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CHAPTER FOUR

Depression has so many ways to take control of you, from the violent grip of panic to the slow fog of dread, it seems like its only goal is to make you feel as useless and pinned to the floor as possible.

For the past couple of weeks, that was my reality. I was barely able to get out of bed. Emma insisted I stay at her place because she didn’t want me moping around alone at mine, which was a good call on her part.

Ever since I got fired, Emma told me that I didn’t need to work, that her income was enough to pay for my apartment and hers, with plenty left over. She offered me a life of complete leisure, but something in me just wouldn’t allow me to take it. Maybe I felt like it was exploiting my girlfriend. Maybe I just needed to have a job to give me some kind of structure, something to do with my time.

Two weeks, seemingly hundreds of applications put in, and not a single indicator that any of it would change. I scold myself for being so careerist, that needing a job to give me purpose is capitalist propaganda…but I guess the infection of work equals worth had gotten even to me. How the fuck do they expect you to get a job, or even look fo r one, when the world has done so much to make you feel sub-human?

Today wasn’t any different from the other days this week. Same amount of despair, same amount of dread. I looked at my phone and saw it was 6:25, which meant Emma would be back soon. I looked around at the nothing I'd done all day and tried to contain my emotions. It worked a little, but I still cried over it a bit.

I blinked, and…shit, the clock read 6:58. Now she wouldn’t just be here soon, she’d be here any minute. I rushed to the kitchen and pulled a jar of pasta sauce from the cabinet. The only thing Emma asked that I try to do in my unemployed haze was to try to make dinner for us and not DoorDash junk more than once a week. I wasn’t doing great about it, but I was trying.

I was tossing a palmful of salt into the water pot when I heard the familiar rattle of keys in the lock. I knew Emma wouldn’t be mad that dinner wasn’t on the table the moment she walked in the door…I mean, she would probably not eat half her meals if someone didn’t remind her to do so, but at the very least I was disappointed in myself for sitting in my girlfriend’s apartment all day and accomplishing exactly zero.

The lock turned over and Emma came in, putting her phone in her purse as she entered. She looked exhausted, weary, and her useless girlfriend couldn’t do much to change that demeanor, I imagined.

"Hey hon" I said as she came into the kitchen, where I was adding tomato paste to the jarred sauce.

Emma pulled off her sneakers and put her backpack down on the catchall table that she got so she wouldn’t splay all her work stuff around the apartment when she got home (she still did, of course). She pulled her laptop out of her bag and put it on the dining table, letting me know it’ll be a “working dinner” kind of night so maybe she wouldn’t notice my lack of effort.

“Mmm smells good, babe” she said, nuzzling up to me and kissing me behind my rig ht ear. It was warm and familiar and maybe the best thing I’d felt all day.

“It’s just —“

“—it’s just nothing, Vi, I appreciate you putting in the effort. I’ve been unemployed, I know how tough this shit can be.” I felt her embrace tighten around my hips, and I turned around to see her staring at me, brow slightly furrowed in that deep thinker way, as if Emma had any other way of being. To prevent myself from crying from the swirl of emotion in my head, I leaned forward and kissed her.

Now that was the best thing I’d felt all day for sure. I wanted to take Emma and tumble over into the passion that I desperately needed after such a shitty day, but I heard the tomato sauce start to gurgle in the pan, a libido killer if there ever was one.

“So…I don’t want to get too far ahead of things, but, one of our JavaScript people quit suddenly today.”

“Oh?” I moved the sauce off of the burner and turned back toward Emma.

“Yeah, he was not that great honestly, and…it does mean there’s an opening…if you’re OK with the prospect of working in the same building as your girlfriend.”

“I do a hell of a lot of other things in the same building with my girlfriend, so what’s one more?” I took a step forward and wrapped my arms around Emma’s hips.

“So, yes?”

“I mean it’s worth a shot, if they’ll have me.”

Emma smirked and kissed me, “Well I’m glad you said that because I kinda already set up a dinner with me, you, and our CEO for tomorrow, and it would have been really awkward to back out.”

I kissed Emma on the forehead and then on the mouth, a rush of positive emotions filling me for the first time in what seemed like forever. “I love you, Em…thank you. ”

“It might be a slight downgrade in pay, since we’re a startup, but…it’s a pretty good place, and, the CEO, she’s actually nice and not a psychopath, so…”

I put a finger over Emma’s lips to halt her disclaimers. I knew it was just because she saw things from every angle, but right now, anything would beat the dread of more agonizing days of unemployment.

“Psychopath or not, I appreciate it, baby…” I kissed Emma again, this time lingering. I slid my hands down her back and arched an eyebrow. “And you know, all the sudden I’m not very hungry for dinner.”

“Me neither.” Emma smirked.