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“Juniper, why don’t you go play on your tablet in your room for a few minutes,” she said, not looking away from me.

I expected Juniper to protest, but she didn’t. Her little feet pattered across the floor and I heard the sound of one of her tablet games.

Larison went and shut the door.

Shit. What was happening?

“What’s going on, Josephine?”

Fuck fuck oh myfuck.

How was I supposed to answer that?

I let out an incoherent sound and then she took another step closer to me. “Something has changed between us and I want to talk about it so we can figure it out.”

Right. Okay. Fuck.

I couldn’t lie, but how could I tell her the truth?

“I just…I felt like, um, that I was getting too close. And that I needed to make sure I didn’t. Get too close. So I pulled back.” There. That was true.

She watched my face so closely, tracking every single movement. I could not lie to this woman.

“What do you mean? Getting too close?” She said the words slowly. Or maybe everything was just in slow-motion and I was having a stroke or something.

“I, um…” I gasped like a fish out of water. How the hell was I going to get out of this with my job and my dignity intact? I shouldn’t have pulled back so severely. Should have done it more gradually. She’d known that something was up and now here we were, and I was about to lose my job.

“Jo?” she asked, which was almost a relief. At least she hadn’t used my full name. I would have folded like a soggy deck of cards if she had.

“Oh god,” I blurted out. Why couldn’t a random portal to hell just open up beneath my feet and swallow me up? I’m sure I could figure out how to deal with the heat and the demons.

“What is it?” She seemed genuinely concerned. Maybe I was having a stroke.

“I felt like I was getting too close. To you.” There. I was going to have to drop out of school and get a regular job that was going to suck out my entire soul. Maybe I’d have some time to volunteer to teach literacy on the weekends?

If I hadn’t been spiraling before, I definitely was now.

Larison watched me and I could feel one of my eyes twitching.

“And it would be bad to get close to me,” she said slowly.

“I mean, yes. You’re technically my employer. And I need this job, Larison. I can’t go back to school in the fall without it.” Fuck, I was getting fired. The panic set in and I could hear my breathing accelerating and my hands were shaking.

“Hey, whoa, hold on,” Larison said, taking both my hands, jolting me with the contact. “You’re not going to lose your job.”

I was going to need her to repeat that at least ten more times before I’d start to believe it.

“I don’t…I need to go,” I said.

Larison and I both jumped as Juniper burst out of her room.

“Mama, my game isn’t working!” Excellent timing, kid.

“Okay, baby. Can you give me and Jo a few moments?”

“I’ve got to go,” I said, using Juniper’s interruption to make my escape. I absolutely had to get out of here.

“Jo—” Larison said, but Juniper tugged on her shirt.