ARC

"Are you still looking for the QA role you reached out for last week?"

It was my absolutely last hope and as I typed it on my LinkedIn. All I wanted to see in response was a 'yes'. Fingers crossed, I waited and the next moment a wave of relief swept over me when the man on the other end replied back with, "Of course. When can you come in for a meeting?"

"Tomorrow's good." I replied.

"Great, let's meet tomorrow then. The boss will be waiting for you. We can coordinate time in the morning tomorrow."

"Sure, that'll work."

Phew. I closed my LinkedIn and slumped back down on the couch I had been sitting upright on a moment ago. I wish I hadn't turned down this opportunity for the stupid company I had joined last week. They were legit, doing great work but somehow, I couldn't fit in. It just… didn't feel right.

Resigning from that position without a back up was one hell of a move to pull off after six years of non-stop employment but I had to make a call. The dead boring job they were making me do wasn't worth the time and the effort I knew I could put in if offered the right role.

"Found anything, Mia?" Ruby's concerned voice carried into the lounge right after she walked in carrying two mugs of steaming coffee.

I smiled lightly, looking at the concern in my roomie's eyes. "Yes, finally. It's the company that reached out to me a week ago, ARC Technologies. Turns out, they haven't filled in the QA role they're looking for. They can meet me tomorrow."

"Wow, you're interviewing at ARC? I told you, you shouldn't have turned them down in the first place. Do you know how fast they've grown in the last year alone? No one knew they existed like two years ago and here they are, a big name in the tech industry."

"That's not exactly a great thing, Ruby. All this overnight success, who knows what they're really doing over there. I have heard some crazy shit about them, like they're not really nice people, more like white-collar criminals. They've got a mafia backing up their investment, turning their black money into white. Doesn't seem very safe to me, but I do have to pay the bills, so I got back to them."

"Are you kidding me? People pay the managers at ARC just to get hired. They offer quarterly growth and bonuses to performers. Who cares where the money's coming from, as long as we get rich, nobody!"

I laughed out at the note of excitement Ruby had in her voice. She was right, nobody cared. This was New York. People made money and nobody cared where it came from. The role I had applied for wasn't quite high-profile anyway, just a QA position for the content publishing department of the company. It's not like I'd be involved in anything incriminating, only people working in the upper management would be dealing with that, like the CEO and owner, Americ Roy Cox, who had his name plastered on the company board. Some narcissist he'd be, to name his company after his initials. Why am I thinking about him? It's not like I would be meeting him. I had been contacted by an associate of his, Aden. He would be meeting me. Roy, as he was commonly known, didn't have the time to take interviews. Good for me. The fewer higher-ups I knew the better.

I finished my coffee before Ruby washed the mug clean then turned in early to make it to my interview tomorrow. The moment I was in bed, unwillingly, the memories of the past flooded in. I knew I needed to be fresh tomorrow for the big interview but God, I just couldn't sleep without the memories coming in, and making me feel miserable.

The last six years, since I had started working had been nothing short of insane. Sometimes, I wondered, was it me? Was I doing this? No one else I knew had the kinds of stories happen to them that had been happening to me. But then again, how many of my friends were actually doing anything creative? Perhaps, that's how things were in my field.

In any case, I wasn't always in creative writing. I had a boring career in finance once and that hadn't panned out either. Not that I hadn't tried to work it, but God that was the most awful job I had done. Those two years of my life are better left in the past and then came my first creative job as a writer. There I met my first insanity, Keith.

I blinked furiously as his smiling face appeared in front of me. I still missed him. He was my manager and yet I let myself fall for his charm and his personality. How naïve of me? Of course, he was charming. He had to be. He had a team to lead, I should have known better. And yet, even if I did know better, I hadn't done anything wrong. He was married and we did not date. I just had a crush on him and he found out. That was the extent of our non-existent relationship. That didn't change the fact that I had feelings for him and perhaps, would continue to have feelings for him forever. I just couldn't forget him. The way he walked, the way he talked and his eyes, the way his big brown eyes looked at me sometimes. The way he laughed at my jokes would make my day. I loved spending at least half an hour with him. He was brilliant but our acquaintance was short-lived when I got a better opportunity within a year of working with him.

The new role at the new company was paying much better but I didn't want to leave Keith. I spoke to him before I left, of course, without confessing my feelings for him. I just told him I wouldn't leave if I wasn't getting paid exceptionally well at the new job and I offered to him to go with me, they had open roles, but he refused. Leaving without him was the hardest to overcome and yet I pulled it off, somehow.

After I left, we got out of touch. He buried himself in work as did I and the next two years all I did was work and work hard to become a manager only to be hoodwinked by my boss who hired her own sister for the role, holding my promotion. I sighed deeply as I felt the pang of disappointment. All the rigor and hard work I had put into my job in the last two years went down the drain only because my boss had a good-for-nothing sister.

I felt miserable just at the thought of the unfairness of the entire situation. While my friends were hooking up at bars, getting into relationships, some were even getting married, here I was still struggling to make a decent living and striving to find a stable role. While working with Keith, I expected a ladder to growth but with him, things got too emotional and a rumor began in the office that perhaps we were dating. It made things only difficult for me so I am glad I got a better opportunity at the new company. In my last job, without Keith and no time for dating, all I did was work, so I practically trashed my social life, and any chances of having one in the future for the role of a manager that was never going to be mine. Some luck I have.

I turned over to the other side. Then I got a boring offer from a small company and I took it, despite it being small and on my joining date, Aden from ARC reached out. I turned him down as I didn't want to back out from my commitment but a week into the new role showed me, I wasn't meant for it and I quit.

I sighed again, thinking of the interview tomorrow. Aden seemed nice and ARC, well it had a name in the industry. People knew the company, well mostly for having a reputation, even if a bad one. I had heard of a couple of suicide cases that the company had been cleared of, but right now it didn't matter. The only thing that did matter was the money they'd offer. That's all I cared about, nothing else.