Hundred and thirteen.
That's the number of job applications I submitted this month. Not that anyone's counting, except me, every single night like it's some twisted bedtime ritual. Out of those, three replied—just to say I wasn't good enough. The rest? Silence so loud it hums in my ears.
At this point, I genuinely can't tell if rejection is worse than radio silence. At least a 'no' has the decency to show up and slam the door in your face. Ignorance? That's a slow drip of humiliation. There was no room for growth when you didn't know where you'd gone wrong. No feedback, no hint, not even a mercy typo to prove someone human had read it. I could reflect all day, become a damn monk of self-awareness, and it still wouldn't change the fact that I had no idea what these companies wanted. A Nobel Prize? A kidney?
Meanwhile, I've been dodging my landlord's calls like they're bill collectors in a dystopian sitcom. I keep telling myself maybe—just maybe—I'll land something this week. Then I can call him with a half-baked plan and a desperate sprinkle of hope. "Just a few more days," I'll say. Like I haven't said that before.
Eventually, I shut the laptop with a force that felt just dramatic enough and wandered over to the window. It overlooked the street, the same one that swelled with bodies every day past noon. The nine-to-fivers were spilling out now, all in neat outfits and with places to be. I watched them like a museum exhibit. I didn't know whether to envy their paychecks or mock their espresso-fueled delusions of purpose.
I could call Grandma. Ask for help again. Just a little. Just enough to get through this month without rationing instant noodles like war rations. But here's the thing—if I ask for crumbs, she'll send a damn buffet. She always does. And I can't carry the guilt that comes with it. Not again.
She's been my anchor since I was seven, since my parents tore the house—and each other—apart. She stepped in, soft-spoken and warm, like a stitched-up quilt that smells like lavender and old books. She gave me everything she could. Bought me toys she couldn't afford, cooked me dinners that tasted like magic and survival, and listened to me ramble about dinosaurs and imaginary planets like it was gospel. Never once did she tell me she was tired. Never once did she let me feel small.
I wasn't spoiled. I was shielded. She didn't want me to feel like the poor kid in class, the one with the hand-me-downs and the pitying glances. So she filled the cracks with love, and made sure I never saw the holes in the ceiling until I was old enough to patch them myself.
I'm not sure I'm patching anything now. If anything, I might be the crack.
I noticed something while looking out the window—a shift in the air, a disturbance in the already low-level peace of my morning. It wasn't just the usual chaos of the street. No, this was more targeted. A foul gust of despair rolled up the sidewalk like a warning flare. And then I saw it.
Doug.
My landlord, in the flesh. The man, the myth, the rent-collector. He was entering the building like a debt-shaped curse.
In that moment, I had two options: jump out the window or face him. And honestly, jumping didn't seem like such a bad idea. Except knowing Doug, he'd find my broken body on the pavement, escort me personally to the hospital, and then invoice me for emotional damages and parking.
I considered hiding. Under the bed? In the wardrobe? Classic moves, but unfortunately, this wasn't a sitcom and I wasn't four years old.
Then came the knock—or more accurately, the voice.
"Reed, I know you're inside." His voice always had this quality—like someone grinding coffee beans with their teeth. "You better open or I'll call the police."
Right. Because that's what I needed. Another file added to my collection of Failures of Adulthood: "Loitering in Own Apartment While Broke."
I opened the door.
Doug pushed in immediately, like he was afraid I'd change my mind and vanish into thin air. Not that he believed I had the talent for that.
"What's your problem, Reed? You know I know where you live, right? Not answering my calls doesn't make you invisible," he snapped, closing the door with unnecessary force. It echoed like a verdict.
"Sorry, Doug," I muttered. "I just didn't know what to say on the phone… I certainly don't know what to say to you now."
"How about this—'I'll pay the three months due'?"
I exhaled. "I don't make false promises, Doug."
"Oh! How noble of you. Then tell me, champ—can you make them true?"
"I'm planning to," I said, probably too quickly. "Come on, Doug, if I wanted to run away, I would've done it already. But I'm here. I stayed. I'm trying to take responsibility."
I realized immediately how that sounded. Telling someone you could have run away but chose not to isn't exactly comforting when you owe them money. It just confirms you thought about it.
Doug's eyes narrowed like a loan shark's in a low-budget thriller.
"Then we can call your grandma…"
"No." I said it too fast. "Don't. Please, Doug. Leave her out of this. I'm trying to handle it."
He scoffed. "How? By staying home all day playing house with your laptop? You don't even look like you're trying."
"I am applying for jobs. Ever heard of the internet?" My tone was slipping—too defensive, too desperate.
Doug raised an eyebrow. "Reed, you could flip burgers or pump gas, I don't care. I just want my money. It's not complicated."
"One more week," I said, voice lower now. "Just one last week."
He stared at me like he'd heard that line tattooed across a hundred other hopeless faces. Then, something softened—just slightly—in his expression.
