Page 105 of The Turning of the Tables

The worst part was that Ididneed to take time off. I didn’t need to eliminate my income stream, but I wasn’t ready to be back at work. I could barely stay awake long enough to finish dinner, and dragging myself out of bed in the mornings was horrifically painful in both the physical and psychological senses. I did need to take more time to recover. But I hadn’t been let go out of concern for my well-being. If they’d had actual concern for my well-being, they’d have given me additional personal time off or offered me additional FMLA, which they didn’t, because the state of Virginia, in its infinite wisdom had eliminated FMLA of more than a month—which I’d taken—for people who contracted Arcana. To stop people from exploiting the taxpayers.

The taxpayers who didn’t actually pay for FMLA, because it was unpaid leave.

But that wasn’t an option. The only way now for me to take time off was to be laid off.

And so here I was.

I tried to nap.

And failed.

It wasn’t until I pushed myself up to go to the bathroom that I realized tears had been running down my face.

28

SETH MAYS

They fired me.

My phone immediately started buzzing.I picked it up and thumbed the green button.

“Theyfiredyou? Forwhat?” It was Elliot.

“So that I could take the time I need to recover.” I repeated what the HR manager had said to me as I sat in her corporate-style office with its nauseating pseudo-inspirational posters.

“That’s bullshit,” Elliot fumed. It helped a little that he was outraged on my behalf. Well, it helped my emotional state. It definitely wasn’t going to help my financial state, which had already been barely holding itself together and was now going to very quickly go into the toilet.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I felt too empty to even get riled up at this point. When she’d said it—We really feel that it’s in your best interest to stop working and take the time you need to recover—I had just stared at her. What the hell do you evensayto that? Add to it the fact that the whole room smelled sharp-sour and my ears sent stabbing pain through my head with every tap of her lacquered fingernails on her desk, and I had just felt so utterly lost. Overwhelmed.

Was I in a good place mentally and physically to work? No, of course not. My skin itched half the time, I had a nearly constant low-grade headache, I couldn’t stand being around most people because of the combination of BO and excessive perfume, and I felt constantly pumped full of nervous energy and exhaustion simultaneously.

But working at least helped me to focus on something that wasn’t my own rebellious physiology.

And now I didn’t have that.

I don’t know if I made a noise or if I failed to respond to something he’d said, but he sounded worried when he spoke again. “Seth, are you okay?”

“N-no.” I cringed at how pathetic I sounded. I mean, yeah, okay, it really bloody sucked, and I was okay acknowledging that, but I hadn’t expected to go all weepy on him. I didn’t want to be that kind of needy… whatever I was to him. Friend-with-benefits-but-not-really-because-he-lives-a-thousand-miles-away.

“Talk to me,” he said, in that perfectly calm, reasonable, Elliot way. The way that I really wanted to be talked to, but couldn’t get anywhere else but Elliot.

Damn.

Nothing like a major life crisis to make you realize you’ve fallen for your friend-with-benefits-but-not-really-because-he-lives-a-thousand-miles-away. Who had made it clear that he wasn’t in this for a relationship.

Clearly I make terrible decisions.

I told him about the whole conversation. About the way she sucked her teeth, making this high-pitched squeaking sound Ihated, the way her perfume felt like a personalassault, but still didn’t block her sour-sharp smell, the way her nails clicked and the way the furniture polish in the room made me want to sneeze.

“She was afraid of you, you know,” he said, then.

“What?”

“That sour-sharp smell. A little like body odor, but rancid and a little burnt. It’s fear.”

“Oh.”

“My poor baby shifter.” He sounded amused, although not in an unkind way.