Sarah had probably made the right decision to drag me down here, because I did feel better. Sean seemed like the kind of person who understood people, and he was so much like Henry that I trusted that he'd make good decisions about who to speak to for this 'investigation' and what to say. At least now there was a light at the end of the tunnel with all this awful work drama. Maybe I could begin to look forward to working somewhere that wasn't awful.

I turned and smiled a bit at Sarah, and she understood and put an arm across my shoulder. “Told you,” she said quietly. Then, she sat up. “I'll do the complaint-thing later, because I'm really sorry, but I have to rush off and get ready to meet—” She nearly said, 'Sasha Burov', but she stopped herself in time. “To meet a really good friend of mine I haven't seen in ages.”

I saw Sean's eyes dart up to the clock on the wall — it was nearly 3pm, definitely still work hours — but he didn't say anything about it. “Thank you,” he said to her. Before I stood up though, he said, “You don't have to rush off as well. I'm going to go grab myself a coffee, you're welcome to sit in here until you feel a bit better.”

I smiled appreciatively. “Thanks.”

Sarah hugged me as she stood up. “Are you going to be okay?” I nodded, and she hugged me again. “You were killing me before,” she said quietly. “Seriously. You're like the funniest person I know and when I walked in on you in the toilets...”

I didn't want Sean to hear, because I already felt a bit pathetic about crying in front of him even if he'd been really gracious about it. I shushed her and then said goodbye.

While Sean was out getting his coffee, I spent a few minutes trying to get the mascara off my cheeks using my reflection in the window. He chuckled when he snuck back into the room and saw me doing it. “I bet you wish you never had to wear that again.”

I had to laugh at that. “Exactly.” I stopped cleaning it off, though, because it was weird doing that in front of someone. I probably should have just thanked him and left at that point, but when I remembered what was waiting for me back upstairs, I got stuck by the door with my fingers on the handle.

Sean saw my difficulty. “Jason's already gone,” he reassured me. “I saw him leave while I was getting my coffee. And you don't look like you've been crying, except that you have no eye make-up and one of your eyelashes is coming unglued.” He smiled slightly.

I quickly peeled them all off my lids. “Thank you,” I said, and then when he smiled at me, I really felt a flood of gratitude for him. Bree was right, he was so nice and so easy to talk to. Additionally, he’d been that way with me even though I was complaining about his friend and potentially forcing him to fire someone he cared about. “I mean that: really, thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he said simply, and turned back to his computer as I left.

Because I felt better, I managed to make it back to Oslo without ending up in the Women's toilets again.

Ian and Carlos weren't anywhere to be seen, and since the Sales boys were missing, too, I figured they'd probably all gone on a long lunch together prior to meeting Burov, both to learn the materials and drink expensive wine on the Frost credit card. I didn't miss any of them.

Just as Sean said he had done, when I sat down and pulled out my phone, he'd sent me a link to the complaint form. I forwarded it to my private email so I could open it on my Pink laptop, and then clicked on it.

When the form loaded on my page, I sat there for a second, my heart racing with what I was about to do. This was official. This was it. If I put all this stuff in writing, I couldn't take it back, and I couldn't hide the fact I was transgender from anyone, either. Not that it was likely to be much of a secret soon, the way the Marketing boys all gossiped like teenage girls. But this, this was so final.

I put my fingers to the keyboard, unsure about what points to focus on, and then spent the better part of an hour and a half making sure everything was there. I debated whether or not to click the 'submit' button. Before I could talk myself out of it, I did.

And then it was gone. I’d formally complained about my racist, sexist, bigoted boss. I’d finally complained about the bastard after years of wanting to.

I reclined back in my chair, my heart still going. I've done it, I thought. I mean, I was worried about whatever this investigation process was, but I was glad it was happening. I was so glad once again that Sarah had dragged me to complain to Sean. He’d just been great. It felt good to know that there were actually people in this company I could trust with my welfare and that it didn't need to be the awful godforsaken hellhole it had become. And maybe I could focus a bit on work now.

I double-checked all the materials again, checked the PowerPoint, made sure we had everything ready for tomorrow and then sat down in my chair again. My pulse was still a bit jumpy — probably from lack of food as much as everything else — so I’d sat down and closed my eyes and was just taking a few deep breaths, when the door to Oslo burst open.

I gasped audibly and sat up straight, my eyes flying open. I was already shaking, because with that kind of movement, I expected it to be Jason and the thought of him terrified me.

But it wasn't Jason. It was much, much worse.

Diane Frost came striding into the room with a series of printouts in her hand. Not in five years working at Frost had I ever seen her so angry.

“You,” she said, making a sharp gesture at me. “My office. Now!”

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

“Sit,” Diane said sharply, shutting her office door behind me. I obeyed as she walked around the desk and sat across from me in a neat, practised movement.

It was so quiet all I could hear was the ticking of the ornate clock on her desk and the distant hum of traffic far below. She didn't need to scream for me to be able to feel how angry she was. The air was thick with it.

For what seemed like eternity she stared across at me, lips pursed. I've disappointed someone else, I thought, waiting any second for her to crack and blast me like Jason did.

Eventually she drew a breath. “Let me ask you a question, Min.”

I waited, stricken. This must be about Sean, I thought. She knows Sarah and I went to see Sean.

She didn't say anything about him, though. She just held the printouts towards me, and I accepted them. She sounded cool and impassive. “How did you expect me to react to this?”

She obviously intended me to read them, so I ran my eyes over the first page. I didn't get two lines in before I recognised what I was holding, and all the blood drained from my face.

This was the complaint I'd written about Jason.

But that didn't make sense, how did Diane get it? She wasn't supposed to get it until it had finished being investigated! As I flipped through the pages to see how much text was there, my heart was racing, and when I glanced back up at her, I realised she'd been waiting the whole time for me to reply.

All I could think was, 'How did you get this?' but that wasn't the reply she was looking for. I just shook my head, because I didn't understand.

She made a non-committal noise. “May I ask who suggested a formal complaint was the best course of action?”

Sarah, I thought. But she was just looking out for me. I gave her the same courtesy. “It was my decision.”

Diane leant back in her chair, her elbows relaxed on the arm rests as she considered me. “Do you know much about industrial law and how it influences our internal policies, Min?”

I shook my head again.

“When a serious harassment claim is made, the employee accused is immediately suspended with full pay pending investigation. Additionally, all disciplinary action is suspended against the complainant, and this is especially true in circumstances where the complaint is about a superior.”

She let that sink in, and it only took me a second to understand exactly what her implication was. Jason was going to be suspended right now, and Frost was unable to take any disciplinary action against me until the complaint was dealt with. I can only imagine how that looked to Diane; I'd been in big trouble last week and I was in big trouble right now. This looked reactionary. The only problem was that it wasn't.

“Given that, Min,” Diane continued. “What do you think my first thoughts were when I read this?”

Fuck, it looked bad, didn't it? Very bad. My voice wavered. “But it's true.”

She scoffed. “This,” she said, gesturing at the copy of the complaint in my hands. “Is true?”

“Yes.”

She watched me closely for a few seconds, and I saw her eyes run over my pretty dress, and my pearls, and my loosely curled hair. I looked down at it myself, and my stomach clenched. I know I look very feminine, I thought. Believe me, I know. But the complaint is still true.

Something passed over her face for a moment, and she frowned slightly. Her tone changed. “And you just decided to make it yourself, and right now?”

Well, Sean had sent me the link, but Sarah and I had asked for it. I wasn't trying to cause trouble. “I thought the complaints process was discreet and that you'd only find out the verdict at the end of the investigation.”

She didn't say anything. She held her hand out towards me for the printouts, and when I passed them to her, she leafed through them until she found what she was looking for. She handed that sheet to me, indicating where I should read.

I looked down at it. 'A copy of this complaint had been CCed to the manager of the employee(s) selected, as per Frost Group performance management policy'.

That knocked the wind out of me. Sean had said the exact opposite. I read it again and again while Diane watched me. Eventually I managed to ask her, “Is this always what happens?”

She nodded once. “A manager is likely to notice if one of their employees is suspended.”

My blood ran cold as the gravity of that hit me: he'd lied to us, and now I was sitting in here, across from Diane. God, he'd lied to us. To our faces, and with a smile on his. I felt sick. God, I felt sick.

While I stuck on that thought, Diane had been looking through a pile of papers in front of her, and she held one of them at me. I could see it was a copy of the Vladivostok materials before I'd even taken it from her. I winced. I'd been handling the Burov ones all day and these looked vulgar and slapped together in comparison. I thought that's what she meant. “I know they're not my best work,” I began, “But I didn't—”

“—the numbers, Min,” she interrupted me. “Look at the sales figures you've quoted there.”

I looked up at her. “Did John get them wrong?” I asked, confused. “We extracted them straight from the raw data files.”

She gave me a considered look, and then slid open a drawer in her desk and went through it until she found a copy of last year’s full annual report. She opened it at the gross sales page and lay it on the desk in front of me, one perfectly manicured fingernail pointing to a figure on the page. I looked from that number to the same one on the Vladivostok materials.

They were different. Very different.

But we’d had the financial reports extracted straight from the system, and, well, maybe John had got the numbers wrong, but I’d quickly double-checked his calculations and hadn’t seen anything that I was worried about. The numbers in the materials matched the numbers in the data files that Sean had…

I swallowed. That Sean had extracted for us.

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Fuck, I'd been so messed up over the Gemma-lift-thing that I... oh, my god. How could I have been so stupid?

I sat back, my jaw wide open as I looked across at Diane. Oh my god.

Diane gave me a few moments to sit with that before she added, “And let's not forget who you were in a meeting with when Jason and I wanted to speak to you about John and the Vladivostok pitch falling over.”

With Sean, I thought. With Sean. I'd been so worried about Bree that I'd decided to risk it. And boy, was his door wide fucking open for me when I did.

Oh, my god.

Fuck, I'd cried in front of him. I'd let him comfort me. He must have thought I was pathetic.

