I think you're enormously talented, Emma,” she cuts me off. “I know you're going to land on your feet. Unfortunately, I can't overlook things this time. I'm going to have to let you go.”

“Helen, please,” I plead. “Please, give me one more chance. It won't happen again. I swear.”

“I'm sorry, Emma,” she says coolly, “but, that's exactly what you said last time. I can't take you at your word anymore. And I really can't have you sleeping on the clock.”

“Helen, please.”

“Emma, please don’t force me into a position where I have to ask security to escort you off the premises,” she snaps. “Please clean out your cubicle and leave the building. Now. I won’t ask again.”

The thought of having security escort me out – and I know Helen would – is even more appalling than being fired. It would add a substantial layer of insult to injury. Without another word, I slowly stand up and walk to her door, taking my time in hopes that she'll change her mind.

She doesn't.

Like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs, I slink out of her office and head to my cubicle – only to find a couple of empty cardboard boxes already waiting for me. An unnatural hush has fallen over the newsroom, and I can feel everyone looking at me. The weight of their gazes – from people I've considered my friends – is oppressive and stifling.

As I begin packing up the boxes, I can't stop a few tears from rolling down my face. I wipe them away, angry with myself for screwing up this badly. Not only am I going to miss out on the experience of working in a newsroom, but I'm also losing the paycheck that comes with it. As meager as it is, it helps to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly.

And now I've gone and screwed it all up.

“Hey, you okay?”

I look up to see an older man named Tom standing in my cubicle doorway. Concern is etched into his face, and his blue eyes are filled with sadness.

“No, not really,” I mutter. “I screwed up. Again.”

“You know Helen,” he says quietly. “She’ll burn hot for a couple of days, and then cool down and use her head. Just give it some time and give her a call. I'm sure she'll realize she screwed up by letting you go. You're the best junior writer we have. Helen knows that.”

“Apparently, that wasn't enough to save my ass this time,” I say, dropping my picture frames into the box.

“Just give her a few days,” Tom says. “Don't give up hope just yet, kid.”

Easy to say. As far as I'm concerned, all hope is lost. My dream of being a journalist – of one day working for a prestigious paper like the New York Times – is dead. The fact that I couldn't make it through one piddly internship is not going to look good on a resume. Not good at all.

I know Tom is trying his best to help me feel better, but it only makes it worse. Not that he knows that. I sniff loudly and wipe at my eyes again, doing my best to regain my composure – at least, until I'm out of the office.

“Yeah, maybe you're right, Tom,” I say. “You're probably right.”

“Of course, I am,” he says gently, a kind smile on his face.

I finish packing up my things – not that I have much to begin with – and pick up the box. I give Tom a small smile I hope looks encouraging.

“I'll give her a call in a few days and see if we can get this all sorted out,” I say.

“That's the spirit,” he replies.

Nobody else will meet my eyes as I walk out of the office – as if termination is suddenly a contagious disease or something. My nausea and disbelief rising with every step, I walk out of the building and to my car.

After putting my box in the back seat, I climb behind the wheel. And that's when the real meltdown starts as I sob and shake, twin fires of sadness and panic flowing through me.

What in the hell am I going to do?

“I brought some supplies with me!” an unnaturally chipper voice rings out.

I look up from where I'm slumped over on the couch as Marina bursts through the doorway, waving a box of wine around in front of her. Despite how low I'm feeling, I can't help but smile. She’s always been able to pull me out of the dumps.

“That's an awfully big box of wine,” I say.

“I figure for tonight, the focus should be on quantity over quality,” she explains.

My chuckle is humorless. “Yeah, probably.”

I close my laptop, get up, and walk into the kitchen. I fish a couple of plastic wine glasses I'd picked up at a yard sale a while back out of the cupboard and bring them back into the other room. Marina's already sitting at the table and has the box of wine ready to go.

“Oh, we're drinking out of the fancy glasses tonight.”

“Nothing but the best for you, baby,” I reply dryly.

“You know just what I like,” Marina says and laughs.

Marina pours us a couple of glasses of the wine, and we carry them over to the couch, taking a seat on the dumpy old thing. I take a drink and sigh as I look around my shitty studio apartment. And for the first time, I notice the dull, faded paint and the thin spiderwebbing of cracks in the ceiling. The floor is covered with cheap carpeting that's almost threadbare in some spots, and the “tile” in the kitchen is beginning to peel in the corners.

The pictures and pieces of swap meet art suddenly look horribly cheap. They look like a person's desperate attempt to look classy – an attempt that has gone horribly wrong. I may as well have a Velvet Elvis, or Dogs Playing Poker up on my walls.

My couch is a thrift store find – well, most of the furniture is. Since moving here, I've picked up an assortment of mismatched, but functional furniture – whatever I could afford at the time. I wish I'd had more money to spend on my bed though. That's one luxury I wish I could afford. Mine is a crappy, tiny futon with a cheap, thin mattress that's hard and lumpy as hell. I can't remember the last time I woke up feeling refreshed instead of sore.

