Page 9 of Glitter

Sure, he was shorter than me. Sure, he didn’t have the same immaculate dress sense I had. But there wassomethingabout him, something I couldn’t define, that intrigued me.

I wanted him.

But first I’d need to find him.

“So…” Amy said musically, sticking her head around the desk dividers to stare at me curiously before looking at my monitors. “What are you doin’?”

I minimized my tabs, knowing it was far too late. She’d already seen too much. “Nothing.”

She raised a singular, perfectly shaped eyebrow and stared at me. “Uh huh.”

“What?”

There was a long enough pause that made my insides curdle. “I don’t believe you,” she sang.

“I swear to God, you’re using me for practice,” I muttered before turning to face her fully. “Your evil mom-guilting-powers won’t work on me! Be gone, foul fiend, lest I get the holy water out!”

She snorted and kindly changed the subject. “Meant to tell you earlier how much I love the new color.” She motioned at my hair. “The chunky jade jewelry sets it off well.”

I preened, my fingers absently fidgeting with the necklace she was referring to. “Thank you. I’d actually forgotten I had this until last night.”

“That honestly doesn’t surprise me in the least,” she said. “You’ve been buying stuff like that for how long now?”

I felt my smile slip from my face. “Uh… It’d be coming up to eleven years now.” Letting go of my necklace, I dropped my eyes to the desktop, allowing the memory of my first purchase to wash through me.

I’d just started college and was living in the dorms when I’d had a massive argument with my father on the phone and had gone for a walk to cool down. I’d come across a small second-hand store that catered to low-income workers and found myself captivated by the modest collection of jewelry in the glass cabinet under the single register. The memory of that day, and the silver earrings and jade necklace I’d purchased, were all etched in my mind as a defining moment—my first proper step into adulthood and the choices I could make in determining who I was as an individual. Whether I’d bought that necklace in direct defiance of my father or not was something I still struggled with determining, even now, over a decade later.

Amy didn’t know that I’d sourced all my jewelry from second-hand stores. Or the clothing I took so much pride in. Almost everything I owned was used because I couldn’t afford to buy anything new. The semi-regular appointments where I got my hair color updated were one of only two luxuries I allowedmyself. Seeing the splash of color in the mirror every morning had always given me a boost that would linger for the rest of the day. That was something I wasn’t willing to give up, even if it meant I needed to pull back my spending on other things.

Which was one more reason getting my lunch stolen was so infuriating. Other people could afford to buy their lunches regularly. I couldn’t. The vast majority of my wages were going directly to rent, food, and utilities. Even the skincare products I prided myself on using every day were bought wholesale, on extreme markdown, or were simply samples I could pick up at different stores. If I wasn’t on the poverty line, I was dancing on the tightrope above it. One wrong step, and everything would come crashing down.

My dwindling nights out with friends were the only other thing that kept me sane. Not one of them knew, and that was just the way I wanted it.

I’d borne witness to too many friendships destroyed over class differences. I refused to lose my richer friends just because of money or how little I had of it.

Glancing at the monitor, my fingers twitched to get back to my search for Henry. I thought I was being subtle, but obviously not enough.

“Ooh, I know that look,” Amy said, rolling her chair around the desks to bump up against mine. “You’re researching something. Come on, tell me. What is it?”

“It’s work.” I arched an eyebrow at her. “We’reatwork. Why wouldn’t it be work?” I mentally grimaced at the overuse of the wordwork.

She smirked. Yup, I’d been busted. “I know it’s not work related, because you wouldn’t be trying to hide it from me.” She used her chair to bounce mine out of the way, even though I scrambled at the edges of my desk to stop myself from moving.

I flailed, trying to stop her from gaining control of my mouse. “What do you—It’s not—”

She shouldered me out of the way, making me yelp as my chair rolled away from my desk, working quickly to bring up my tabs. “Ah… What do we have here? Who’sHenry?”

Wiping my hands down my face, I groaned in defeat. “That’s the thing. I don’tknow.”

Amy leaned forward to squint at the screen. “Why are you looking for a Henry in the internal Eckersley’s staff directory?”

I drew a slow breath in. Would it really be bad to tell her what happened? I huffed the breath out, resigned to my fate. “I had a run in on Friday night with he-who-shall-not-be-named, and someone named Henry was there.”

Fury filled her face. “What did the fucker do this time? And he hadhelp?!”

My eyes widened as I realized I’d inadvertently thrown Henry under a bus. “No! It’s not like that! Hold on. Let me explain. Jesus.”

Amy’s face relaxed minutely, but the heavy frown remained. She crossed her arms and tapped her index finger repetitively against her arm.

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