You Should Smile More by Anastasia Ryan

Author:Anastasia Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

After the meeting at Starbucks with Jane, Trisha, and Marcus, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. The cappuccino in the evening had been a bad idea, no matter how good it had tasted. Every time I moved, a kitten attacked my feet.

When I finally fell asleep, I had another of my recurring Directis dreams. Every few nights or so, especially in the early morning dream time, they’d hit me. I was working there again, but Xavier had forbidden anyone to speak to me. In the dream, I was always struggling to do my job, but it was next to impossible with everyone treating me like a ghost. Then they fired me, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I kept showing up at Directis like an idiot. I woke up feeling humiliated, sad, and guilty all at once. The guilt was the worst. I still couldn’t completely shake it. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything to deserve the face speech, being stared at like a criminal as I grabbed my coffee cups and pens, or being walked out of the office, I couldn’t fully accept that it wasn’t somehow my fault. My job had been unapologetically parasitic, draining me emotionally and physically, destroying my relationships and taking all my free time. And they had told me I wasn’t worth the sacrifice I’d made.

Did horribly unfair things ever get easier to accept?

My feelings were all jumbled, and I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, allowing them to pass through. Was Xavier really trying to defraud Trimaran? Even if I doubted whether I had deserved his treatment, I knew Jane hadn’t. And neither had Mary-Anne, or Nancy, or likely any of the others.

I leaned over and grabbed the laptop from the bedside table then logged into my account on a job-search site. It was set up to send my résumé automatically to any position I had favorited. I searched for all positions within fifty miles, filtered out telemarketing, and then starred any job that came up. After I’d sent my resume to about seventy openings, I closed the computer and put it back on the bedside table. Maybe now I could let myself sleep.

I focused on slowing my breathing and felt myself relax. One by one, little furry bodies nudged against me, settling into fluffy, warm spots all along my legs and one right by my ear. The purring started, loud like only kittens can be, and I felt the last of my stress melt away as I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke to the sound of voices coming from the living room. I recognized the sound immediately. I rolled to the side and stared into Duo’s wide, unblinking eyes. A couple of the other kittens were piled on top of her, a fluffy tangle of legs and bellies. “Can’t you guys be better guard dogs?” I asked them. “You just let anyone in.

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