The email was exactly three lines long.
"Effective immediately, your position with Vincent Global is terminated.
We appreciate your contributions and wish you the best in your future endeavors."
No signature. No explanation. Just the corporate equivalent of a shrug.
I reread it anyway, numb fingers pressed into the edge of my chipped desk, like if I stared hard enough a fourth line would appear: Just kidding, Hailey. This is all a misunderstanding.
My monitor flickered. The office around me kept humming—printers spitting out proposals, muted phones ringing, the low murmur of voices I’d scheduled into a color-coded calendar. No one looked my way. Human Resources efficiency: send the email five minutes before lunch so there’s a natural exit window.
I swallowed against the metallic taste in my mouth and clicked open the attachment. Severance, two weeks’ pay. Non-disclosure language the length of a short novel. A reference line so vague it might as well say: breathing, sometimes.
The spreadsheet I’d been working on glared up at me from behind the pop-up. Column D was still open on projected annual savings. Line 42 was my sin—a red comment bubble next to a line that represented "labor optimization" on the night-shift cleaning staff.
I had written: "Cutting these positions will violate city minimum staffing and likely void our safety certification. Recommend revisiting before approval."
I hadn’t expected applause. I had expected…discussion. Maybe even a condescending pat on the head. I had not expected to be erased.
"You okay?" Megan, the woman in the next cubicle, leaned around the partition. Her mascara had migrated south sometime this morning, but her eyes were sharp.
"Fine." The word scraped my throat. "Just—reading."
My mouse hand shook. I tried to steady it by gripping harder.
Her gaze flicked to my screen, to the EMAIL: TERMINATION line bolded in my inbox. For one suspended second, we both pretended she hadn’t seen it.
"Hailey—" she started.
"Can you cover the vendor call at two?" I pushed the words out fast, before the burn behind my eyes turned into something wetter, more humiliating. "You have the deck."
Megan’s mouth tightened. "You should talk to someone. This has to be—"
"Policy." I forced a smile that felt like it belonged on a department store mannequin. "It’s fine."
It was not fine. My rent was two months behind. My father’s latest hospital bill sat in my bag like a brick, unopened because I already knew the number would make me nauseous. I had eighty-three dollars in my checking account.
And now, zero job.
"I’m so sorry," Megan whispered.
I liked Megan. She brought extra coffee pods on Mondays and once pretended not to see when I swiped leftover pastries from a catered meeting. But she couldn’t fix this. Not when the decision had been signed by the man whose name was embossed in silver on the elevator doors.
Lucas Vincent.
I’d seen him exactly twice in person. Once in an all-hands meeting where he’d been projected twenty feet tall on a screen, sharp suit and sharper jawline, eyes like winter light. Once three weeks ago, when I’d stayed late and watched him stride down the corridor with his executive shadow, not noticing the girl at the printer who would be unemployed before the quarter ended.
He hadn’t looked cruel. Just…distant. Efficient.
