Ana held the hot cup of coffee carefully between her fingers as she situated herself on the small patio of her apartment. The air was a tad bit chilly from the morning frost that settled on the sparse grass of Manhattan. Ana shivered inside the arms of her cardigan, wishing that she had brought a blanket out with her.

She took a sip of her coffee, her chest burning as she gasped through her teeth. It wafted her with uncomfortable heat that made her be grateful for the cold spring air that settled back inside.

Then, Ana was cold again.

Not five minutes later, she reopened the sliding glass windows of her apartment and stepped back inside. She dumped the rest of the coffee into the sink, as it was the very end of the mug which held bitterness. She washed it quickly, dried it with a towel hanging by the stove handle, and set it back beside the Keurig.

Ana shuffled back to her bedroom, where an outfit awaited her by a hanger on the back of her door. She slipped out of her pajamas and tossed them into my laundry basket. Goosebumps kissed Ana's dry skin as she put on my work clothes.

Ana went to the bathroom and fixed her hair up into a ponytail. She washed her face and put on a small amount of makeup before shutting off the light and grabbing her bag from her room. She put on a pair of shoes and locked the apartment door behind her.

Another day of meetings and studio sessions lay ahead of her in the Theatre District. She worked at a large studio where basic actors and actresses came for headshots and well-known artists got their album covers from. The company were an insanely popular photography studio. The most well-known person to have ever been shot in their studio was Bernadette Peters.

That was the greatest day of her life, even if she hadn't been the one to do the photo shoot with Bernadette Peters.

Ana was still basically an intern. A paid one, at least. She'd been there for nearly a year, fetching coffees and taking lunch orders from the Panera all the way in Brooklyn. She'd never done anything big, and it bugged her that no one form the company was offering her a job.

But, she was still looking for employment, so who could say if she would even be there for much longer.

In college, Ana had taken a double major of Photography and Visual Arts Editing at OSU. She'd graduated from there nearly two years ago now, and had only been settled in New York for half of that. And finding a job was insanely difficult.

The only reason she'd had ever gotten the job at the studio Ana worked at- called, 'Portrait Innovations' - was because of her roommate. Ana met Laura through a newspaper ad in which she was looking for a roommate. The moment Ana had her first conversation with Laura, they clicked.

Throughout the process of attempting to find a job, Laura had helped get Ana's name out there by stealing portfolios of hers and talking with people from places she'd been before. Of course, Ana had been so thankful of Laura reaching out for her, but had insisted that Laura not use her fame to help get Ana places. She had shrugged Ana off and told her, "You start Monday."

It was nice having a job at all, but she wanted to actually take photos. And she couldn't do that while juggling three croissants from Panera and six coffees from Starbucks.

She wasn't going anywhere with her life, which had been her biggest fear growing up, and she felt absolutely stuck.

—

Jeremy lay in a mess of empty beer bottles and dirty t-shirts from the past month of living in his apartment by himself. His cheek was imprinted by the rough material of a pair of jeans he'd been using as a pillow. He wiped off a line of drool, wincing in pain at the marks the pants had put on his face.

Jeremy reached over to his alarm and smacked a hand down onto the off button. He lifted himself off of his matters, which was flat on the floor of his empty studio apartment. His feet made an echo throughout the room as he walked, due to the lack of anything at all besides him, his bed, a fridge, and two piles of boxes filled with his things.

Jeremy opened the fridge and cracked open a bottle of water. He had a show in three hours, and he did not at all feel like going. Though he knew if he would call off, he would be fired, because of the fact that he had been doing terrible when at his work of employment the fast few months.

So, he showered inside of his tiny bathroom and somehow found a clean t-shirt and jeans. He needed to clean, to do laundry and reply to the envelopes of letter forms the lawyers. Later, he kept telling himself. Late; today, tomorrow, next week, later.

He grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone before locking his apartment up and leaving the building.

He took the subway into Manhattan and three blocks away from the theater. Jeremy walked the rest of the way- taxis were pointless in the city, and subways only went so far.

He got a coffee at some chain-café by the theater, before he finally reached the theater. Ben greeted him at the bottom of the stairs, which he was descending in order to pick up a piece of his costume which had ripped.

Jeremy gave him a grim smile and a short wave before taking the stairs by two. He luckily had his own dressing room, where he locked the door and steamed his voice in silence. He hadn't been able to stand anyone in weeks, and barely anyone knew why.

Ben did, but he wouldn't answer the questions that were inquired his way nearly every day.

Divorce wasn't something you wanted to exploit someone on.

Jeremy's life had been climbing uphill for so long, until he made a terrible decision and through the entire back down to a cliff. He was hanging on by the neck of his t-shirt, but he couldn't feel himself falling any lower. Nor was he finding a way to pull himself up.

Failure had been his biggest fear growing up, and he was stuck in it.