The Things I'd Burn For You

***Third Party POV" By seven-thirty in the morning, Ivy Carter was already regretting being alive. “I’m just saying,” her mother’s voice rang through the phone speaker, loud enough for half the apartment to hear, “at your age, your cousin Amanda already had a stable job and a fiancé.” Ivy pressed the phone tighter between her ear and shoulder while struggling to button her white shirt. “Good for Amanda.” “Don’t use that tone with me.” “What tone? The unemployed tone?” From the other side of the tiny apartment, Chloe burst into laughter so hard she nearly choked on her cereal. Their mother ignored it completely. “You joke too much, Ivy. That’s your problem. Life is not a game.” “No, life is a horror movie. I’m just coping.” “Ivy—” “I have an interview in thirty minutes, Mom. Can we continue my public execution later?” Her mother sighed dramatically. “Just don’t embarrass yourself today.” The line disconnected. Ivy stared at her phone for a second before dropping it onto the couch. “Your mother really wakes up every morning ready for violence,” Chloe said. “She actually rehearses it.” Chloe snorted, then pointed her spoon toward the door. “You’re gonna miss the bus.” Ivy grabbed her file from the table and slipped on her heels quickly. “Do I look okay?” Chloe looked her up and down thoughtfully. “You look stressed, broke, and one inconvenience away from prison.” “Perfect. Exactly the professional look I was going for.” “Wait.” Chloe stood, fixing the collar of Ivy’s shirt gently. “You’ll get this job.” Ivy tried to smile, she really did. Because the truth was, she needed this job badly. Three months unemployed, rent overdue, her landlord suddenly developing the personality of a loan shark. And if one more family member asked what she was doing with her life, she might actually lose her mind. “If you say so...” she exhaled. “I’m leaving before life finds another way to humble me.” Life, apparently, took that personally because less than ten minutes later, a car sped through a puddle beside the sidewalk, splashing muddy water directly across her white shirt. Ivy stopped walking and gasped. “Ah-hhh!” Slowly, very slowly, she looked down at herself. Brown water dripped from the front of her white shirt. Then she looked up at the disappearing car. “Oh, beautiful,” she muttered. “Amazing. Just fantastic. Exactly how successful women start their mornings.” A few people glanced at her sympathetically as they passed. “Great. Just what I needed. A whole bunch of people staring at me and doing absolutely nothing. Arghhh.” One woman outright laughed. Ivy inhaled deeply through her nose, resisting the urge to scream in the middle of the street. “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself. “We’re staying calm. We’re staying employed.” She rushed into a nearby café bathroom, trying desperately to clean the stain with paper towels. It only spread worse. Now instead of one muddy patch, it looked like she’d fought for her life in dirty water and lost. “Perfect.” At that point, there was no fixing it. So Ivy threw her blazer on and prayed nobody would notice. By the time she reached the bus stop, the city had already fully awakened. People rushed past each other with coffee cups and tired expressions. Cars honked impatiently. Somewhere nearby, a vendor yelled about bagels no one seemed interested in buying. The bus arrived with a loud hiss. And of course, it was packed. Ivy stared at it for a second. “Yeah, no. Today actually hates me.” The doors opened anyway. People pushed inside like survival depended on it. Ivy tightened her grip on her file and squeezed in after them carefully, immediately getting shoved toward the middle. “Sorry—sorry—ow, that’s my foot.” Nobody cared. A man beside her smelled aggressively like cigarettes and poor decisions. Another woman kept elbowing her every five seconds without apologizing. Ivy held onto the overhead rail with one hand while trying to keep her file from bending with the other. Then she caught her reflection faintly in the bus window. Messy hair. Stress in human form. And underneath her blazer? A muddy shirt she was pretending didn’t exist. “Oh my God,” she whispered to herself. “If this interview goes badly, I’m joining a cult.” The older woman beside her blinked. Ivy forced a smile. “Ignore me.” Ten painfully long minutes later, the bus finally stopped near the financial district. Ivy stepped out quickly, breathing in fresh air like she’d just escaped captivity. Then she