“So,” Diane said, lacing her fingers in front of her. “The IT contractors cost me $13,700 to set up an external secure network in Oslo. The encryption was a further $650, and then to set up all the security software was another couple of thousand on top of that. I got them to come in and start at 3am. I spent days talking over who to put on this project with Jason.”

And I'd completely disregarded all of that, her specific advice to stay away from Sean, and now look at what had happened. I'd thought he was nice. I'd thought he was supportive and professional and warm like Henry was. And I'd thought that even though Henry himself had warned me about Sean.

Fuck.

Diane had warned me about Sean. Jason had even warned me about Sean. Everyone had warned me about him, and still I'd been in his office letting him offer me tissues.

Fucking hell, I was an idiot. I was a prize fucking idiot. In front of both of the CEOs of a multi-billion dollar corporation, I looked naïve, pathetic and stupid. I'd just had so much other stuff going on in my personal life that I hadn't... I swallowed. I hadn't been paying attention. I'd let myself be a fucking puppet. Sean was probably laughing over how easy it had been to use me.

Diane didn't speak for some time. “Don't think I don't know what my brother's like, Min,” she said eventually. “And don't think I'm not onto Jason for not giving you the managerial support you should have been provided. But despite that, you're an intelligent woman who's been working here for five years, and yet we still find ourselves in this situation.”

I could barely speak. “I know. I'm sorry.”

She didn't address my apology. At least not directly. “So. What do you recommend I do with you?”

I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to throw myself through one of those big windows behind her. That was stupid, though, and I couldn't say that to her, even if I felt it. I'd got everyone into this mess and the mature, appropriate thing to do was to get everyone out of it, too. Even if I was so disgusted with myself that I was sick with it.

“I'll fix them,” I said. “The Burov materials, I'll fix them. The pitch isn't over yet.”

There wasn't even a hint of smile on her lips. She just glanced at her clock. It was 4:19pm. “Printing closes in 41 minutes,” she observed. “You'd better hurry up.”

41 minutes? 'Hurry up' was an understatement of the century, I wasn't sure how I was going to lay out one new page in forty minutes, let alone fix and proof three in that time. I wasn't even sure it was possible, except it had to be, didn't it?

She was clearly dismissing me, but I knew the conversation wasn't even close to being over. We'd just resume later. I stood, worrying about that, my treacherous fucking legs weak and knees locking as I tried to walk briskly out.

She stopped me just before I left, and I turned towards her as she said mildly, “This is your last chance, Min. Any more mistakes and it would be irresponsible of me to continue to employ you.”

I swallowed, and then left her office and made a beeline for Oslo and let myself in.

I didn't have time to think. I didn't have any time to sit and reflect about what had just happened or what was going to happen or what was currently happening because I literally needed every fucking second to get these hard copies fixed before Printing closed. At least the text I needed to fix was laid out across a solid colour background, so it was just a matter of fixing the figures, resizing everything and checking the balance. Which meant focusing, and not thinking at all about Sean or Jason and what they'd done to me and, fuck, what time was it? How long did I have left?

Every time I finished a page I looked straight up at the clock: 4:31pm, 4:44pm, 4:55pm. When the last one was done and I'd frantically checked over it to make sure not only did everything fit but that it also looked great, it was nearly on the dot of five and I had to rush out into Marketing and call Printing.

“He's just left for the day,” their admin informed me when I asked for my contact.

“Then run out there and get him,” I told her. When she hesitated, I said, “It's urgent!”

After I’d made sure that my contact had returned and the materials would be printed, I moved straight onto the presentation materials.

I didn't even have a second to spare because unlike the printed materials where the text was across a solid background, in the presentation slides there were figures across the graphics. That meant that when I'd corrected the numbers, the composition was off and two or three of them were really hard to read. I tried resizing the images a little and changing the font but that threw the balance off further, and in the end I realised I was going to need to edit the images if I wanted this to look at all professional and presentable. I tried to do it with my mouse but it was twitchy and imprecise and in the end I sat back.

It was a lost cause trying to do this on work computers with work software. Fixing them properly meant getting my tablet, which was at home, where I was forbidden to go until this was finished. Which meant I needed to ask Diane.

The prospect of needing to talk to Diane again was literally making me sweat. It took a lot of rationalising to convince myself to walk up to Diane's office; I kept telling myself that Bree was at home and she'd be able to do something with how crap I felt so that I had enough emotional energy to come back into the office and finish these.

It was okay, I told myself, Diane was going to let me, she wanted this done as much as I did.

When I let myself out of Oslo, Marketing was quiet. There was one guy still left up the other end of the floor, bent double over his monitor while he analysed something. Other than him, no one was left. The clock outside Diane's office said 8:17pm, and her assistant had gone home.

Diane's light was on, though, but her blinds were drawn.

I took a deep breath and lifted my fist to knock on the door, when I heard Diane say, “...what is this bullshit?” I heard the sound of rustling papers like she was shaking something. It was weird hearing her swear.

I dropped my arm and held my head close to the door to listen.

“Well, Di,” that was Sean's voice, and he was patronising her, “it looks like a formal complaint. But I'm not certain, since you won't let me read it.”

All the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I was flooded with emotion. Sean. You bastard, I thought. You fucking bastard. How could you?

“Don't bullshit me, Sean. Stay the fuck out of my department and stop meddling with my assets.”

Assets?

“Your assets?” Sean said in an amused voice. “You mean your staff? They're people, Di, people who—”

“Who you need to learn to stay away from.”

I moved to a place on the interior window where I could see a tiny gap in the blinds. I peeked through it; Sean was sitting casually on the edge of Diane's desk, tinkering with the desk clock while she sat 'calmly' at her computer. I'd seen him do the same to Henry, and Henry had looked just as annoyed as Diane did right now.

“Oh, please,” Sean said casually. “I never seek out your staff, they come to me like children in need of a big hug because Mummy is so mean.” He twisted towards her. “By the way, how about the ones you actually send to me, should I stop ‘meddling’ with those, too?” He was clearly baiting her.

She took a measured breath. “See you in court, Sean,” she said, attempting to be dismissive.

That got a reaction out of him, and he put the clock down on the desk. “This is fucking ridiculous, Di, you're actually going to go ahead with this? Just because of one dispute I lodged? You're going to be that anal about it?”

“The directions hearing today found grounds to sue, so I will.”

“Why? It's going to put Waterbank out of commission for 12 weeks. If you have this head for business, or whatever you like to think about yourself, you'll know that means tens of millions of—”

“—Reputation, Sean, is worth at least that. I would have thought that was something you'd understand, given how you like to present yourself to my staff.”

“Gee, I'm so sorry that people actually like me, Di, I know that's difficult for you to understand because fear is a poor substitute for—”

She cracked. “—oh, fuck off, Sean. No one likes you, they like this bullshit nice guy persona you invented. Everyone who knows who you really are hates your fucking guts. And you really think your wife doesn’t know? Really? Because she’s a smart woman, Sean. I can’t wait until she actually has the courage to leave you.”

He laughed openly. This time, it was a really harsh sound. “Oh, Di, you can be so funny sometimes.”

Diane smiled tightly at him, lacing her fingers together on the table in front of her. “Yeah. Must be pretty funny to hear about how much your own parents hated you. I bet you lie in bed every night and laugh about it.”

“At least there's someone lying next to me. No one would come within ten k's of your bed.”

Diane didn't look the least bit bothered by that. In fact, she smirked. “Well, it's that far up the driveway,” she paused, “of Mum and Dad's estate.”

He directed her a heavy stare. “Which I'm sure is going to be really comforting when you're alone on your death bed. Maybe you can hire some top grief professionals to expertly cry for you.”

Diane just gazed calmly at him, and then feigned surprise. “Oh, that was it? I was expecting you to finish with something actually insulting.”

He didn't sound as relaxed when he spoke this time. In fact, he sounded very serious. “Drop the fucking court case or I'm going to stuff up your pitch tomorrow. I don't even care how much our share price drops if I do. It'll be worth it to watch your face when you miss out on getting finance for your pet mine.”

She pretended to turn back to her computer. “See you in court, Sean.”

“Did you even hear me? You can't piss me off by blocking access to Waterbank if your mine doesn't exist.”

She glanced towards him and smiled again, repeating pointedly, “See you in court, Sean.”

“Well, then, see you at your pitch tomorrow, Diane,” he said, slipping back into his super-professional, super-calm tone, and hopped off the table to approach the door near where I was standing.

My heart pounded, and I backed into the corner of the room and hoped it was as badly lit as I thought it was. When he opened the door, slamming it so loudly the windows all shook as he left, he didn't notice me.

I stood there for a second trying to process what I'd just heard, but the clock was directly across on the other wall from me and it read 8:26pm. I had no idea how long it was going to take to fix the images, but it was going to take me at least twenty minutes to get home and back and that was time lost.

Stunned and numb, I knocked on Diane's door. She didn't answer—probably because she thought it was Sean—so I just entered. Her jaw was still set when she peered over her monitor at me. “Are you done?” I couldn't read her.

My heart was still pounding, and as I opened my mouth to speak I could feel it against my ribs. “The printed materials are done and I got them in on time,” I told her. “I need to alter two of the images on the slides, though.” I took a breath. “Which means I need to go home and get my tablet.”

She watched me intently for a few seconds. “30 minutes,” she said finally. There was an implied threat in that. I knew something bad would happen if I wasn't back in the office and working hard by minute thirty-one, but she didn't specify what that was.

I swallowed. It would probably only take me twenty, anyway, which left a couple of minutes for Bree. “Okay.”

She nodded, and I showed myself out and went to grab my handbag and head downstairs.

The muscles in my legs were weak and I had to be careful about how I walked. All of me was shaking, and I honestly felt like I was just about to pass out.