Doug wasn't evil. He was just a man in his late fifties, still trying to dress like he was thirty. Tight shirts, greased hair, those loafers that looked like they were built for yacht clubs he'd never been invited to. His kindness had its limits, but it existed. Somewhere under all that polyester and posturing.
And maybe, just maybe, I hadn't hit that limit. Yet.
"One week. Seven days. That's all you get."
"THANK YOU." I said it like a man being handed a lifeline made of dental floss. I almost dropped to my knees right then and there to kiss his fake Italian loafers, but I had a sliver of pride left. A very thin, brittle sliver. Couldn't afford to snap it. Not yet.
Doug pointed a finger at me like a warning label come to life. "If you don't deliver, then it's your grandma. The police take too damn long to get anything from a broke-ass like you."
And with that final threat, he turned on his heel, opened the door like he was kicking off a Broadway exit, and slammed it hard enough to rattle the utensils in the drawer. Dramatic bastard.
I climbed onto the kitchen counter like a depressed cat and just sat there, legs dangling, hands behind me, head tilted back like I was waiting for divine inspiration to drip from the ceiling.
How the hell was I supposed to get three months' rent in a week?
Like—mathematically, how?
I didn't want to go back to restaurant work. Nothing against it, I just didn't want to smell like fryer oil and broken dreams again. And gas stations? I was overqualified. At least, that's what I told myself to feel better. Truth was, I probably wasn't even qualified for that anymore. I'd spent so much time in front of a laptop that real-world labor now felt like a myth.
If I could just get enough to cover one month—just one—that would be something. Proof of effort. A gesture. A breadcrumb of hope. Something I could hold up to Doug like, "See? I'm not a complete failure."
But even that felt like asking the universe for a miracle. And the universe has been screening my calls lately.
Still sitting on the kitchen counter like a taxidermized version of myself, I scrolled through old messages on my phone, hoping something—anything—would magically offer money, salvation, or at least a coupon for free food. That's when I saw her name:
Andrea.
It had been a while. College-days-while. We studied film set design together, back when we both thought we'd end up building extravagant sets for indie masterpieces or streaming hits with a cult following. She always had the energy of someone who was going to make it. Fast-talking, smart, and confident in that mildly chaotic way that made you believe she could con the sun into rising earlier if she needed the lighting.
I stared at her name. The last message was a meme from two years ago: a guy duct-taping a falling-apart set with the caption "low-budget creativity." A true classic.
I didn't know what I was expecting when I tapped hey u alive?
She replied instantly.
Andrea: Reed?? omg yes. You're alive too. Thought you joined a cult or became a monk.
Me: I did. It's called unemployment and it involves a lot of fasting and guilt.
She replied with a laughing emoji and then, casually:
Andrea: Wanna film something with me?
My heart stuttered. Was this it? Did she make it? Was she finally doing what we studied for? Designing sets? Working on a real production?
Me: What is it? Like… a short film? Set work?
Andrea: It's a bit of everything. I do the lighting, the camera, the directing, the performance—it's very indie. You in?
I hesitated, but the image of Doug's face popped into my head like a cursed jack-in-the-box.
Me: Yeah, I'm in.
Andrea: Cool. Can you come over now? Like right now right now?
Me: Absolutely. I can teleport if necessary.
She dropped her location. A nice part of town. Huh. Maybe she really made it. Maybe she had clients. Maybe she needed help on a shoot and remembered her broke, nearly-expelled-for-plagiarizing friend.
I hopped off the counter, changed into something presentable—or as presentable as you can look when your only clean shirt is technically an old band tee from a group that broke up before TikTok was invented—and headed out the door.
My heart thumped with this weird cocktail of hope and confusion. She had made it out of the college mess. Maybe she could throw me a line. Maybe this was the miracle I'd been too bitter to expect.
Of course, what I didn't know yet—what no one bothered to tell me as I rode the bus smelling faintly of despair and stale air freshener—was that Andrea wasn't exactly doing cinema, in the traditional sense.
She had built her own kind of stage. And I was about to walk straight into it.
Andrea's place was… surprising, to say the least.
A modern apartment on the fourth floor of a building that had functioning elevators and smelled like citrus cleaning products instead of despair. The hallway carpets weren't stained. Her door even had one of those digital keypads. I didn't know anyone our age who didn't still use a rusted key and brute force.
I knocked.
The door opened with a flourish, and there she was—Andrea, looking like the dictionary definition of unbothered success. She wore a silk robe that was definitely not from the clearance rack, her hair done up in soft curls, nails perfect, skin glowing like she hadn't been haunted by a student loan in years.
"You look like poverty incarnate," she grinned, pulling me into a hug.
"Thanks. You look like someone who made it out of the slums of academia," I said, hugging her back and promptly bumping into what I thought was a boom mic stand.
It was not.
As I stepped inside, I was hit by the first wave of… something.
