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EMMA
“What?”I yelled over the thundering beat of the base. The lights at the club strobed around us in colorful bursts.
Olivia, one of my old high school friends I was trying to reconnect with, grabbed my arm, and leaned into my ear. “That guy is totally checking you out. You should go talk to him.”
I looked to where she was pointing. “Who, him?” I rolled my eyes. No way. He wasn’t really my type, anyway.
“Yes way.” She raised her eyebrows up and down at me with a grin. “It’s high time you had a little fun, don’t you think?”
Just then, my apple watch buzzed with a notification. “Oh, shit.” I turned towards Olivia. “I’m so sorry, I gotta jet.” This is what I got for actually leaving the house for once.
She looked at me for a moment, before registering that I was leaving. “Seriously?”
I hated that look she was giving me. It was a look I had seen from everyone I had slowly grown away from over the last few years. “Yeah, sorry. Thanks for the invite, I really appreciate it. Truly.”
“You know, you make it next to impossible to spend any time with you.” She said it with true annoyance, not playfully. It was laced with subtext, almost like ‘this is your last chance’ or ‘maybe I’m going to stop trying to be your friend because you’re making it so difficult to get close to you.’
The thing was, she wasn’t wrong. Itwasimpossible to spend time with anyone when I was always on call twenty-four seven; tethered to my job, just waiting to sprint to my computer to resolve another security breach.
I grimaced, “I’m sorry Olivia, I really have to go. Thanks again.”
“Sure. Whatever.” She shrugged and made her way back over to the group of friends she’d invited me out with.
Fuck.
I was burning one of the last friendship bridges I had left.
I called an Uber, and while I waited for my driver to pick me up, I opened my phone. It was another security threat, but pretty run of the mill for me at this point. I shook my head. It would probably take me a mere ten minutes to divert it, but I couldn’t do it from my phone. Once again, I was missing out on having a life because of my job.
The Uber driver dropped me off in front of my house and I quickly made my way inside, annoyed that I hadn’t even had enough to drink to warrant taking the Uber in the first place.
I didn’t bother turning the lights on, I made a beeline straight for the fridge and grabbed an ice cold can of Diet Coke, and cracked it open. I took a sip, savoring the way the carbonation burned down my throat, and sat at the kitchen table with my laptop.
Let’s see who ruined my night.
I quickly checked through the system and quickly found the breach. I shook my head.
So sloppy. What a waste of breath.
I went to work sealing off the breach and flagged the hackers’ information up to my team leader for review. I checked the time on the microwave’s clock.
Nine minutes flat. Thank you, asshole, for making me come all the way back home for this.
I went upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and peeled off my tight black bandage dress, and chucked my sky high heels into the closet.
I hope you had a good time. I doubt you’ll see the light of day again.
I hung the dress up in my closet and threw on a pair of soft sleeping shorts and a cami, and headed back downstairs to veg out. I went into the living room with my laptop and flicked on the TV.
I scrolled the streaming service for a moment before giving up and settling on a trashy reality show. I wasn’t really watching it anyway; it was just for background noise, the comfort of human voices. I was alone so often these days, and any attempt at social interaction was often interrupted by an event like this evening. Aside from my dad, who was overseas for work for a few months, I had a hard time keeping in touch with anyone anymore.
Being employed against your own will for the government had many downsides. One of which was that I didn’t have much of a social life. I often found myself lonely and bored.
I opened up a new browser on my computer and started online shopping.
The work I did for the agency was critical, but it was easy for me. I had to be on high alert at all times, but it was always a false start because the breaches were usually routine and easy enough to fix.