Fuck, I could barely make any sense of what had just happened. What I'd discovered about Sean, what a fucking idiot I'd been, and then that conversation I'd overheard. The details just hung in my head and didn't fit together. Now that I had a second, I needed to tell Sarah about this. She was incredibly fucking switched on and not a human mess like I was, she'd figure it all out.

I took my phone out of my handbag and dialled her number while I was waiting at the lights. I held my phone to my cheek and waited. I needed to remember to ask her if she'd known that Jason would be suspended when we complained, too.

It didn't ring, though, it went straight to voicemail, and as her upbeat voice told me to leave a message, I pulled the phone away from my ear and frowned at the screen. Why wasn't she— oh, of course, that's right. It had been ages since she'd left, and by now she'd be entertaining Sasha Burov in the Star. There was no way Jason would let her get away with having her phone on, let alone answering it.

I put the phone back to my ear anyway to leave a message. “Hey,” I told her, forgetting to say who it was. “I need to talk to you. Ring me as soon as you get this.” I put the phone back in my bag.

I'd been looking forward to speaking to her and the anticlimax of not being able to do it was disorienting. It made my pulse race, and I tried to walk a little faster to burn off the adrenaline. Bree was at home, anyway, and I'd have at least a couple of minutes to spend with her. She'd sort me out. She always did.

The lift in my building took ages to arrive, and then it felt like it stopped on every fucking floor on the planet before it got to twenty-six. I paced restlessly in the lift, I just wanted to get home, get my tablet, and get these slides done so I could get at least one thing right for Diane and my team after I'd royally screwed everything else up.

When I finally got to my level, I strode down the hallway on shaky legs, trying to figure out how I'd brush out part of one of the cliffs in the graphics. I was thinking about the best way to do that, fishing my keycard out and fitting it into the reader when I noticed the surface of my door had fresh marks on it.

I stopped, frowning.

I put a couple of fingers to the wood to touch them; they were sunken and crescent-shaped as if someone had struck the centre of my door with an object that had a round edge.

Worrying about that, I swiped my card and stepped inside. I had begun to say, “Bree?” when I noticed there was something large missing from the hallway. I didn't trip over a schoolbag as I walked inside and dropped my Jimmy Choos, and there weren't school shoes or thongs discarded randomly en route to the living room. My apartment was cold, and empty and silent.

I let that sink in as I walked into the living room, dumping my handbag on the kitchen counter. Bree was gone, and I had absolutely no way to contact her, and those pock-marks in the door could only mean one thing: Andrej.

I stood in the centre of the living room, worrying about her in that toxic house. She'd specifically said Andrej wasn't violent but she must have been a bit afraid of him, right...shit, is that the time?

My eyes passed over the clock on my wall: 8:49pm. I worried about her. I worried a lot about her, and I also worried about myself that she wasn't here to give me a hug right now but I didn't have time for this and I—take a deep breath, Min, take a deep breath and focus—I've just got to get my tablet and get back to work in ten minutes and finish those slides and then I can come home and have a drink and worry about Bree. Then, I can.

I took a slow, steadying breath and turned to grab my laptop off my...

...my empty dining table? I frowned at it. Well, maybe Bree had been playing with my laptop again. I went into the bedroom to see if she'd left it there, but the bed was neatly made and there was nothing in it. The only three things on the bedside table were an empty glass, the painkillers and the phone charger. No laptop, and no tablet.

No, I thought, my heart thumping. No, no... this can't be happening. I went all over my apartment, out on the balcony, feeling a sinking, grinding feeling in my stomach and a tightness in my chest and, god, I couldn't breathe and I couldn't think and this couldn't be happening and in the end I just had to accept that it was, it was happening, this was happening and, oh, god...

My laptop was missing. The case with my tablet in it was missing. They were gone and Bree was gone.

Time stopped still for a second while everything converged on me. It was gone, my tablet was gone. The item I needed for the one last chance Diane gave me was gone. My ears began to ring and my head spun and I had to brace myself against the wall and try and make sense of this. I can't breathe, I thought, I can't fucking breathe and I have five fucking minutes to get back to work and be in Oslo or Diane will kill me and I'm not going to make it and the slides aren't going to get finished because my tablet is gone and the pitch is going to fail and fuck this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening!

My chest ached and clenched and I pawed at it, trying to get enough oxygen into my lungs. I couldn't think straight with the pain of it and the room was spinning and everything was starting to feel far away and through a tunnel so far away... and fuck, no, Min, take some deep breaths you're not going to pass out...

What I needed were some fucking painkillers and I half-staggered and half-jogged into the bedroom to grab the bottle from the bedside table but as soon as I lifted it I could tell there was nothing left in that one and I just threw it somewhere as I tried to breath and tried to remember where I'd left the other bottle.

While I was hunched there and trying to recall the last time I'd had any codeine I caught sight of my reflection in my wardrobe mirror and it was just so shrunken and slumped and pathetic and female and I hated it and I couldn't deal with anything right now and fuck everything and before I knew it I had the empty glass in my hand and I'd hurled it at the wardrobe.

The mirror didn't even give me the satisfaction of shattering into a million pieces on impact; the empty glass I'd thrown just bounced off the door and rolled across the carpet, leaving a long crack through the mirror. I could still see that woman in it and I hated her, I hated those breasts and that long, beautifully curled hair, those hips and that dress and I just hated everything god fucking damnit why was this happening why did this shit always happen to me it wasn't fucking fair and why the fuck did I look like this? Why did I have to look like this? Why me? Half the fucking world was born with the angles and lines that I wanted and through some fucking mistake of nature I was that, that female person in the mirror.

I shook. I shook so much I could barely stand up. No wonder Diane didn't believe I was transgender and thought the complaint was vexatious when she first read it if that pathetic woman in the mirror was what she saw.

I couldn't look at the mirror. I couldn't look at that thing that people thought I was, and within two steps I'd wrenched the wardrobe door off its runners and hurled it across the room and this time, this time, the mirror smashed. It smashed everywhere, all over my bed and my carpet and my wall and my room but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for how much I hated this. I hated this. I hated this. I hated everything about myself and this and everything and my wardrobe was open and I wrenched each of my fucking stupid dresses and blouses and belts and skirts and frilly jackets and lacy shirts and tights and fuck everything and stockings and underwear out of their drawers and off their hangers and out of their covers and scattered them with the glass on the floor and then I... my chest... my chest... I clutched at it as it hurt... I needed those fucking painkillers.

I staggered into the bathroom and the first thing I saw was my red face and pearls and earrings and long hair in the mirror and all of my makeup on the vanity and fuck it all and in one clean movement I'd swept it all onto the floor and listened to things smash and clatter across the tiles.

As I looked around my stockinged feet at the debris, I realised how many thousands of fucking dollars I'd spent on everything, and those clothes in my other room, thousands and thousands and thousands spent on them and it was all for nothing because it was thirty-one minutes and Diane was going to fire me and I was going to be homeless and everything that I'd fucking worked at my whole fucking life was about to fall apart and Mum was going to kill me and all those kids in high school were right and I... just couldn't ever seem to fucking breathe.

I could never seem to catch my breath. Never, and all of this was never going to end, was it? This was never going to end. I was always going to feel fucking crushed under the weight of everything, and everyone wanted a piece of me.

Henry thought I was this tortured genius who he'd liberate and make a fulfilled wife and a great mother. Mum had all these elaborate fantasies about me having a brief, successful career before settling down with a nice man like Henry and having babies. Sarah wanted me to be this fun prankster at Frost with her. Even Bree, even Bree saw me as her saviour, but I just wasn't. I was the one who needed rescuing and even with all these people desperately trying to, I still couldn't succeed, and I was beginning to drag them all down with me. Henry. He used to be so funny and so cheeky, and now... fuck, I'd turned him into the long-suffering apologist for me. Sarah was getting sucked into my bullshit at work. I was about to get fired and that meant Mum would have to go back to work and hire a nurse for Grandma. And Bree... she had such a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart and she deserved a proper first love. Someone to be giddy with. Someone to hug and kiss and make love to and feel like the sky had opened up and sun was finally shining and, god... I just couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't be that for her. Not like this.

“I can't do this,” I realised aloud, and watched my lips move. “I can't do this. I can't, I can't...” I repeated it to myself like a mantra, clutching myself and slipping against the wall until I was curled on the floor surrounded by my makeup and cosmetics and tweezers and shavers and tiny bottles of crème and moisturiser and toner.

So much fucking effort. So much effort, so much care, so much time and so much money just to ultimately fail. And there was no way out. There was nothing I could do.

I was a failure. I was a fucking failure. I was nothing, and there was nothing left of me. Five whole years of my life working my guts out to just fail when at last I had the opportunity to shine. God, I'd been so happy, hadn't I? A few weeks ago when Diane had smiled at me, it had made my day. And then, then when I'd first sat in Oslo and looked out across all of Sydney, promoted to lead of a top secret project, I'd been so elated and so on top of the world and I'd wanted to dance and skip and smile ear to ear. I'd been getting somewhere. All my hard work and suffering had paid off. The universe worked, Karma was finally delivering me the reward I deserved. After all the shit in my life, something great had finally happened to me, and Diane Frost had smiled at me, had promoted me, and was so impressed by me that she wanted to move me into management and everything looked so bright.

And now...?

My throat tightened.

Now I was nothing. I was ruined, and I was about to be jobless and homeless and broke, and I was about to fail all the people I loved. And I couldn't stop myself. No matter how I tried, I couldn't stop myself.

Curled up in the corner of my bathroom with my knees to my chest and my hands over my head, I sobbed. I clutched at my hair and my face and wrenched out my beautiful pearl earrings until there was blood on my fingertips and I sobbed. My chest ached and I couldn't breathe, but I didn't care. I didn't care if I couldn't breathe because it didn't matter. What was the point in me breathing? There was no point. There was just no point to anything anymore. I ached and ached and everything just hurt.

I'd been lying there for a few minutes, feeling hot tears on my cheers and gazing helplessly at the bathroom floor, when I noticed something tiny and oval-shaped on the dark tiles. One of my painkillers; that's where they were. I must have knocked the bottle off when I'd thrashed the vanity.

