All this time she’d been walking around, oblivious, and proving Sibyl right in her opinion that she shouldn’t be there, with every mistake she made.

Lila called a cab and made her way back to her apartment. Ruth wasn’t home. Probably out to dinner with Jackie or Sally – or both of them – talking about what had happened and how she couldn’t stand to look at her liar of a roommate anymore.

The thought of Ruth coming home, and Lila having to face her disappointment again, brought the sick feeling back. She went straight into her bedroom and sat on the bed like she had that first day. Another failed friendship, another failed job. She dropped her head into her hands trying to breathe.

Rowan knew it as well. He’d known that Sibyl didn’t think she was any good at her job, and he hadn’t told her. Probably thought he was sparing her feelings. Because she was such a basket case he needed to treat her with kid gloves. And he wasn’t wrong. None of them were wrong.

There was a pain in the middle of the chest. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was a panic attack. She knew that but it didn’t necessarily help. Just like knowing this whole thing wasn’t actually the end of the world, didn’t stop it from feeling that way. All the layers she’d been building up had been peeled away and she felt so raw, like any word, any look, and touch would make her bleed.

She couldn’t go into work again tomorrow. She couldn’t stay here.

The only thing she could do to ignore the fact she was struggling to breathe, was to move, to distract herself.

She got up and grabbed her suitcase.