POV: Maya
The wrench slipped from her frozen fingers, clanging against the concrete floor of the garage like a gunshot in the silent, cold space. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Maya's mind screamed at her, a relentless echo matching the clang. The sound seemed to hang in the icy air, a final verdict. It wasn't just a tool dropping; it was the sound of her last chance hitting rock bottom.
"That's it." Her boss, Sal's voice came from behind her, flat and drained of all its usual gruff warmth. He didn't yell. The quiet disappointment was a thousand times worse. It wrapped around her like the cold creeping through the broken garage door seal. "I'm sorry, Maya. I can't keep you on."
The words didn't feel real at first. They were just more cold air. She turned slowly, the grease on her hands suddenly feeling like a permanent stain, a mark of her failure. Not again. Please, not again. Her internal plea was a desperate, silent scream. "Sal, please," she heard herself say, her voice too high, too desperate. "It was one mistake. I'll fix the radiator for free. I'll work extra hours. Just… give me another week."
One mistake. A simple mix-up of two nearly identical gaskets. It had cost a loyal customer an extra day without his truck. It had cost Sal money he couldn't afford to lose. In the grand scheme of life's disasters, it was small. But to Maya, clinging to the edge of stability by her fingernails, it was the pebble that started the avalanche. You always ruin it, the cruel voice in her head whispered. Skating, mom, now this. You're a curse.
Sal wouldn't look at her. He stared at the old, rattling space heater as if it held the answers he couldn't give her. "It's not just the part. Business is dead. This cold snap… nobody's bringing their cars in. I have to let my newest hire go. That's you." He pulled a thin white envelope from his pocket. It looked pathetic, insubstantial. "Here's your final pay. A little extra for the holidays."
Holidays. The word was a sick joke; a dagger twisted in a wound that never healed. A picture flashed in her mind: her mother, stringing popcorn by a crackling fire, their tiny apartment warm and smelling of pine and cinnamon. That was a lifetime ago. A different Maya. Now, holidays were just a season where her loneliness and empty pockets felt louder, decorated with blinking lights that belonged to other people, in other windows. She took the envelope. It was frighteningly light. "Where am I supposed to go, Sal?" The question was a whisper, a child's plea to a parent who can't fix the monster under the bed.
"Not my problem," he muttered, but his shoulders slumped. He wasn't a cruel man, just a beaten one, his own dreams of a thriving shop buried under bills. "Try the shelter on Fifth. Now pack your tools. I need to close up. Storm's coming in hard."
The walk to her apartment was a numb, grey haze. The wind had teeth, biting through her thin mechanic's jacket, finding every gap. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if she were wading through cement. The envelope in her pocket wasn't money; it was a goodbye note, a receipt for her failure. Newest hire. First to go. The story of her life. Her Olympic skating dreams? Shattered with a torn ligament at seventeen, the dream dissolving in a physical therapist's office. Her mom? Lost to a silent, ruthless cancer two years later, leaving a silence so vast it swallowed Maya whole. Now this job, her anchor for the past eight months? Gone. The bad luck wasn't following her; it was her. She was a magnet for it, a walking disaster zone.
She climbed the three flights to her studio, her knee, the old injury, throbbing in protest with every step. Poetic justice, she thought bitterly. The hallway was dark, the bulb dead again. Of course. She fumbled with her keys, her fingers a block of ice, refusing to bend properly.
The door swung open before the key touched the lock.
Mr. Gable, her landlord, filled the doorway. He was a mountain of a man in a puffy coat, his face unreadable in the gloom. In his meaty hand was a neon pink slip of paper, brighter than anything else in the dark hall.
Maya's blood turned to slush in her veins. She knew. She knew with a sinking certainty that reached her frozen toes.
"Maya," he said, his voice echoing in the tomb-like hall. He held out the paper as if it were contaminated. "This is your official 24-hour notice. Rent was due five days ago. I'm being nice, giving you this instead of just changing the locks. You're evicted."
Evicted. The word landed like a physical blow to the solar plexus, knocking the last bit of air from her lungs. This wasn't a setback; this was the cliff. And she was stepping off it, the ground crumbling beneath her.
"I have money now!" The lie was desperate, pathetic. She yanked the envelope from her pocket, waving it like a white flag. "My pay. See? I can give you some!"
Mr. Gable shook his head, a slow, final movement. "That'll cover last month. Not this one. Rules are rules. You have until tomorrow night." He finally looked at her, and for a second, she saw a flicker of pity. It made her feel even smaller, more pathetic than angry would have. "I'm sorry. Really."
He brushed past her, his bulk moving down the stairs. The thud, thud, thud of his footsteps was the sound of her last door slamming shut, locking her out in the cold.
Maya stood in the open doorway to what was no longer her home. Inside, the single room held the skeleton of her life: a narrow bed, a hot plate, a dented toolbox that was her pride, and a single, scuffed suitcase. In that suitcase, under two threadbare sweaters, were her skating medals. They felt like artifacts from a stranger's life, heavy and meaningless. The only thing on the wall was a photo of her mom, smiling forever, forever out of reach.
She stepped inside and closed the door. The silence was absolute, broken only by the whistle of wind through the window frame. She didn't cry. The cold inside her was deeper than the winter outside; it was in her bones, in her soul. The avalanche had hit. She was buried alive. Jobless. Soon to be homeless. The storm outside wasn't just weather; it was the universe laughing at her, howling its mockery.
A monstrous gust of wind hit the building with the force of a fist, making the windows shudder violently in their rotting frames. The single, naked lightbulb hanging from her ceiling flickered once, twice, and died with a faint, definitive pop. Darkness, thick and suffocating, swallowed her whole. The only sounds were the rising, hungry howl of the blizzard and the frantic, terrified beating of her own heart, a trapped bird in the freezing dark.