Hellbound With You

CHAPTER 1:My Struggle

Sofia Navarro pov

I lost my job on a fresh new week.

Monday of all days. At least have the decency to fire me on a Friday.

The envelope sat in my hand like it weighed twenty pounds. White. Clean. Like it hadn't just swallowed my entire life whole.

I didn't cry. I was exhausted though. This was my fourth job this year. The first one was my fault — but that's a story for another day.

My phone buzzed in my bag. Bonnie.

"Where are you?" She sounded frustrated.

Trust me, she wasn't half as frustrated as I was.

"Hi Sof, how are you doing?" I said, mimicking her voice.

I heard her sigh.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking Bonnie," I continued. "And I'm at the café across from my apartment."

"I'm coming now." Her voice dropped small and soft before she hung up quickly.

I set my phone down and stared at my coffee.

"She already knew" —

I had been in America for two years, three months and sixteen days.

Not that I was counting.

Madrid felt like a different life now. My mother's voice on Sunday calls. The smell of churros from the place on Calle Mayor. The way the city moved like it had somewhere important to be but was never actually in a rush.

Here everything was different,like it did not care about you at all.

I came for better opportunities. That's what I told my mother. That's what I told myself.

Two years later I was sitting in a café in America on a Monday morning holding a termination envelope and pretending my coffee tasted like something other than failure.

Four jobs. Four.

I was twenty five years old and I couldn't keep a job and my rent was due in eleven days,I have to figure so out.

So I sat there. Sipped my coffee. And waited for Bonnie.

__________________________________

Bonnie arrived thirty minutes later.

She slid into the seat across from me, took one look at my face, then turned her head toward the waiter I had been very casually, very innocently flirting with.

"One cap Americano," she said loudly.

I blinked. There was literally a waitress two steps away.

I pressed my fingers to my temple dramatically, giving her my best what is wrong with you look.

She ignored me completely.

"Hello — one Americano, or do I have to leave?" she announced, louder this time.

The other customers turned to look at our table. The poor boy nearly tripped over himself rushing to take her order.

"Bonnie." I stared at her.

"What?" She finally looked at me, completely unbothered.

"You are so dramatic."

"Can we talk?" she said, her voice still two volumes too loud.

"Not now," I muttered under my breath.

"Are you going to tell me you got relieved of your job?" Bonnie blinked dramatically, her eyes wide and unblinking like an owl. "Huh? Will you speak?"

She kept staring.

I kept not answering.

We both knew.

The waiter returned with her coffee, setting it down without once making eye contact with either of us. Smart boy. Survival instincts.

Bonnie had successfully traumatized him in under four minutes.

"I'm leaving." I grabbed my bag and stood up. "We can continue this at the salon."

Bonnie opened her mouth.

"At the salon, Bonnie."

She closes it.

I grabbed her car keys before she could protest and rushed toward the door.

We both knew I wasn't going to any salon.

I needed a drink. Desperately. Urgently. My body was already betraying me with cramps and I was unemployed and it was a Monday and I was ovulating like my body had absolutely no reading of the room.

A pub. I needed a pub.

"Sofia!" Bonnie called behind me.

"Salon!" I called back without turning around.

We both knew it was a lie

"Sofia where the hell are you—"

"Salon!" I called back.

"That's my damn car!"

"I know!"

I heard her curse under her breath before her heels clicked fast behind me. She always followed. That was the thing about Bonnie — she complained loudly and showed up anyway.

We ended up at O'Brien's, the pub two blocks down that smelled like old wood and bad decisions.

Perfect.

I was on my second drink before either of us said anything real.

"So." Bonnie wrapped both hands around her glass. "You got fired."

"Relieved," I corrected.

"Sofia."

"It's technically different—"

"You got fired from your fourth job this year."

I took a long sip. "....Not really.

"What the f**k, Sof."

"I know."

"What are you going to do?"

I stared into my glass. Outside the window America moved fast and loud and completely unbothered by the fact that Sofia Navarro from Madrid was sitting in a pub at 11am on a Monday falling quietly apart.

"I have no idea," I said honestly.

And that was the honest truth. For the first time since I landed in this country I genuinely did not know what my next move was. I had savings. Barely. Maybe six weeks worth if I was careful. If I stopped buying coffee from cafés and started making it at home and stopped pretending I was okay enough to spend money like someone who had money.

Six weeks.

I looked around O'Brien's. A man in the corner nursing a beer alone. Two women laughing about something on their phones. The bartender wiping the same glass he'd been wiping since we walked in.

Nobody here knew I was falling apart. That was another thing about America. You could be completely unraveling and nobody would notice because everyone was too busy unraveling themselves.

Back home my neighbor Señora Vega would have known something was wrong before I did. Would have shown up with food and opinions I didn't ask for.

I missed that.

I missed being known.

Bonnie was quiet for a moment. Then —

"I know a place that's hiring."

I looked up at her.

"Real estate company," she said carefully. "Property management. They need someone for client liaison. I can put your name in tonight."

I should have asked more questions. What was the company. Who was the boss. What exactly client liaison meant.

But I had eleven days until rent.

"Okay," I said.

Bonnie nodded slowly like she understood the weight of that one word. Like she knew I wasn't saying okay because I was excited. I was saying okay because the wall was behind my back and I had run out of room.

That night I lay in my apartment staring at the ceiling.

My phone lit up. Mama.

I watched it ring.

I couldn't pick up. Not tonight. Not when my voice would give everything away and she would hear it immediately the way mothers always do across oceans and time zones.

I let it ring out.

Then I typed — Todo bien mamá. Llamaré mañana. (All good mama. I'll call tomorrow.)I set the phone face down on my chest and stared back at the ceiling.

Outside America kept moving.

I had a job interview in the morning and exactly forty two dollars in my checking account and a dream about a boutique that felt further away than Madrid.

But I was still here.

Still breathing.