I leant forward to pick it up, and noticed another one beside it, and another one beside that, and pretty soon I had a palm full of them. Kneeling on the floor, I looked down at them, my hand shaking as I remembered Sarah's comment about how strong they were. She'd only had two; I had at least 15 right here.

I counted them: 17.

I could just do it.

Just one move and all these little pills would be in my mouth, and there was a tap right there for water to swallow them with. They kicked in quickly, very quickly. It was one of the reasons I bought this brand. It wouldn't be long before I wouldn't have to deal with any of this.

I was so tired. I was so tired and my chest ached and I was so, so sick of being suffocated. But I didn't have to be, did I? There was another option here, in my palm.

Shaking, I pushed myself up and went and sat on the edge of the bathtub. I counted the pills again. Was seventeen enough, I wondered? I didn't want to not finish the job. The worst thing I could imagine was waking up in hospital with Henry and Mum bent over me.

The bottle had to be around here somewhere, so I crawled around on the floor and found it, turning the label to the light. Daily total dose should not exceed six tablets, it read. I had nearly three times that, but was that really a lethal dose? I wasn't sure, so I kept reading. It was when I got to the DO NOT USE IN CONJUNCTION WITH ALCOHOL in bold text and capital letters that I had a way forward, because I had plenty of alcohol.

Standing, I walked mechanically into the kitchen with my fistful of codeine and opened the cupboard in my pantry where I kept it all. I took out a fresh bottle, reasoning that a whole bottle of wine mixed with anything would be pretty dangerous.

I put it on the counter and stared at it. The label had a little wine glass with the number of standard drinks printed inside it: 9.1. I'd drunk a whole bottle of wine in an hour once and literally passed out, so this plus the codeine was probably going to be enough to kill me.

Okay. Where should I do it, though? I surveyed my apartment. My bed was covered in glass and women's clothes. I supposed there was always the couch, but someone walking around my apartment might not actually see me lying there. Realistically I should probably just do it in the hallway to make sure that my body was found before it started to decompose.

I wondered who would find it, and for one panicky second I thought it might be Bree. She had a keycard, but if she'd only just left she'd probably spend a day or two at her parents' house before coming back here. No, tomorrow was the pitch and if I wasn't at that, Sarah would worry. I wasn't sure whether she'd come straight here if I didn't show up, though. She could be pushy, but she generally knew when to give me space so she'd probably leave it a day or two.

It would be Henry, wouldn't it? We had plans tomorrow night. He'd never let himself in before without me giving him permission to, but I'd answered my phone or answered the door before. If I didn't do that, he'd worry, and in his worrying, he'd probably let himself in. Well, at least he'd probably tell Mum it was an accident.

That was if it even worked, I thought, counting the pills again and then looking between them and the wine. No. No, I couldn't take any chances. I should just do something that would definitely kill me, and preferably something that actually looked like a real accident.

Maybe I could have a few pills and drink a bit of wine and just climb over the balcony? I could put something slippery on the surface and make it look like I'd just toppled over. I was tall, it was probably possible.

I slid the balcony door open and went and stood out there, leaning over the railing and trying to decide if the fall would kill me outright. 26 floors, how many metres was that? And what if I fell on one of those buildings down there? They were.... seventeen or eighteen stories, I thought. Eight or nine floors might not kill me. I'd probably be seriously injured, though, and at that height I'd probably die before help got to me. That was enough. I could spill some sunscreen out here on the floor or something and pretend I slipped in it.

Well, I'd better take some of the pills now so that if that happened I wouldn't be in excruciating pain before I ultimately died. I went back into the bathroom with them.

I don't know how long I stood over the bathroom sink, looking down at the pills in my palm and arguing with myself over whether I should jump off the balcony or whether I should try and overdose and what the exact chance of both of those working was.

Additionally, the logistics of who was going to clean out my apartment was stalling me. I had that packer in my wardrobe, and my binder and my boy clothes in my bedroom. Henry was going to find those, wasn't he? I had the idea that maybe I could just put my binder on before I did it. I could put on all my boy clothes, and dying in them would be my way of coming out to him. It would be such a shock for him, though, on top of finding me dead. He loved me, did I really want to do that to him?

While I was watching the mirror, the absolute absurdity of that statement hit me.

I was about to kill myself. As if Henry was going to give a fuck about my binder.

Henry was going to rush into the hallway and see my lifeless body on the carpet, and his first thought was definitely not going to be, 'Oh no, my girlfriend is transgender!', it was going to be about the fact the person he was in love with had taken her own life. He wasn't going to give a fuck about the fucking binder as he scooped my body into his arms, desperately shouting for help and cradling me in his lap. All he was going to do was whisper to me and cry for me and beg me to wake up and then spend the rest of his life blaming himself and wishing he'd done something differently. He wouldn’t give a flying fuck about the fact I was trans, except to blame himself for not noticing and blame himself for everything.

Shit. This was going to really hurt him, wasn't it? More than the fact I'd been cheating on him.

And fuck, who was I kidding about Sarah? I'd seen cracks in that easy-going exterior before. I knew there were emotions in there, regardless of how she presented herself, and if I thought me doing this wasn't going to impact her, I was fucking dreaming.

And Bree, god, Bree... Sarah was right, she loved me. She wanted so much to take care of me and be taken care of by me. The joy she got out of making me smile and cheering me up… she’d spend her whole life wondering what she’d done wrong.

In the mirror, I saw my eyes were swimming. I'd been fine a second ago; calm, collected, ready to do what needed to be done and I didn't want to have to feel any of this again. I didn't want to. I didn't want to hurt and ache and deal with this, I couldn't deal with this again! I didn't want to think about all the people who cared about me and how this would affect them and how their lives would be ruined and, fuck, I couldn't go through this again and why, why did I have to think about everyone? I loved them all and I didn't want to do this to them but there just wasn't any other way. I couldn't live like this. I couldn't live like this. I couldn't live like this.

“Why do people even love you?” I asked my reflection. Why did people love her? How could anyone love that? She was pathetic, and stupid, and useless and pretty soon she'd be dead.

I had a sudden, surreal realisation that I was about to kill that woman I was looking at, and because I felt so completely divorced from my reflection, that made the hair stand up on my neck.

It was a shocking reality check to really see her.

The woman I was staring at was shaking. She was shaking like a leaf, and she was crying. Her eyes were sunken. Her skin was sallow. She was so weak because she hadn't eaten in days, and her whole life was unravelling while she tried desperately to grab at the frayed ends of it. She was lost, and hurting, and so, so trapped and instead of loving her, instead of caring for her and forgiving her and being gentle with her, I was hating her. I was insulting her. I was mechanically plotting all these violent things and violent ways I could kill her.

But none of this was her fault. She couldn't help it. She wasn't me, I thought. She wasn't me, but it wasn't her fault.

She was doing the best she could, wasn't she? In a loveless relationship, in an organisation where employees were just assets to be used and milked and bled dry until the last ounce of productivity was taken from them. Played like a tennis ball between two CEOs who would hardly notice and definitely not care if she did die. She'd just be more collateral damage in the civil war they were waging on each other.

She was trying to make the best of a mother who cared more about her own dreams for her daughter than anything about the person her daughter wanted to become.

She was trying to make the best of a body she didn't connect with and didn't understand.

She was doing the best she could in every area of her life. She was trying, trying so, so hard to be everything she was supposed to and everything people wanted her to be until she couldn't breathe and couldn't move and instead of loving her, instead of forgiving her, I wanted to kill her.

I wanted to kill her for things that weren’t her fault, for goals and wishes and dreams that had been set for her because they interfered with my wishes and my dreams. But they weren’t mine. It was like we were two separate people. It was like I was looking at a stranger in the mirror and punishing myself for not being her.

And that’s when I realised it. I wasn’t failing at living my life, I was failing at living hers. And was it any wonder? Look at her. No part of her was really me. And not being able to be me, not being able to not be her was killing me. She was killing me, and I was killing myself.

It wasn't me who I wanted desperately to kill, it was her.

That broken and spent woman in the mirror, with tears running down her cheeks and the weight of a thousand expectations on her shoulders, this had to be it for her. It had to be. This was the end of her stressful, miserable existence. After all her suffering and all of her struggling, it was finally time to lay her to rest.

I watched her face crumple in the mirror, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks as I reached out to the glass to touch her fingertips. It wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault. She didn't ask for this, and she'd done the best she could. “I'm sorry,” I told her, our voices shaking. “I'm so sorry.”

I dropped the pills on the counter and had to brush them off my palms where they'd stuck, and bent down to retrieve my scissors from the floor.

This was it. No turning back now, unless I actually felt like pitching myself off the balcony or choking to death on my own vomit.

Goodbye, I told that woman, and then held the scissors to our hair.

Goodbye.

The blades were dull and as I squeezed and dragged them through my hair, the strands crunched and tore between the shears and I needed both hands to get through it all. My thick hair got caught in the join and it pulled and I seethed and endured it as I kept cutting.

I watched my reflection transform as that woman disappeared, taking with her the dreams so many people had for her. White wedding dresses. A private honeymoon on a tropical island somewhere with beach sex and skinny-dipping and laughter and kisses. A blue cross on a pregnancy test, maternity wear, baby showers and one final push and the sharp cry of our first born. Henry's joy as he held our baby, Mum's delighted smile as she held her grandchild for the first time, a grandmother, and family portraits of four generations of Lees on the wall of her house in Seoul. Promotions. Presentations and pay rises. Upsizing to four bedrooms in the suburbs, and then school and graduation and downsizing to a little cottage in the hills. Retiring together to sunsets and slow walks through fields paved with wildflowers as we reminisced about our happy, domestic life and held our own grandchildren.

As I cut, all of this fell away. All of that disappeared, and as I lay that woman who'd been my reflection for twenty-five years to rest, I laid her to rest with the shattered dreams of the people who loved her. I ended them, and I ended her stressful, dutiful life.