looked up. And her stomach immediately tightened. De Luca Holdings towered over everything around it. Tall glass windows reflected the cloudy morning sky. Expensive black cars lined the front entrance. Men and women in fitted suits walked through the revolving doors looking polished enough to belong in magazines. And then there was Ivy. Standing there in heels that suddenly felt too cheap and a stained shirt hidden beneath a blazer doing the Lord’s work. “Wow,” she muttered quietly. The building looked expensive enough to reject people automatically. For a second, doubt crept in. Maybe she didn’t belong here. Maybe this was another mistake. Maybe— “No.” Ivy straightened slightly. “We are not spiraling before nine in the morning.” She adjusted her blazer nervously. “I look fine. Everything’s fine. The heavens have already embarrassed me enough today. We’re not doing anything else.” A man in a sharp grey suit walked past her while speaking into an earpiece. Another woman exited the building laughing elegantly into her phone. Corporate people really had different bone structures. Ivy looked down at her file one last time before inhaling deeply. “Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go get this over with.” And immediately walked straight into someone. Her file slipped from her hands instantly. Papers scattered everywhere. “Oh my God—” Ivy crouched quickly, gathering them before the wind carried them across the sidewalk. Polished black shoes stopped inches from one of the papers, quite expensive shoes,The kind that probably cost more than her rent. Ivy looked up and froze for half a second. Tall, dark suit, black gloves wrapped around one hand. A pair of sunglasses hid his eyes despite the cloudy morning, but there was something about him that made the air suddenly feel colder. Not handsome in a soft way but in a sharp, controlled, dangerous manner. One could easily tell that he is the kind of man people moved aside for without realizing they were doing it. Two men stood behind him silently, probably security or something worse. Ivy blinked herself back to reality and grabbed the remaining papers angrily. “Seriously?” she snapped. “People usually say excuse me after bulldozing someone.” The man said nothing. Not even a blink. Then calmly reached into his pocket and held out a black card toward her. Ivy was in disbelief "what was i even expecting" she muttered in her head then she let out a liittle chuckle "..…Are you serious?” One of the men behind him stepped forward. “Miss, take the card.” “Oh, wow. So apologizing would actually kill him?” she said. The bodyguard’s jaw tightened slightly. Meanwhile, the stranger just stood there watching her like this conversation was mildly interesting, and somehow, that irritated her more. "I don’t want your money,” Ivy said, shoving the card back toward him. “I want basic human decency.” Then the stranger who seemed unbothered moved slightly, just enough to remove his sunglasses slowly. And God, his light-brown eyes met hers. Cold wasn’t the right word for them, cold eyes felt empty but his weren’t rather his looked calculating, like he noticed too much. His gaze dropped briefly to the muddy stain beneath her blazer before returning to her face. Then finally— finally—he spoke. “You’re late.” His voice was low. Smooth. Calm enough to make it intimidating. Ivy frowned immediately. “What?” “You keep checking the building.” His eyes flicked toward the file in her hand. “Interview?” How the hell did he notice that? “That’s none of your business.” Then something unreadable crossed his expression, not anger, almost amusement. One of the men behind him checked his watch carefully. “Sir, we need to go.” "Sir?" Ivy thought to herself "Of course. Rich, arrogant and emotionally allergic to apologies." The stranger looked at Ivy one last time before placing the black card into her file himself, causing his fingers to brush hers briefly. Unexpectedly warm. “If the stain becomes a problem,” he said quietly, “call the number.” Then he walked past her, just like that. The two men followed immediately behind him. People near the entrance subtly moved aside as he approached the building doors. Not respectfully but Instinctively. Ivy stared after him confused, annoyed and weirdly unsettled. "I already hate him,” she muttered. "Like the mud water was not enough, i just had to run into some arrogant fool, why does the heavens hate me this much..." And with her luck lately? Life was probably just getting started.