Chapter 6
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, the rapid tapping echoing through the quiet office.
Lines of text and rough sketches began to take shape on the screen, slowly spreading out as she worked.
As her coworkers started trickling in, the office gradually came alive with the sound of keyboards clacking, phones ringing, and people chatting.
But Anna barely noticed any of it.
She shut herself away in a world built from deadlines and logic.
Here, she was the one in charge, the one who set the rules.
Not the daughter-in-law dragged out of bed at six every morning, judged for not being "the perfect wife," and chained by endless family expectations.
Time slipped away in a blur of busy work.
At noon, Sophie leaned over and asked if Anna wanted to grab lunch. Anna shook her head without looking up. "Go ahead. I'll just run down to the vending machine later and grab something."
Sophie knew Anna was swamped with the project, so she didn't push. She just brought her a coffee when she came back.
That afternoon, Anna sat through two meetings, locked in the core team for the Stellar Project, got the team chat up and running, and handed out the first round of assignments.
By 7 PM, most of the office was already empty.
Anna rubbed her sore, swollen eyes and glanced at her phone.
No missed calls.
No new messages.
Michael hadn't even bothered to ask what time she'd be getting off work.
And Margaret? She wouldn't even bother to check on Anna.
Anna opened her chat with Michael. The last message was from yesterday morning, when he'd asked if she'd seen his gray tie.
She typed out a quick message, "Working late tonight. I'll be home late."
Her finger hovered over the send button for a few seconds, and then she deleted the whole thing.
Why bother? Telling him wouldn't change anything.
He wouldn't bother picking her up, and he never really cared when she got home.
It'd just give Margaret another excuse to give her an earful. "Working late again? How long are you planning to stay out? Look at the time! Is this how a woman should act, coming home in the middle of the night every day?"
Anna turned off her phone and set it face down on the desk.
"Anna, you're still here?" The intern who just joined the project team poked her head in, sounding curious.
"Just finishing up a few things. You go ahead and head out. Take care on your way home," Anna said, forcing a smile.
"Alright! Don't work too late, Anna! Bye!" the intern called as she left.
One by one, everyone left the office until Anna was the only one left, sitting under the faint yellow glow of a few energy-saving lights overhead.
Outside, the lights of Riverside City were just flickering on, and car headlights traced long, glowing ribbons down the streets.
Anna stood up and walked to the window, stretching her stiff neck.
In the glass, her reflection looked back at her, just a solitary, exhausted figure, all alone.
She remembered that crushing exhaustion from this morning, the kind that felt like it could swallow her whole.
Right now, the intensity of work had managed to push it down, at least for a while.
But it was like a dormant volcano, just waiting to blow up again, ready to make everything fall apart even worse.
She went back to her desk and kept her eyes glued to the screen.
Time did fly. Soon, it was 2 AM.
Her eyes were dry and burning, her neck and shoulders so stiff she winced every time she shifted in her chair.
Her stomach was empty and aching, but she had no appetite at all. She just kept drinking iced coffee, one cup after another, barely tasting it.
At 3:17 AM, Anna saved the final document and shut her laptop, her exhaustion settling in as she did.
As she stood up, everything went dark for a moment. She had to steady herself against the desk to keep from collapsing.
After a while, her vision slowly came back into focus.
She packed up her stuff, turned off the lights, and walked out of the office.
The whole office building was almost completely shrouded in darkness and silence, with only the emergency lights in the hallway giving off a dim red glow.
As the elevator went down, the drop made her head spin a bit.
Stepping outside, the late-night wind cut across her face like a knife, snapping her awake and making her head, swollen from the heating inside, ache sharply.
The subway had already stopped running by then.
She stood out in the freezing wind for almost twenty minutes before finally catching a cab.
When she gave the address she called "home," she felt no hope. Just an overwhelming exhaustion that made it hard to breathe.
All she wanted was to just drop, close her eyes, and sleep, even if it was only for a few minutes.
The cab raced through the deserted streets.
She leaned against the window, watching the lights and buildings streak by, feeling like everything outside was just scenery in a movie.
It was as if she were an accidental spectator, someone who had stumbled into the scene by mistake.
She belonged neither here nor anywhere else.
The cab stopped at the entrance of the apartment complex.
She paid the fare, got out, and walked into the quiet, dimly lit complex.
The motion-sensor lights in the hallway must have been broken. No matter what she did, they wouldn't turn on.
She groped her way up to the fifth floor in the dark, pulled out her keys, and tried to open the door as quietly as possible.
The apartment was shrouded in darkness, with only a few pinpricks of light from the building opposite slipping through the crack in the living room curtains.
The doors to both the master bedroom and the guest room were shut, and from inside came the soft, steady sound of breathing.
They were both asleep.
Anna felt an unexpected wave of relief.
She didn't have to face anyone or handle any interrogation or blame.
She quietly changed her shoes, dropped her bag on the entryway cabinet, and didn't even have the energy to wash up. She just wanted to crash onto her bed.
She pushed open the master bedroom door and, in the faint glow from outside, saw Michael with his back to the door, fast asleep.
She slipped in quietly, careful not to make a sound as she lay down on the other side.
Her body sank into the soft mattress, and the tension that had been wound tight all day finally started to loosen.
Exhaustion crashed over her like a tide, ready to drag her under into sleep in seconds.