So I could finally start mine.

When I was done cutting, I had a fistful of hair like a severed limb in my hand. It weighed maybe a hundred grams at the most, but I felt like a thousand, million, billion tonnes had just been lifted from my shoulders.

And even though I'd well and truly fucked up my hair, and even though I was still wearing a dress, when I looked in the mirror I finally saw something of a person I recognised. And all the money and all the accolades and all the promotions in the world couldn't compensate for how much of a relief that was: to finally look in the mirror and see someone familiar.

Tears poured down my cheeks, but I was smiling as I dropped that handful of hair into the bin where it belonged. 25 years. 25 years, I'd wasted. But now, now I still had the remainder. There would be consequences for this, I knew, but fuck them. I was alive to face them.

I was still shaking when I walked out into the kitchen and checked the time; 9:42 pm.

Wasn't that little hairdresser on the corner open until ten? It couldn't take that long to do a men's cut, could it?

For the last time ever, I took off a dress and tossed it onto the mess that I'd made of my bed. I pulled on my binder, my jeans and my hoodie and then grabbed my purse and headed down onto the street. People stared at me because of the frighteningly bad job I'd done on my hair, but I just smiled right back at them.

The city lights were so bright and so colourful and as I looked upwards towards the night sky I imagined painting them spiralling around me. I felt like I was seeing them for the first time, and they were beautiful. Everything was beautiful, and the night air was crisp and fresh and I breathed it deeply into my lungs and smelt all the pizzerias and the salty harbour and burnt diesel fuel from the cruisers. Couples walked arm in arm, laughing with each other, and I was so happy for them.

Frost HQ loomed over the skyline, the big snowflake-diamond logo lit against the dark sky. I stopped to look at it before I went inside the hairdresser, and for once I didn't feel heavy. I didn't think about my deadlines, or my workload, or my mother. I didn't feel anything.

Diane was probably riotously angry about my disappearance right now, and I was pleasantly surprised by how little that actually bothered me. It was tempting to never go into work again after all the pain and suffering they'd caused me, except that I think I actually wanted to. I wanted them to meet me, and I wanted to see their reactions. After everything those assholes had put me through, there was something satisfying about the thought of arriving at that critical pitch dressed as something Jason had expressly forbidden me to be.

I smiled indulgently at the thought of his red face and all his veins popping out, and then pushed the door of the boutique open.

The woman behind the counter was already packing up for the night, but she froze when she saw me. “Oh, dear,” she said, her eyes fixed on my head. “Should I ask what happened?”

My own eyes were so puffy it was probably obvious I'd had a breakdown and hacked off all my hair. As if I was going to say that, though. Instead, I deadpanned. “If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”

She snorted and gave me a mock stern look. “Let me get my gear out,” she said, and then started to unpack everything again.

I sat down in the chair, surprised to see a grin on my face in the mirror. I was excited. And as the woman asked me what I wanted and showed me pictures in men's magazines, I had butterflies in my stomach. It felt like I was about to get my very first haircut, and just in time for the pitch.

I'd been terrified about this stupid pitch tomorrow for so long, but this was the first time I'd felt any type of excitement about it. Because it didn't matter what happened now. Signature or not, it didn’t matter. I'd chosen. I'd lose my job. I'd get evicted, but it was okay.

Because I was going to do it all on my terms, as me.

TWENTY-EIGHT

As I lay on the couch, I thought long and hard about whether or not I should actually go into work tomorrow. On one hand I didn't want to expose myself to another second of being treated like a pathetic fuck-up, but on the other, that wasn't how I wanted them to remember me, either. Calling in sick, making mistakes, crying in bathrooms. That was not who I was. If I left now, I left as that person. I didn’t want it to be like that.

The couch was uncomfortable and with that one question circling in my head I found it really difficult to sleep. So, after a few hours of trying, I decided to just lie awake and do some more research on Sasha Burov, thinking that maybe I would figure out a solution.

We'd already researched his work and his collections to death, and I'd already read interview after interview. I read them again, focusing on how he responded to questions. I already knew he wasn’t put off by flattery and was impressed when people showed good knowledge of his work, but I wanted to know more about what type of interviewer he engaged best with. He was overconfident and very forward in just about everything I read, and by the early morning, I'd already decided how I was going to play this. I was going to take a big risk, and that was in addition to showing up dressed as a guy and hoping he didn't recognise me.

I was going to try and pull off a Grand Theft Pitch.

Diane and Jason were obsessed with everything going smoothly and according to plan because that’s how they saw this contract getting signed. Jason had emphasised again and again that we had to appear like a well-oiled machine to Burov, and despite all our differences we had to come across as a cohesive team. Well, if that was the case, there was no way either of them would try and fight with me in front of him, no way. And they wouldn't let him guess I was female, either. I actually disagreed that 'conservative' was the best way to interact with Burov, but as long as Diane and Jason believed it was, there was a possibility I was going to get away with attempting a heist.

Fuck, though. This was so unlike anything I'd done before. I wasn't cocky. I wasn't super-confident. And the thought of doing something brash and naughty was both terrifying and exhilarating and I couldn't sleep. I just lay there with my stomach fluttering, hoping I could pull it off.

The following morning I disregarded the expensive dresses spread all over the glass-littered floor of my bedroom and put on Henry's spare suit. It fit me, right down to the same weathered belt notch. Even the Y-fronts Mum had bought him 'on sale' that he hated fit me. I hardly needed to touch my short hair—except I did anyway because I loved it—so I stood back to admire myself.

I looked great. I felt great. Every little detail was perfect, from the top of my head to my Windsor knot, all the way down to... the sagging crotch of these fucking suit pants, I swear to god. I made a face.

Maybe I could fill it with... I turned slightly towards my bedroom, second guessing myself. I probably shouldn't use the packer, though. It was big, it might look a bit pornographic, like I was casually walking around Sydney with a semi. I stood there arguing with myself over it, and then eventually decided that the only way I could settle this was to try it.

I did, taking it from the bottom of my wardrobe and slipping easily into the Y-fronts. I zipped everything back up and looked down my body to the new bulge and felt... a bit weird about it, actually. It didn't look pornographic at all, it looked completely natural. I didn't feel natural about it, though. It made me feel self-conscious and I would have preferred not to be able to see any sign of it on the smooth planes of my front.

I sighed at my new bulge. Whatever, though. I was so over stressing about my body and what should or shouldn't be part of it. The important thing was that I passed as a guy and the packer completed the picture, so that was enough. I let myself out of the apartment with nothing but a few cards and my phone in my pocket.

I was leaving a lot later than usual this morning—the pitch was at ten and I didn’t need to arrive early—so the crowds of business people in suits had already dissipated into their offices. In their place, there were hordes of tourists around Circular Quay. That made me a bit conspicuous in my sharp suit. I would normally have hated standing out, but I didn't anymore. Not dressed like this. And the looks they were giving me weren't because I was only an inch or two shy of being a human skyscraper or because I was different, not at all. They were, 'hey, check him out'. By the time I'd walked into Frost HQ, I'd already decided I really needed to buy a few suits of my own. I liked this.

No one recognised me as I swiped my card at the security gates or as I got into the lifts. Everyone was on their phones, anyway, so I took mine out as well to check the time again. I noticed I had a message from Sarah.

“Hey, are you okay? I only just got your message—last night was totally crazy. Burov is so full of himself, his ego is bigger than Jason's. He put a $5k bet down and when he lost he was like, ‘Guess I better work an extra 15 minutes today!’. Anyway, I haven't seen you yet, are you in? Jason is about ready to decapitate you if you are and he's going through all your USBs. He won't say why, might be about the complaint. Or it might be because he's a dick.”

I guessed Diane didn't suspend him like she was supposed to, I thought. Good. I wanted him to be part of this, too. I texted back, “Yeah, I'm here. Tell Jason I've finished the presentation and I'll be up with it in two seconds.” I hadn't, and I was going to take longer than two seconds, but that wasn't the point.

I checked the time: it was a bit too early to go in yet. I needed to be late. I was just staring at the lift panels and wondering how I was going to kill ten minutes when my eyes fell on '35'. On impulse, I pushed it. Maybe I'd regret it, but I wanted Henry to see me like this before anyone else did. It was the least I could do since these were his clothes.

I was the last one out of the lift, and 35 was quiet, really quiet. I went straight to his office, my heart pounding every step of the way, only to find it empty. All the offices were empty.

“If you're looking for HR, they're doing orientation in the auditorium right now,” a familiar voice told me. I knew that super friendly, super warm tone, and it belonged to someone who wasn't either. My hair stood on end as I turned towards the voice.

Fucking Sean had his suit jacket on and was clearly heading somewhere — our pitch probably — when he'd bumped into me on his way to the lift.

He didn't recognise me at first, and I didn't tell him who I was. I didn't do anything, in fact. I was so surprised to see him and so fucking angry and so betrayed that I just stood there paralysed while he double-took and looked delighted.

“Min!” he said, standing back to look me up and down. “Wow, you certainly look different! It must have taken so much courage to come to work dressed like that.” He flashed me a smile. “You look great.”

I didn't smile. Shut the fuck up, you lying, psychopathic asshole, I thought, internally seething. I wanted him to burn in the fires of hell for what he'd done to me, and I opened my mouth to say exactly that to him in probably just as many words, when something occurred to me: he was being nice to me because he didn't know I knew he was a lying two-faced fuck. I closed my mouth.

He thought I was the same person as the one who'd cried in his office yesterday and that I was fragile and upset and stressed out of my brains. And while I was staring at him, I had an idea. If I wanted to really get revenge on him, it wasn't by telling him to go fuck himself right here and right now, as satisfying as that would be. No, that wasn't how I was going to get him. I had a better idea, and one that stopped him from sabotaging the pitch.

I could use this.