“You know, I was going to move out of this place,” I say, grimacing at the self-pity in my voice. “As soon as I finished that internship and started collecting a real paycheck, I was going to move someplace nicer.”

“You still can, Em,” Marina says. “Screw those people. They're going to regret letting you leave. You'll land on your feet. I know it.”

Easy for her to say. She's settled comfortably into her career as a kindergarten teacher. She doesn't have to worry about having to hustle to find another job after being fired. Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment or the attempt to boost my spirits and my confidence. I know how ungrateful my thoughts are, I’m just in a dark place right now.

She lets me whine and sob my heart out over countless glasses of the cheap, sugary wine. Through it all, she listens patiently and offers succinct words of comfort when needed.

Marina is great like that. She always has been. I met her back in high school, and we've been best friends ever since. We're inseparable. The Two Musketeers. She's my rock, the shoulder I cry on, and the first person I turn to when I need advice – advice she's always gracious enough to give.

I love and appreciate this woman so much that it’s painful to imagine life without her.

“So, what's your next step then?” she asks, once I whine myself out.

Marina may be kind and thoughtful, but she’s also no-nonsense and focused on the task at hand. I knew she wouldn’t let me wallow for very long.

I shake my head. “I really don't know.”

She takes a sip of her wine and gives me a look – one I know all too well. Marina has an idea floating in her head. And she must think it is off the charts fantastic. She looks ready to burst.

“What is it?” I ask, giving her a small grin.

“I just had the most fabulous idea.”

“I can tell,” I say with a small laugh. “What is it?”

“Well, you have to know the world is changing, right?”

“Of course.”

“People are self-publishing books, podcasts are being monetized,” she says. “Even people on YouTube can make serious money now. Did you know a few have become millionaires by letting other people watch them play video games all day?”

I laugh. “Yeah, it seems kind of ridiculous.”

“It really is,” she laughed. “But, why can't you cash in on that?”

I cock my head and take a sip of wine. Damn, it is sweet. I predict a hangover in my future.

“What do you mean?”

She drains the last of her own glass and refills it. “Well, why don’t you start your own online – newspaper of sorts. A blog, or whatever they call it? I mean, you know people are obsessed with that true crime stuff you love so much. Why don't you start publishing your own work, and keep the profits for yourself? You could totally make a living doing that, Emma. I really think you could.”

I sit back on the couch and stare off into space, letting my mind wander freely. I get what she's saying. She's right. It feels like people can't get enough of true crime stories lately. People love a good mystery. They eat that shit up. I guess what my friend is proposing could work. At least, in theory.

“Wasn't there some big case you were working on?” Marina asks. “Like, some serial killer story or something.”

I nod absently, my mind still spinning with the possibilities. “Yeah, but I haven't touched the story in about a year or so,” I say. “The trail went cold.”

I honestly don't know if the case went cold or not. When I brought my research to Helen and told her I wanted to chase the story, she shot me down. She said the Times Daily wasn't some crappy, sensationalistic tabloid that publishes half-baked theories. Helen told me to spike the story because she didn't see the value in it, and that killed the fire that was burning in my belly about it.

I've always been a true crime nerd. I remember when I was younger, I could never get enough of it. I read, and now listen to podcasts, about cases from years ago, as well as more recent ones. My fascination with solving and reporting true crime is endless. It's one of the reasons I wanted to be an investigative journalist to begin with.

I know it may seem like a silly childish dream, but a small part of me always dreamed of becoming a big name in the field. I used to dream of cracking big cases and catching criminals with my stellar investigative skills.

I think I'm pretty good at it, personally. The program I graduated from up at Morro Bay State had a few of the more respected names in crime journalism as faculty members. I learned from some of the best.

“What was the case again?” Marina asks. “You mentioned it but never really went into much detail. I just remember that for a while, you were really excited about it.”

I drain the last of the wine in my glass and Marina immediately takes it from me and refills it. The one good thing about cheap wine – not that I can afford to really drink anything but – is that there's plenty of it.

“I was actually researching a different piece and ran across some unsolved murders,” I say. “I don't know what it was, but they caught my attention. I dug a little deeper and found what I thought was a connection between all of it.”

“Why did Helen kill your story?”

“Because I didn't have any proof,” I say. “I had a couple of suspects – real strong possibilities, actually – but nothing directly connecting them to the murders. The problem is that the one suspect I was leaning toward is a pillar of the community. A very well-respected figure in the city. Which makes the whole case problematic. Helen said she wasn't going to expose the paper to a potential libel suit if we went with the story. She told me to drop it.”

“I can't believe you dropped it, Em. That's so unlike you,” she says. “You're usually so stubborn when you really get into something.”

I shrug. “I didn't have much choice. I was more worried about making a good impression, so I did whatever she told me to. Helen was my editor. My boss.”

“Well, she's not your boss anymore,” Marina says.

“That is very true,” I say and take a long swallow of wine.

Marina and I talk long into the night about the potential opportunity. As the wine flows, and maybe not so surprisingly, the more plausible – and exciting – it all starts to sound.