Lighting rigs. A camera on a tripod. A soft pink backdrop stretched across one wall. Fuzzy rugs. Mood lighting.
And the centerpiece: a plush, heart-shaped bed covered in rose-colored sheets that looked like they had never known the sound of innocent sleep.
My stomach tensed.
"Oh," I said.
"You okay?" Andrea asked, breezing past me, completely unbothered. She walked over to a ring light and adjusted it, checking herself in a wall-mounted mirror that had LEDs and fake flower vines around it. The kind of mirror that didn't scream cinema, unless we were talking about a very specific, niche genre.
"What, uh… exactly are we filming?" I asked, already knowing the answer in my bones but clinging to the last fraying thread of denial like it was a life raft.
She turned to me, smiling wide. "OnlyFans. Premium. Ethical. Independent. Empowering as fuck."
I blinked.
"Oh," I said again. A broken record of discomfort.
"I do solo mostly," she continued, casually. "Sometimes themed stuff. But I'm expanding into collabs now and I thought—who better than my old college buddy?"
Andrea pulled open a drawer and tossed a small black box onto the bed. It bounced once. I didn't look too closely, but I already felt my soul detach from my body.
She turned to me with a grin that could be mistaken for predatory if I didn't know her since freshman year.
"Alright," she said. "Let's get you out of those clothes."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"For the shoot. Duh."
A silence hung between us.
"What… what exactly am I supposed to be doing in this shoot?" I asked, slowly.
She raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. "Participating. You're the scene partner."
Another silence. This one had weight.
"You mean I'm not just filming?"
"No, babe," she said with a laugh, adjusting the camera angle slightly. "You're in it. I thought that was obvious."
"Oh my God," I muttered.
"What's wrong?" she asked, still chipper.
"What's wrong is that I'm gay, Andrea. That's what's wrong."
She blinked, then burst out laughing. "Seriously?"
"Dead serious. I am about as straight as a crumpled paperclip."
"Fuck," she said, throwing herself onto the bed dramatically. "Why do I always attract the gays?"
"Because we're emotionally damaged and drawn to chaos," I said, deadpan. "Also, what the hell made you think I'd be into this?"
"I thought you knew I was doing OF now!"
"I didn't!" I cried, genuinely distressed. "I thought you got a job in, I don't know, set design or lighting or… cinema!"
"This is cinema," she said, indignant. "Erotic cinema."
"Erotic cinema requires mutual arousal. And I can assure you I am currently flatter than dead Wi-Fi."
She huffed, rolled off the bed, and picked up the box again. "Well. That sucks."
"You think you're disappointed?" I said. "I came here thinking I was going to hold a boom mic and yell cut! not—whatever this would've been. I'm too broke for this conversation."
She paused. "Okay, but like… you'd still look amazing on camera. You've got the whole soft-boy, cigarette-in-hand, 'I journal my sadness' aesthetic. People would eat that up."
I stared at her. "Andrea, I look like this because I am eating up sadness. That's the diet."
She sighed. "Well, I guess that's off the table then."
"Yeah. Very off the table. You don't want to film me looking horrified and unresponsive while praying for rent money."
She smirked. "Actually, some people might be into that."
"I am begging you not to finish that sentence."
I ended up staying.
Not for the filming—God, no. That ship sank with all hands the moment she tossed lube onto the duvet.
But Andrea, ever the opportunist, lit up the moment I mentioned I'd been dabbling in video editing. "You still have Premiere?" she asked, like I'd just confessed to hoarding gold.
By the time I left her place, I had a USB drive, a modest wad of cash, and more knowledge of camera angles used in solo adult content than I ever wanted stored in my brain.
Back in my apartment, I tossed my hoodie onto the floor and slumped into my chair like a man returning from war. The smell of takeout grease and guilt hung in the air.
I plugged in the USB, opened the file folder, and took a moment to question every decision I'd made since graduation.
There were moans. Lots of them.
I muted immediately.
The video itself wasn't bad. Andrea had good lighting, solid framing, consistent focus. If you could ignore the sounds of self-worship echoing through your bones, it was actually a clean edit job. I trimmed the footage, added her requested filters, inserted music (that took way too long because how the hell do you soundtrack moaning?) and exported it in crisp HD.
I leaned back, cracked my neck, and stared at the ceiling. A part of me felt like I'd just survived something. Another part felt like I should start charging for therapy sessions.
Then—ping.
An email.
Subject line: URGENT: HELP NEEDED FROM PRINCE LUCIEN OF BLECH.
I stared at it, blank-faced. Another scam. Probably. Or, knowing my luck, maybe divine punishment in the shape of one.
I just sat there in the glow of my cursed export bar, wondering what version of hell I'd unlocked by helping edit my college friend's thirst trap while eating leftover noodles and contemplating rent extensions.
And then I shut the laptop. Whatever that email was—it could wait.