I forced what I thought was a bit of a shy smile. “Thank you,” I said, and then pretended to look self-consciously down my body. “Do you think it's a bit much, though? I don't want to look overdressed.”

The bastard had the gall to put a warm hand 'comfortingly' on my shoulder. “Don't worry, it looks great,” he said. “And anyway, even if it didn't, it's a bit late to go home and get changed now, isn't it?” I pretended to be clueless, and he chuckled. “You don't need to hide it anymore. I know, I checked room bookings. You've got that pitch on now.”

“Oh!” I said, trying my absolute hardest to look like I suddenly realised what he meant. “Oh, yes, that's today. It's not now, though. The clients had a big night last night and opted to delay an hour, so I thought I'd come and visit Henry and get his opinion on this suit.”

From Sean's expression, he bought my story. And why wouldn't he? The Min Lee he knew was a diligent, hard worker. She'd never be late for a pitch. “I'm sure he'll be disappointed he wasn't able to give it,” he said. “I'll give you mine instead, though: you're not overdressed. Russians are less casual than Australians in business so I think you'll find you fit right in.”

I smiled appreciatively at him. “I hope so,” I said. “I did hop onto the Impressions website to take a look at the publicity shots to see what they all were wearing,” I said, brushing my front down. “Good, I'm glad I made the right choice. Okay. I guess I'd better go pour over the materials one more time to make sure everything's perfect. Thanks.”

Sean didn't miss my 'slip', I saw something pass across his face when I said Impressions. He also didn't draw any attention to the fact I'd said it, either. “You're welcome,” he said, and then watched me leave.

I stood waiting for a lift, expecting at any second that he'd come and stand alongside me and follow me anyway. He didn't, though. He'd gone back to his office, probably to call his contact in Vladivostok and ask what the hell was going on. That made me smirk... until I remembered how quickly he'd gotten onto his contact on the day the pitch was cancelled. I probably didn't have much time.

Well, that just meant I had to do a really good job, didn't I? I got into the lift and headed down to the floor with the media rooms.

As I walked out onto it, it really sank in what I was about to try and do, and my heart was pounding. I felt like I was about to rob a bank. I cycled through a series of 'I can't do this's and 'sure, I can!'s until I finally settled on 'too late to back out now just keep walking'.

This is it, I thought. This is it. Take a deep breath, Min. There’s no reason to stress out: you have nothing to lose.

As I approached the suite, the door was open and I could hear talking inside. I walked straight in the room, shut the door and very subtly locked it. Then, I turned around to face all the people seated in front of me.

It was everyone. Diane, Jason, the rest of my team including Sarah, and Burov and his entourage. The Frost employees all looked up with curiosity, wondering why some guy had just walked in here.

And one-by-one, all their jaws dropped.

Hi, guys, I thought, and took advantage of their shock.

“Thanks for waiting, everyone,” I said in the most gender neutral voice I could manage, bustling confidently over to the projector and fitting my USB into it. Once I'd done that, I stepped around the lectern and over to Burov, focusing intently on him and extending my hand. “Min,” I said as he shook it. “It's great to finally meet you, Mr. Burov. I've been admiring your collections for years. Particularly the ones you hand-picked for the Royal wedding. And that necklace you commissioned last week for Isnakov's daughter?” I nodded appreciatively. “Beautiful. Was it all your idea to choose baguette cuts?”

I stole a glance at Jason. His face and neck had gone bright red, but he couldn't say anything about what I was doing. Not in front of Burov, not without ruining the 'cohesive team' illusion.

Burov didn't recognise me or my name. And, just like he had in the video conference, he looked impressed and a bit flattered by my knowledge of him. “Of course I chose the cuts,” he said, and then inclined his head towards my shocked compatriots. “What's wrong with them?”

Jason looked like he was about to explode, and Diane... if looks could kill, she’d have landed a critical hit on me. She staged a short, polite laugh at the very suggestion something was up. “Nothing's wrong,” she said easily. “We were expecting someone different to arrive in time for—”

I interrupted her. “She couldn't come, which is fantastic,” I flashed a grin at Burov, “for me, at least. It gives me the chance to network with one of the most prestigious diamond brokers on the planet, so it's absolutely my pleasure to fill in for her.”

Diane's eyes darted over to Burov as she spoke. “And we thank you so much for doing that,” she was as good at ‘pleasant’ as her brother was when she needed to be. “But it's fine, we’ve invited—” She was gesturing at the Sales team when I cut her off again.

“Much appreciated.” I went back over to the computer and entered my password for the USB before opening up the presentation file. “It's fantastic how supportive this organisation is. You don't need to worry, though, Diane. I'm happy to help.”

The Sales boys actually looked somewhat amused, and I didn't know why until I realised they were just as entertained by Jason's reaction as I was. No one knew how to handle what I was doing. Ian and Carlos were just sitting up the back, sweating, and Sarah had the biggest smirk. I doubted there was any sort of training on how to handle a Sales heist on a pitch, and everyone had turned to look at Diane as if to say, 'Well, what do we do now?'

Diane didn't have an answer for them, she just glared at me while she tried to think.

The multi-billionaire co-CEO of one of the world's richest mining companies was glaring at me. And guess what? I didn't care. I didn't need her approval. “Shall we get started?” I asked brightly.

“You don't need to worry, Min,” Diane said calmly. “We're all ready. You can just take a seat and let our experienced team of—”

Burov made a gruff noise. “Let the boy talk,” he told Diane. “He's got spunk. I like that. I was like that when I was his age.”

I hadn't actually been expecting Burov to side with me, even if I'd heavily researched how to impress him. Hell, I wasn't even sure I'd get away with convincing him that I was a guy. That I'd somehow managed to achieve both of those things in under a minute was fucking incredible.

Holy fuck, I thought, grinning at everyone. I'm actually getting away with this. I'm using a client to steamroll Jason and Diane, and it's working.

After a few seconds of revelling in what I'd done, I turned towards the screen, dimming the lights and activating the presentation. “Well, let me tell you exactly why you're going to want our diamonds for your collection, Mr. Burov,” I said loudly and clearly.

The presentation went well enough, and I certainly knew every inch of the material since I'd supervised the majority of the research and strategy. I didn't skip past the slides with the incorrect Sales figures in them, though, and when they flashed up on the screen I could hear the collective gasp of several Frost employees.

I didn't shy away from it. “You might notice this figure up here,” I used the laser pointer to indicate it, “is different from the ones in your brochure.” I upped the lights a bit so Burov could refer to his information kit materials. “The figure in the brochure is the one you need to refer to.”

Burov was nodding. “Why's that number there?” he said, indicating the screen.

I tried to look charming. “Because it turns out I'm not a great accountant,” I said openly. “But that's okay, because believe me, I know my diamonds. And that's what we're all here for, right? The highest quality, highest clarity diamonds in the world?”

Burov and his friend shared a knowing glance. I must have looked interested in it, because his friend said something in Russian, and Burov laughed and translated. “He said, 'Sasha is the same as you. He does the diamonds, I do the books'.” Burov sat back in his chair and gestured at me to continue. “Okay. Tell me more about how long I have to wait to get actual pink diamonds from this mine.”

And that was it. That mistake that Diane had made such a big deal out of: it didn't matter. It was over in twenty seconds, and Burov didn't care. He didn't care about most of the presentation, either, but he did remark on one of the paintings in the background.

“Where's that?” he asked, interrupting me.

That was actually something only Sarah and I could answer. I let her, because she hadn't said anything yet, she'd just been sitting up the back with huge smile on her face. “That's from right up close to where you're getting the actual diamonds from,” she told him. “When you sign this contract, we'd love to take you on a tour of the location. There's some spectacular scenery out there.” As Burov looked appreciatively at the painting, Sarah added, “Min did a pretty good job of capturing it, didn't he?”

She looked smug about dobbing me in. I wouldn't have said anything about it myself.

Burov took a closer look at the painting. “You did that?” I nodded and pretended to dust off my shoulders. He responded to that, turning to look at both Diane and Jason. “Where did you find this guy?” he asked them sociably. “He must make a fortune for you. I want one for my business.”

Jason was seething at me. “How do you feel about just taking that one?”

Burov understood him literally, and sounded interested. “He'll be the one giving me sales support if I sign?”

I looked pointedly at Jason and Diane. Both of them were trying not to appear angry, and it was beautiful. “Diane? Jason? Will I be the guy giving him sales support?”

“We can discuss that once the contract is signed,” Diane said diplomatically. “Those smaller details are by negotiation, but we're certainly happy to consider accommodating all your requests.”

Burov and his friend shared a brief exchange in Russian while the rest of us just stood there and waited. The Sales boys couldn't have looked any more entertained than if they were sitting in the front row munching popcorn. Since they had nothing else to do, they'd been very surreptitiously texting people under the table throughout the presentation, and while Burov was busy I saw one of them take a cheeky photo of Jason. Neither he nor Diane noticed, but I had a feeling that photo was going to circulate Sales and Marketing within the hour. They took one of me standing up the front, too, and I smiled for it. I hope they emailed those two photos together.

While I was watching them, Burov said something to his assistant who hurriedly reached into her briefcase and passed Burov a bulldog-clipped stack of paper. He put it on the table in front of him, taking a pen from his pocket and clicking out the nose of it.

It took me several seconds to realise that that stack of papers was the contract. The contract that had been the centre of my world for nearly two months. My heart was racing as the nib of the pen descended to it.

“I think I've seen enough,” Burov said, sounding satisfied. “I like these diamonds and I like how you do business. I like a good excuse to come to Australia, too.” He laughed. “We can work together.”

All our eyes were glued to the dotted line and everything was dead silent as he signed on it. You could even hear the scratch of the pen on the paper. When it was done, he closed the document and pushed it across the table to Jason.

Jason took it, too stunned by the suddenness to remember to be angry at me. “It's great to have you on board,” he said automatically to Burov, and then looked at me with an expression that said what?

