Chapter 1

Luck was never on my side.

I used to think bad days were temporary, that if you held on long enough, something good would come around. But my life has been one long string of disappointments, each worse than the last, until I stopped waiting for miracles altogether.

I was born into an ordinary family—nothing rich, nothing glamorous, just simple and steady. My father worked at a factory; my mother stitched clothes at home. My older brother, David, was the sunshine of our house. He had this ridiculous laugh that filled the rooms, the kind of laugh that made you forget your worries. For a while, life was small but good.

Then the cracks appeared.

My father lost his job when the factory shut down. He tried, God knows he tried, but no one wanted a man in his fifties with no degree and tired hands. The shame of it hollowed him out. I remember finding him sitting at the table late at night, staring at a stack of unpaid bills like they were monsters he couldn’t slay.

And then… the accident. One rainy evening, David never came home. A car, a drunk driver, flashing lights, and then silence. My brother—my anchor—was gone. I can still hear the knock on the door that changed everything. I can still see my mother collapse to the ground, wailing his name.

She never recovered.

She lingered for a year, walking through the house like a ghost, her eyes vacant, her voice barely a whisper. And then one morning, she simply didn’t wake up. Her heart gave out—though I think it was broken long before that.

That left me and my father. But grief destroyed him too, just more slowly. He drank to forget, worked odd jobs when he could, and shut me out completely. By the time he passed—another quiet loss I had no strength to cry over—I was already numb.

I told myself work would save me. I found a job at a small publishing firm. Books became my escape; editing manuscripts was the only thing that kept me tethered. But even that was temporary. Downsizing, layoffs, and suddenly I was out on the street again, reduced to scouring job boards that never seemed to have space for me.

Now, I live in a crumbling apartment that smells of damp plaster and stale air. The wallpaper peels in strips, and the heater coughs more than it works. My days blur together—wake up, stare at the ceiling, force myself to eat something tasteless, scroll through rejection emails, fall back into bed. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even living, or if I’ve just become another piece of furniture in this forgotten place.

Friends? I don’t have any left. People drift away when your sadness lingers too long. At first, they called, they visited, but eventually the pity dried up. Now, the only sound in my apartment is the ticking of an old clock, a reminder that time moves on, even when I don’t.

I try not to think about the future, because what future do I have? I have no family, no career, no love. Just a shadow of a woman staring at cracked walls and whispering her brother’s name into the dark when the silence grows too loud.

Some nights, I stand by the window, looking down at the street. The world moves on—couples laughing, children tugging their parents’ hands, strangers hurrying home. I wonder if they know how lucky they are to belong somewhere, to someone.

And me? I am the opposite of luck. Every time I touch something good, it slips away. Every time I love, it vanishes.

I’ve started to believe I was born cursed.

I am nothing but despair wrapped in human skin.

🖤

I was good at what I did. That was the cruelest part of it all.

Editing wasn’t just a job to me—it was my craft. I had a sharp eye for detail, a love for words, and a patience most people didn’t have. I could take a messy draft and polish it until it gleamed. At the publishing firm, I had a reputation for precision. Authors trusted me. Managers praised me. For the first time in my life, I had felt useful. Needed.

Until the layoffs came.

“Company restructuring,” they said. A polite phrase that meant we don’t need you anymore.

Now, I sat in front of my flickering laptop day after day, scrolling through job listings until the lines blurred together. Editor wanted. Proofreader needed. Copy specialist. They were everywhere, yet each door I knocked on stayed closed.

I rewrote my résumé ten different times, tailored it to each company. I sent out applications at midnight, at dawn, sometimes both, as if timing would somehow change my luck. Weeks passed. Silence. Then the rejection letters began to arrive, sharp and merciless.

Thank you for your interest, but we’ve moved forward with another candidate.
We regret to inform you…
Unfortunately, at this time…

Each one felt like a nail hammered into my coffin.

I went to interviews, too. I dressed in my best clothes, the ones that didn’t look too worn. I straightened my back, forced a smile, answered every question with confidence. I spoke about my experience, the books I had helped shape, the authors who thanked me personally for making their words shine.

But I could always see it in their eyes. The moment they glanced at my résumé, then at me, their interest flickered and died. Sometimes they said I was “overqualified,” which was just a polite way of saying I wasn’t what they wanted. Other times, they nodded, took notes, and then sent me another rejection email two days later.

One interviewer even told me, “You’re excellent, but we’re looking for someone… younger. Fresher.”

As if experience was a flaw.

I walked home that day in the rain, my shoes soaked through, my chest hollow. I wanted to scream at the sky. What else do I have to give?

At night, I stared at my bookshelf. Dozens of novels lined the crooked wood, some with my careful editing etched into their pages. My fingerprints were everywhere in them—little changes that made characters sharper, dialogue tighter, emotions stronger. They were proof that I was good enough. That I mattered.

But publishing houses didn’t see that. To them, I was just another résumé in a pile, another face in a waiting room. Invisible. Replaceable.

The cruelest truth? I wasn’t rejected because I lacked talent. I was rejected because luck had never been mine. The right place, the right time—those doors never opened for me.

I was a good editor. I knew it. And yet, no one wanted me.

That night, I shut my laptop and pressed my forehead against the desk. My eyes burned, but the tears refused to fall.

Why does the world keep telling me I don’t belong?

The silence gave no answer. Only the ticking of the clock, mocking me as it carried on, while I sat still—unwanted, unseen, unheard.