"What do you mean, another tragedy?!"
The roar from the Chief Editor's office caused a ripple of flinches across the open-plan floor. The employees exchanged panicked glances, even their fingers froze over their keyboards. They knew what was happening.
Chief Editor Han was rejecting yet another script!
Inside the office, Carrie felt the heat rising in her neck. She stood before his desk, clutching her latest script like it could protect her from him.
"Chief Editor." she said, flinching as her laptop flew from his table and hit the wall with a loud bang. This was why his assistant refused to submit her script himself.
This man's anger was on a whole other level!
"The market is saturated with fluff. This tragedy is raw. It's real."
"It's depressing, Carrie!" Han slammed the manuscript onto the desk.
"Carrie, look at the charts. The audience wants 'Happily Ever After.' They want the Alpha to kneel. They don't want a female lead who wastes her youth on a one-sided, unrequited love while her evil step-sister and family ruins her life for no reason!"
He stood up, pacing the length of the window when there was nothing else to throw from his table.
"This sister... She hates the lead just because? Where is the motivation? Where is the logic?"
"Some people are just cruel, Chief Editor Han," Carrie had said but he began looking for more things to throw, she quickly interjected. "And, and not everything needs a logical redemption arc."
Han stopped and looked at her. His eyes moved over the fine lines of fatigue around her eyes.
"You know why you write this trash?" His voice dropped. "Because you have never been chosen, Carrie. You're thirty-three and you've never even been on a second date. You're writing 'loveless' stories because you're living a loveless life. You're projecting your own bitterness onto the page."
"You want my professional advice? Go out. Take a week. Find someone. Let a man buy you a drink before you try to write another romance. Because right now? You're failing and I will fire someone if I don't sell a hit book."
Carrie felt as if he'd slapped her. All she could do was stare at the junior who started off as a writer under her, now because he was promoted as a Chief Editor it was okay to look down on her.
She felt the sting of tears but refused to let them fall.
Chief Editor Han's tone softened slightly when he saw the hollow look in her eyes, which was worse. "Look... we go way back. That's the only reason I'm not dropping your contract today. I'll give you one week. Seven days to rewrite this finale into something happy. Give them a happy ending, or don't bother coming back."
Don't come back if she doesn't write a happy ending?
"I'm giving a million dollar advice, Carrie. You won't find someone as patient as me. Don't. Fuck. Up."
The moment she opened the doors of Chief Editor Han's office, an employee fell before her feet, the others ran to their desks as if she didn't just catch them leaning over the door to hear what was happening.
She looked at the one on the floor, who was vibrating with shame and then the ones on their desks pretending they didn't hear a thing.
Inhaling deeply, she walked over to her desk to gather her things.
"What did the chief Editor say?"
"About that old nagger? Tch, it's a shame, truly. I heard she was sick."
"Is that why she always writes about tragedy? Oh my… Is she going to die?"
"SHHH, don't say things like that out loud. Someone might hear… Though I heard it's cancer so…"
"Oh my God, I feel so bad for her… But, Jess, how do you know that?"
"The news is all over the company. I'm surprised you haven't heard. I also heard Chief Editor Han is being hard because he wants her to leave on her own will without having to fire her. And even though she changes her script, he'll find something else to complain about."
"Um, that's a bit rude."
"How's it rude? He's doing her a favor, really. At least we won't have to sit through her bitter nags during meetings. I mean, if she's going to die soon, why can't she just quit? She's too old for the work anyway–"
"What are you saying?"
"Quit and die peacefully with her family. Simple."
Carrie's hand hovered over her box when she recognized the subject of the conversation she didn't mean to hear.
She had told one employee.
One.
Now everyone knew…
Leaning over the partition, she brought her face to the gossiping box with a terrifyingly wide smile.
"You're right," Carrie whispered. The two girls, who had been laughing seconds ago, flinched back so fast one of them nearly tripped over her rolling chair. "She should quit and die peacefully."
"But the funny thing is, Carrie doesn't have a 'peaceful' home to go to. Her father is in a coma, kept alive by machines she pays for. Her mother ran away long before Carrie turned ten. And her brother? He's rotting in a cell for a crime he didn't commit."
She tilted her head, her smile stretching just a fraction too far. The girls remained paralyzed by how she was describing her funeral like a travel agent!
"So when you wonder why she doesn't write 'Happy Endings'..." Carrie reached out and gently straightened a pen on the girl's desk. She flinched as if Carrie had pulled a knife.
"...it's because happy endings don't happen to everyone. Don't you think?"
The girls exchanged nervous glances. "M-miss Smith, we were just—"
"No. Please speak casually to me. Don't you refer to me as the old nagger?"
"M-miss Smith, we–" the other girl tried to explain but Carrie interjected.
"You know… three months ago, when the former Chief Editor had his hand up your skirt in the breakroom, that old nagger had put her career on the line and dragged him through the mud so you wouldn't have to."
The girl's eyes went wide at the memory. Miss Carrie Smith had been the only one who had believed her at the time.
"So it's quite funny to hear you discuss her illness with such... boredom. But don't worry. She's leaving. You won't have to hear that bitter granny 'nag' anymore."
Carrie straightened her spine, giving them one last chilling smile before walking to the elevator with her box.
Ding.
As she stepped out of the elevator, the vernal breeze brushed her skin with the scent of damp earth and peach blossoms, telling that the long winter had finally broken.
Carrie looked back at the company logo in the reception. Novella. Smiling, she handed the company's car key to the receptionist.
What was she thinking, the person she had thought they had a long standing connection didn't want her to rewrite her script. He wanted her gone.
She smiled bitterly.
In times like this, she'd sit in her lonely apartment crafting unrealistic tragedy for her characters.
Life, the creator, thought her one thing; if you don't like the system, create your system and punish everyone to your heart's content.
She couldn't wait to go home—
HOOOOONK!
Carrie's heels skidded on the pavement as she jerked her body back. The wind from a black sedan had whipped her hair across her face.
Running a slender finger through her hair, she looked at the retreating vehicle with distain. Her hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped her life's work into the gutter!
"What is this bad luck today?" She muttered, trying to gather her frightened self.
She waited until the road was a dead and silent view of black before she dared to cross. And by the time the rusted yellow roof of the bus station came into view, she paused momentarily.
There was no bus in sight. Just an old man sleeping on the bench, under the blinking street light.
Inhaling, Carrie contemplated whether to hail a taxi or an Uber, given it was night and this district was no stranger to late-night violence, robberies, and the occasional knife fight.
And when the stranger woke up, prior to choking on his saliva, he turned momentarily at her before walking off to the other side of the street.
Carrie glanced down at her box. The manuscript felt heavier than the box she carried. Five hundred pages of ink, sweat, and the bleakest parts of her soul.
She looked at a rusted, overflowing trash bin just opposite where she stood.
Looking back at the title of her work: The War-Mating Ritual. Her fingers traced the edge of the paper.
"Han was right about one thing. You are a tragedy. But not for the reasons he thinks. You're a tragedy because I gave you everything, and you gave me nothing back."
Suddenly, she let go.
The stack of paper hit the bottom of the bin with a dull thud, disappearing beneath a layer of discarded coffee cups and old newspapers.