I grinned. I grinned directly at him. Fuck you, I thought, enunciating each syllable in my head. Fuck you, Jason. Fuck you, fuck Diane and especially fuck Sean. Fuck all of you, and fuck your toxic bullshit workplace. I'm not nothing. I'm something. I have skills and talents and value and look at what I just did.

Look at what you're losing, Jason. Sit down there and look up at the person you've been calling a fuck-up.

He knew what I was thinking, but there was nothing he could do. It was over.

The rest of the team, all their eyes were on me. And in all of them, every single one, I could see something I never dared to hope for after everything that had happened: respect. I was up here dressed like a guy and it didn’t matter. Every single one of those people was just in awe of me. And I deserved it.

Dreams were made of moments like this.

Burov clapped the table with his hands, missing all of this. “Tell me you people have a yacht,” he said. “Let's hire a yacht. I want to see this city.”

Burov had more to discuss with Jason and Diane, and as much as they kept glancing at me, they were stuck in conversation with him. The Sales boys didn't know me well enough to say anything about what I'd just done, but Sarah, Ian and Carlos did. Sarah practically danced over.

“You look great,” she said, “and that was incredible. I was ready to give you a standing ovation when Burov passed the contract to Jason!”

Both Carlos and Ian looked like they'd run a marathon. “You scared the hell out of me,” Ian said quietly. “I was thinking, 'there goes my performance bonus'. I can't believe you did that.” He stole a quick glance at Diane and Jason. “You know they're going to fire you anyway, right?”

I shrugged. “They were going to before I came in.”

Sarah leant in. “Min made a formal complaint about Jason because of...” She gestured at my suit.

Ian and Carlos both looked scandalised. “You complained about him?” Carlos asked for confirmation. “Wow, I've wanted to do that for years, but I never had the guts.” He watched me for a moment, considering that.

I think he was about to say something else, but he never got the chance to. Over everyone's shoulders, Burov and Diane looked like they were winding up their little talk and I did not want to be around to take a dressing down from anyone. Not while I felt on top of the fucking world.

“I have to go,” I told the three of them.

They all glanced behind them at where I was looking. “Are you coming back?” Ian asked. “I mean, assuming they let you in the building.”

“Dude, she just single-handedly sold a multi-million dollar contract,” Sarah told him. “I'm sure they'll let her in.” She paused, squinting. “Erm, 'him' in?”

I didn't have an answer for Ian, and the pronoun question was too big to answer right now. “I don't know,” I said to them both, starting to walk towards the door. “I'll think about coming in, I guess, but right now I think it's time for me to make a quick exit.”

Burov actually called out to me as I left, but I pretended not to hear. I closed the door behind me and stood there for a minute to just absorb what I'd done.

I just fucked over Jason and Diane. Like, actually fucked them over. A CEO and a senior manager had been in there, and I'd well and truly rolled them. Wow. When I'd decided I was going to take over the pitch, I'd never dreamed it would go so smoothly. But it had, and everything was awesome, and fuck, Diane and Jason's expressions! A lot of how well that had just gone could be chalked up to good luck, I'd admit that. What I was happiest about couldn't, though.

It wasn't luck I'd put on a suit and come into work today. It wasn't luck that I'd held my head high and marched in there and taken a giant risk. None of that was luck. I'd done that. Quiet, shy, obedient Min Lee had said fuck it all and walked in there, and, not knowing how it was going to turn out, had done it all anyway.

And nothing, nothing can describe how that felt. I was so proud of myself. I was so, so proud of myself.

My feet hardly touched the fucking floor on the way to the lifts, I was on cloud nine. I had no idea what I was going to do now, but it didn't matter. I could go shopping for some new clothes, or I could go have lunch by the harbour, or I could just do a victory lap of Sydney and feel people looking at me and enjoy not worrying about it.

I'd stepped into the lift with a couple of other people and had pressed 'G', when the doors of the lift on the opposite side opened.

Sean Frost was standing in it, and he spotted me immediately. His usual easy smile was absent, and when I glanced at my phone to check the time—10:35am—I realised he was too early for an 11am pitch. That meant that he'd figured out I'd lied to him, and he'd come to try and crash the party. You're too late, Sean, I thought indulgently. Looks like Diane's building that mine you don't want after all.

As my doors slid shut, I gave him a little wave and a big, bright smile.

His expression. God, it was too much. Suck it, I thought as the lift began its descent, and laughed to myself despite the fact I was sharing the lift with several other employees. In the mirrors, I could see them all trying to avoid eye-contact and smother grins. I didn't try and hide mine. I just stood there with it across my face for the rest of the lift ride.

The clouds had parted by the time I walked out of Frost HQ, revealing a beautiful sunny day. I didn't want to go home for once. I wanted to be out in it, and I couldn't imagine how the day could get any better until I heard a stunned voice behind me.

“Min?”

Bree...? Bree was waiting for me already? I turned towards her voice, spotting her on the shallow staircase outside the building. She'd been sitting on one of the stairs, I think, but when she'd seen me, she'd stood up. She was gaping, too.

Her eyes were a bit puffy, but she wasn't crying now, not at all. In fact, a big smile was growing on her face, and that was way better. Especially knowing I'd caused it. “Whoa,” she said as she came over to me, disregarding whatever had upset her as she looked me up and down. “Yeah!”

Her timing couldn't have been any fucking better. I was really glad to see her, and because I was still high on rolling Sean, Diane and Jason and everything was fucking awesome, I grabbed her, pulled her up to me and kissed her right in the middle of fucking George Street. I shouldn’t have because of Henry, I probably shouldn’t have because of a lot of reasons. But holding her just felt so good, and it had been so long since I’d felt like this. I wanted to enjoy that feeling.

After a few seconds she pulled away, though. “I'm really sorry,” she said, as if she was desperate to get that in. “When Andrej was like, whacking your door, I didn't—”

I shushed her. “I’ve had the most amazing morning. I don’t care about what happened last—”

“—But you don’t understand!” she said, interrupting me. “I couldn't sleep all night because I’m so sorry, it’s so fucked up that you got dragged into all of my shit and it’s all my fault that he took your—”

“Bree,” I said, gripping her shoulders. After nearly killing myself, the last thing I cared about was stuff. “It’s okay. It’s really okay. I just took a big risk at work, it paid off big time, and right now I don’t care about anything.” I smiled at her. “Look! I'm taking the whole day off. If you could do anything right now, what would it be?”

I think she was expecting me to be more upset about the things Andrej had stolen, and she just blinked at me, taking a few seconds to process my question. When she did, she leant against me. “What if I'm already doing it...?” Almost immediately, though, she stood back and looked downwards, distracted. “Oh my god, you're wearing it, aren't you?” she asked in a strange voice, eyes fixed on the crotch of my pants. Her cheeks were a bit pink, and I knew exactly what she meant.

She looked up at me, and I nodded.

She went bright red and dissolved into giggles. “Sorry,” she said after a couple of seconds, trying to compose herself. “Sorry, that's really fucked up of me, of course you're wearing it. I just can't get the image of it out of my head and it's in there. Oh, god. I'm good. I'm totally good.” She tried to be serious for a couple of seconds, and then lost it again.

I stood there while she giggled helplessly, amused. “Just out of curiosity, how old did you say you were?”

She smacked my arm. “Oh, shut up! It's hilarious. That thing is enormous.”

“Thanks,” I said, and winked at her, which made her burst into another fit of nervous giggles.

She tried to compose herself again, and this time she managed to. “Seriously, though, Min, you look great. That suit is like the sexiest thing on the planet and your hair looks so cool.” She bounced on her tip-toes, looking hopeful. “Can I...?” She pointed at my head, and I bowed it a little so she could feel my hair and fuzz the shaved sides with her fingertips. I liked how it felt, and so did she, apparently. “What made you flip and do it, after all that?” She looked a little worried. “It wasn’t because you were angry, was it?” The implication was ‘with me’.

I didn't want to go into details of last night with her right now. I didn't want to ruin my mood. I'd tell her the full story eventually, but right now the best answer was, “No, I wasn’t angry with you. I'd had enough of everything, especially Frost. I'm quitting.” I stood back up, looking at the building behind me. “Fuck this place. Let's go celebrate my freedom with the rest of my money before I'm flat broke.”

“You want to spend some money?” she asked. “We can go have lunch at that place I dragged you to the first time. Oh my god, I love that place. I'm salivating just thinking about it. It can be like our Last Supper or something.”

I rolled my eyes. “I said 'spend' not 'waste',” I told her, but she'd already taken my hand and was towing me along the footpath. “You're hopeless.”

“I know,” she said over her shoulder. “But can you think of a better way to celebrate? You can tell me all about that thing you said you did today and what happened to your hair and we can look across the harbour, eat stupidly expensive food and have well-paid waitresses call us 'madam' and 'sir' and show us wine lists and we can pretend we actually have any idea what all of the names and years mean.”

I did have some idea what the names and years meant, but she had a point. It was a nice place, and I did want to celebrate. “Okay,” I said simply.

She actually stopped pulling me along. “Like, 'okay, yeah, let's do it'?” she asked for clarification. I nodded, and her eyebrows went up. “Huh,” she said. “Well, I guess it's lucky I don't need to steal your bag this time, because you don't have one.”

This time I took her hand. “Let's go get called 'madam' and 'sir',” I said neutrally. “But I think I might give the wine a miss, if you don't mind.”

She knew exactly what I meant, and another big smile grew on her face as she watched me for a moment. “I'm so glad you decided to quit that stupid job,” she said. “Like, really, really glad. You don't know what it feels like to look at you and see you smiling.”

She was wrong about that. “I think I do,” I said, and brushed my thumb across her own smiling cheeks. Despite all the shit going on for her, she looked so happy right now, and her happiness was contagious.

Hand-in hand, we headed down to Darling Harbour.

