I returned to my flat around four in the afternoon. Once I was through the door, I immediately kicked off my shoes and began stripping off my work clothes that felt impossibly heavy against my skin.

Eventually making my way to my room, I collapsed onto my bed and pulled the sheets up and over my head. The exhaustion from the day's events settled painfully in my bones as I was faced with a fresh onslaught of tears.

I wiped them away angrily and, still clutching my phone, called the one person I could think of.

"Mum?" I sniffed when the line finally picked up.

"Here!" She sang, her voice sounding slightly tinny through the connection.

I pushed the sheets off of me and sat up, hoping my change in position would help. It didn't.

"You're on speaker!" She exclaimed in a near shout.

"What are you—"

"I'm making bread," she cut in, anticipating my question.

"Well if you're busy, I can—"

"Oh no no," she cut in again. I'm just kneading the dough. I've still got 7 minutes left before I can leave it to rest."

Sure enough, the sound of the dough slapping against the worn wood of my mother's kitchen counter drifted through the phone rhythmically punctuating her words.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself there, sitting on the counter opposite her watching as she expertly worked the dough and listening to the cadence of her voice as she recounted the village's latest news.

The library's annual lawn party; a new vendor at the outdoor market; speculation regarding a neighbor's plans for their hedgerow. No mention of drunken men or bruises or scheming bosses or clandestine royalty...

My mother's voiced pulled me back to London.

"You calling just to chat or you need something, dear?"

"I was just..." I sighed as I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. "Were you scared when you were choosing your life?"

"Of course not."

I dragged my eyes to the window, which faced the brick building across the alley. I wasn't surprised by her simple answer, though admittedly I had hoped for something a bit... more.

My mother was born and raised in the town of Newton, where she met my father at a young age and married him only a few months later. They moved together only a few kilometers away to the nearby village of Kerry, where they'd had me. My father commuted to work, and my mother happily took on the role of housewife and full-time mum.

It wasn't that I judged my mother for her domestic decisions, but sometimes I did wonder if they really were decisions she had made or if maybe they had been made for her...

"I didn't make one decision on Tuesday afternoon and that was it, you know."

"I know," I mumbled, not really knowing if I did.

"I chose my life every day, and I loved it."

I could hear her smile, still, I frowned. "I don't like you speaking in past tense."

"I love it," she repeated with a chortle. "Better?"

"Much."

I listened to the slapping of the dough and tried to recall the sour aroma of the yeast.

"Darling," Mum started but stopped. "Is something the matter?"

"No," I answered too quickly.

She didn't say anything, and neither did I for a short while as I listened to the slap-thump, slap-thump of her kneading.

I finally sighed, giving up on trying to find any delicate way of going about it. "I lost my job."

Her hands missed a beat, but quickly fell back into their steady rhythm. "At the magazine?"

"Yeah. I—I quit."

"But why? I thought you loved it there."

I dropped my gaze to the mess of linens around me. "I did..."

"Then why would you leave? You had quite a few friends there as I recall."

"They..." I fiddled with the trim of my quilt as I struggled to piece together the words.

I'd let Tom believe it was Marcus Baylord and the fear of others like him, that I was afraid and burnt out.

They weren't lies, not necessarily... just equivocations, really—I attempted to myself—Perhaps a bit dramatic, but in light of the last twenty-four hours, not altogether untrue.

Still, I felt a pang of guilt.

My front teeth dug into the flesh of my bottom lip in consideration. "They wanted me to write an article that I wasn't comfortable with."

"Like a dishonest review?"

"Not exactly..."

"I've sort of met someone—a friend," I added rather hastily, "whose family has a bit of celebrity. Anyways, they wanted me to write about them... about our relationship."

I sighed. And as I told my mother everything, I felt it.

I felt my heart scream.

* * *

My mother stayed silent as I explained everything, as I explained how I had been harassed by a disgruntled author and how Tom had been there for me... and how Rufus had most certainly not.

She let me get through the whole story without a single interruption, so by the end, when she still said nothing, I felt obliged to check the call hadn't dropped.

"Mum?"

And then she exploded.

"What a NASTY thing to do!" She bellowed. "What VILE person would do such a thing! And to put YOU in such a position!"

"I tried to refuse!" I exclaimed, her rage instantaneously bolstering my own. "But then they said I either wrote the story or nothing at all for them! Apparently there was some fine print in my contract giving them the right to assign me anything they pleased. I was shaking when they told me—I wanted to throttle them, honest I did—but I went back to my desk instead and drafted my letter of resignation."

"I hoped you delivered it with a two-finger salute!"

I choked on a laugh as my eyes began to sting with tears. "I didn't deliver it myself. I had it printed to my boss's office and just packed up my things and left."

"When was all this?"

"A few hours ago?"

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" She demanded.

"Why wasn't I eager to phone my mum and tell her I was unemployed? Gee, I don't know. I just...needed some time to process it."

She sighed heavily through the line, which I noticed was suddenly clear of its prior tinny-quality. "Well, I'm proud of you, Emma."

"For losing my job?" I snorted.

"For sticking to your morals!" She exclaimed. "Your morals I devoted a lot of time and energy trying to instill when you were younger, mind you. It's nice to finally see some of it stuck."

"Thanks, Mum," I mumbled as I reached over to pluck a tissue from the box on my nightstand.

"Your father would be proud, too, Emma."

My throat tightened painfully, but I cleared in forcefully. "For my morals?"

"For sticking with your friend," she clarified. "Speaking of which... must be a pretty special person, to be a friend of yours, I mean."

I nodded. "Yeah... he is."

"Do you think your father would like him?"

Her question was innocent, and yet it was enough to rip the breath from my lungs. It took a moment for them fill sufficiently again for me to answer.

"Well... Peter likes him, or he approves of him enough to have helped him get my number," I finally managed.

"Peter Flannigan set the two of you up?" She asked disbelievingly.

"In a way... yes," I giggled.

"Well then, he must be a fine young man."

"He is," I whispered.

"Who knows!" She added cheerily. "Maybe you've found your prince charming!"

My smile faltered as my eyes drifted back toward the window. "Uh huh..."