I still couldn't believe what I'd done at work; I don't think it had really sunk in yet. I kept remembering little details of the pitch and being stunned that I had said those things and I had done those things, having spent basically my entire life with my mouth glued shut. It was liberating to discover I could surprise myself like that. Yes, there was going to be fallout and yes, it meant I'd shortly be looking for a new job, but whatever. Right now it meant I could walk along the harbour in the middle of a beautiful day with probably the cutest girl in Sydney. I kind of thought I didn't look that bad, either.

I didn't have to look away from reflective surfaces anymore as I passed them, and every window of every building became an opportunity to admire my hair, admire how the suit fit me, and admire how natural Bree and I looked together.

We looked like any other young couple, and both of us had these huge, stupid smiles plastered across our faces. Her curls bounced as we walked and the pastel sundress she was wearing blew against her front as we walked, suggesting what was underneath. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to touch her. It was exhilarating. I felt like a teenager again, except that I'd never actually felt like this even when I was one.

She caught me stealing glances at her while we were crossing the foot bridge, and flipped her hair for my benefit. There was no one on either side of us, so on impulse I pushed her up against the railing and kissed her soundly. She made this groan at the back of her throat, reaching up around my shoulders. It was really hot right up into the part where my back started to hurt.

“You're too short,” I told her, standing away and stretching out my spine. Secretly, I liked the contrast.

“Only if we're standing up,” she said, eyes twinkling. “Want to go somewhere where we don't have to...?”

I feigned innocence. “I'm pretty sure they'll let us sit down at the restaurant. No promises, though.”

She smoothed her dress. “They have booths there, you know.”

She was actually right. The restaurant did have padded booths along the back wall, and because we were really early for lunch, all of them were vacant. Bree led me right up to the one in the corner and then sat very demurely and patiently with her hands folded in her lap while the waiter recited the specials of the day.

“I'll be back shortly for your orders,” he said. “Would you like something to drink in the meantime?”

“Whatever coffee takes the longest to make,” Bree said with a completely straight face.

I was the one who actually laughed at that. “Two lattes will be fine.”

The waiter nodded and turned to leave. Bree watched him intently as he very slowly walked down the stairs and very slowly went into the kitchen. The second he was gone, she ignored the fact we were in a classy restaurant and slid across the long padded seat, grabbed my tie, and pulled me on top of her.

I'd never made out with someone in public before; I'd always been kind of grossed out by it, especially the sound of it. But the sounds we were making now were about a million miles away from grossing me out, and the sounds she was making as we were kissing... fuck. They were hot. All of it was hot, and lying half on top of her with our bodies together...? Yeah, we were both lucky my Y-fronts were full of 100% silicone and not anything else.

It actually took a considerable amount of willpower to convince myself to sit up and a bit away from her in time for the waiter to come back with our lattes. We probably looked extremely suspicious—Bree's cheeks were pink and I was breathing heavily—but if the waiter noticed, he didn't say anything.

“So,” he said, taking out his notepad with his pen poised. “What did you decide on?”

Bree and I looked at each other. Our menus were unopened.

We did eventually decide on what we wanted; 'eventually' was the right word because Bree needed to discuss the pros and cons of every fucking item before settling on ordering a bowl of gourmet ice cream. Fuck that, though, I was getting that million-dollar steak. I'd hardly eaten anything in three days. They seriously could have just led the whole cow over to the table and drizzled gravy on it and I would have been good to go.

When we were done with our food and I'd cashed in all my Mum’s term deposits and sold a kidney to pay the bill, we walked out on the harbour and looked around us.

“We could go shopping,” Bree suggested. “And like get you some funky new clothes to go with your awesome hair. That's not a waste of money.”

“It would involve taking off this great suit, though,” I pointed out, stroking the lapel. “And that’s not going to happen.”

Bree put her hands on her hips. “Okay, then. So, like, where do people go to have fun in the middle of the day, anyway?” She looked down towards the harbour, where there was a patch of grass and several people just relaxing in the sun. There was a couple making out there, too. She looked up at me with a cheeky grin.

The idea was pretty appealing, but I didn’t want to ruin Henry’s clothes. I shook my head. “Suit,” I reminded her. “Plus, I can do outdoor things when I'm pov, and they don't really say 'celebration', do they? I'm kind of feeling like saying, 'fuck it all' and spending a few hundred on whatever while I still can.” Something occurred to me. “Do you need a new phone?”

She made a face. “Not until Andrej stops taking stuff.”

I hummed. “Okay, so I can't buy you things. I don't really want to buy stuff for myself either, because I'll have to move soon and it will be just more things to put in boxes.”

She still had her nose scrunched up. “So if you're not buying, like, food, and you don't want to buy things, how can you spend money and celebrate?”

Even before she'd finished that sentence I knew the answer, mainly because Burov and my team had been there all night. “The casino,” I said. “Actually, The Star is really close to here, isn't it?” The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. They'd all been having fun there without me, hadn't they?

“What's with that grin?” Bree asked me, mirroring it.

“My team were there last night and I wasn't invited, and it was me who closed the contract today. Going there after rolling everyone is kind of poetic.”

“Maybe you’ll win a million dollars, too,” Bree added. “That would be poetry.”

I laughed and took her hand again. “In my dreams. Come on, let's go have some fun,” I told her, and we headed off to The Star.

I'd had been there a few times myself over the years to entertain clients, but I'd never arrived during the day. I expected inside to be different than it was at night, but I was mistaken. As soon as we set foot in the casino, there was something about the lighting and the sounds and colours that was frozen in time. As soon as we were away from the door, I'd never have been able to guess whether the sun or the moon was up outside. There were no clocks anywhere, either.

“I've never been in a casino before,” Bree told me, looking charmed by all the machines. “Is it usually this busy?”

I shrugged. “I'm not sure I'm here often enough to make 'usually' statements about it,” I told her. “What do you want to do first?”

Bree didn't know, so we just wandered around the floors arm-in-arm, looking at all the different things people were doing. We got stuck watching a very exciting game of Blackjack where the player was clearly every bit as knowledgeable and skilled as the dealer, but in the end, the house won. The man who'd been playing mopped his brow and laughed.

“How much did you lose?” someone asked him.

“This time? A grand,” he said, and then sat back down again. “What the hell, I brought two grand with me today. You game?” he asked the dealer, who smiled and set about shuffling the cards.

“Two thousand dollars,” Bree said later, when we were walking around looking at all the different flashing, musical pokies. “That's so much! I can't believe someone would just blow that.”

“Maybe he feels as lucky as I do,” I told her with a smile, hugging her against my side. “Everything’s so great that I don’t think I’d miss a couple of grand right now.”

Bree looked unimpressed. “That much would replace your laptop, though,” she said. “Or get you a new tablet. It could buy you a lot of things that are better than just handing it over to a casino.”

We’d reached the end of the aisle and I was looking around for what else we could do when my eyes rested on an advertisement on the wall. It was a helicopter flying over Sydney, and the text read, Scenic Helicopter Flights—Let The Star take you on a tour of Sydney you will never forget!

I couldn’t think of anything more perfect right now. I already felt on top of the world. “I know what’s better than handing money over for nothing,” I told her with a grin, nodding at the advertisement.

She twisted to read it, and then turned back to me with a huge smile. “Oh my god, are you serious?” she asked, bouncing up to me. “Like, yes!”

Bree had never been in a helicopter before—something she must have told me a total of ten times on the way up to the rooftop. I hadn’t, either, but I was getting a lot more enjoyment out of her excitement than I was out of my own.

We had to read a whole stack of documents about crashes and emergencies, and then we needed to fill out some indemnity paperwork before they’d let us even see the helicopter. That was all fine, except there was one question I got stuck on and left until last. Sex: it said, and the two options were M and F. I chewed the pen in thought.

Technically I was female, wasn’t I? It should be a no-brainer, and this was for medical purposes. However, with the way I was a dressed and acting, if I circled ‘F’, I was going to draw a lot of attention to myself. Even despite that I was tempted to circle ‘M’ anyway, and my pen hovered above the question while I wondered if I could be sued for falsifying documents if I did. I wished there was an 'other' option like on Deviant Art, or an 'it's complicated' option like on Facebook. Fuck, how was I supposed to answer this?

Bree saw my difficulty. Giving me a little smile, she pushed my hand against the paper and circled ‘M’ like it was no big deal. And it wasn’t, because the lady took our documents without even looking at them and then showed us out onto the rooftop.

The helicopter was in the middle of the helipad with its door slid open, waiting for us. I couldn't help but smile, I was a little bit scared and it just made it more exciting.

The pilot greeted us, gave us some safety information and then we climbed into the helicopter and belted ourselves in.

There was this moment when the engine powered up and chopper blades began to turn that my stomach was full of butterflies—Bree grabbed my hand and laughed nervously — and then the helicopter lifted into the air like it was weightless.

In no time at all we’d pulled way up above the harbour, and way up above all of the graffitied alleyways that I’d walked through hundreds of times on the way to work. I could see the Frost snowflake across the tops of the buildings, and pretty soon we were above that, too, and up into the sky.

It was a beautiful clear autumn day. The water in the harbour was glistening with reflected sunlight and out on it, yachts with sails of a million colours were flitting in and out around the cruise ships. The city was full of people as small as ants, chatting and walking and sitting in the rich green parks that were tucked in amongst the skyscrapers. Out on the horizon, the iconic arc of the Harbour Bridge and the many wings of the Opera House were in silhouette against the bright blue sky.

I’d been living here for four years, and every day I looked out on that city and those landmarks. But looking at it now, I felt like I’d never seen any of it before. It felt all new. This is where I live, I thought. This is my city. And it’s beautiful.

As if echoing my thoughts, Bree leant towards me and shouted over the sound of the engine, “This is incredible!”

You’re incredible, was my first thought as I smiled at her. I felt fantastic already, but I was so glad Bree had come to wait for me; I didn’t think I would have done this by myself. Having her here with me was like the cherry on top of the perfect day, and even though she was about as far away from perfect as someone could be, she still was perfect. She was perfect, and she was as beautiful as the shining cityscape behind her.