Roxana

Don't shit where you eat.

Or so they say. It's sane advice, but when I hear Christian's voice, my heart skips a beat.

I cannot help it; I adore my new boss. Well, relatively new, because I have been working here for two years already. It's a nice place to work. Bern is a nice city, quite picturesque, and the job in itself is challenging and brings good money.

God knows I need money, as much and as fast as possible, because the people my dad owes cash to are not merciful creditors.

Everything began five years ago when my mother died. It was brutal, a car crash on my twentieth birthday. That was the moment I felt God either did not exist or he really hated me. My mother was hurrying home from work so we could celebrate together. I wish she wouldn't have hurried.

My parents were one of the rare couples their age that I knew to really have loved each other even after twenty-something years of marriage.

It is easy to understand how devasted my father was after losing the love of his life, his partner, and his best friend. He started drinking. Yes, what a cliché. Then he started gambling with his drinking friends, leaving me and grandma to take care of my ten years younger brother Daniel.

It was the day of my graduation when I found out about his debt.

I hold a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the Technical University of Bucharest, like my mom. My dad was going to come to my graduation ceremony from Moldova, our home country. It is a solid eleven hours drive but he promised he would be there together with Dani and Granny. Despite all the drinking and other mishaps he was never cruel to us and I believed him in good faith when he said he would be there, he just never made it.

I was beyond disappointed and mad with worry. Nobody picked up the phone when calling, so skipping the graduation party, I took the first bus to Chișinău and found my father unconscious on the floor of our living room. Dani had been brought to our grandma's place previously. Thank God they were not there when all happened.

He had been beaten bloody by the men of Ivan Ivanovici, also called The White Russian. Seemingly he owed Ivan a hundred thousand euros. A fucking hundred thousand. I did not even know how so much money looked. I never even held a thousand euros in my hands.

My dad is a construction worker. He makes a maximum of eight hundred euros a month. I remember him saying, smiling, that he is glad I inherited my mom's brains. Not that Ivan cares about any of it.

Ivan is above all a businessman. He didn't want to kill him because he did want his money back eventually.

When we were at the hospital, looking teary-eyed at our bruised and beaten dad, he paid us a visit to let us know about his mercy. Mercy meant, that we had three years to gather the money and could make monthly payments. Honesty, that was quite nice of a gangster, given the fact that most didn't give such chances but a cold bullet to the back of your head.

So it came that in three days I applied to all the jobs I could find and was lucky enough to land one in Switzerland. Yes, that Switzerland, far away, mountain country, land of clocks, banks, and chocolate.

Now thinking about it, I certainly would not have had the courage to apply for a job in other countries if I had not been pressured to gain money quickly.

My German was inexistent, the hours were criminal, but the pay was in Swiss Francs and I didn't have the luxury of a choice.

I work on-site. Yes me, meager, one meter sixty tall, fifty-five kilos heavy, blond girl who used to love dancing and painting her nails. The thing is, jobs on site are generally paid well because they are hard and most people are not keen on doing them.

Yes, it was hell. The first year I felt like crying every evening and wanted to go home so badly. Then I remembered what was waiting for me back home and let the thought go.

"Roxane," I hear Christian calling again.

My name is actually Roxana but I have him in such high regard I would not ever correct him. What's in a name anyway, as Shakespeare said.

Things went decently, taking into account the shittyness of the situation. I was living on one-third of the money I made and sending the rest to Moldova to my dad to pay Ivan. Ivan was happy because I was a small but steady cash cow.

Two years ago I gathered the courage to change jobs and so I met my current bosses, Walter and Christian. Walter is fifty, blond and tall, and as serious and professional as they get; a cliché Swiss. Christian is the full opposite: fifteen years younger, dynamic, wild, talented, and a born charmer.

Surely, he charmed my very affection-starved heart. He is not a tall man but very handsome and athletic. It's no wonder he managed to marry an actual model. Yup, Christian is married, has two kids, and has no feelings for me whatsoever, but he is funny and nice and his eyes are such a beautiful shade of green.

I would never make a move on him. Ever. I have too much respect for him and his family to do that, but it is so nice to admire him from a distance, have a short chat while drinking coffee together in the kitchen, or talk about the exciting projects he won for the company. It just makes me feel less lonely.

"What's up with you today, Rox? Your mood seems great. Take a seat," says Christian, looking at me and gesturing me to sit by his side at the table in our lunchroom. He always takes time to talk to all employees once in a while. That is really sweet.

Christian is speaking to me in English, which I find very nice. Walter doesn't. He insists I have to practice my German. Even if I learned decent German in the three years in this country, it is never as comfortable as English.

"Nothing to complain about," I say, smiling maybe a bit too bright.

That is actually a lie. I am happy because I have only six months left before becoming officially debt-free, but the fact that my dad owes money to obscure guys isn't something I wanted him or anybody in the office to know.

"I am trying to acquire a new project. It's difficult but very well paid, down in Sicily," he says, sipping his coffee.

His lips brush sensually the edge of the cup and my heart skips another beat.

"You are going to nail it. I am certain. You always get everything you want, don't you?" I say and mean it.

Christian has incredibly good business sense. He is extremely charming and can read the audience well. The few times I have seen him in action with clients I was impressed by how he could get, men and women alike, to eat out of the palm of his hand.

"Who will be the lucky one to travel to sunny Italy and skip the Swiss winter?" I say, gracing him with the brightest smile.

"Probably Peter. It needs to be our best work so we need our best man. That is if we get lucky and get the project. In two days I will have a business dinner with the owner. So if Peter goes to Italy, somebody needs to take care of his projects here and by somebody I mean you."

I laugh. I did see this one coming. Peter is my mentor. He took me under his wing from the first day when I started working in this firm. By far the best man in the company when it comes to site work and probably one of the best in Switzerland, he is the go-to choice.

At first, people were reluctant to interact with me, the girl with the strange accent, but Peter didn't care. Now I am his official right hand and proud.

My grin becomes even wider. That means more responsibility. More responsibility means more money and more money means I might be debt-free even earlier. My imagination goes wild with all the things I will do with the money: buy Dani a violin, take my dad to rehab, and visit mom's and Granny's graves with a lot of flowers.

"I am so looking forward to it," I say.

"Me too," he answers winking and disappearing into his office. There goes my portion of endorphins for the day, but it's okay because I have a lot of shit to do.

My workdays are usually long. They start at six in the morning on site and finish at seven or eight in the afternoon when I finally drag my tired body home. It also happens to have to pull all-nighters sometimes, but hey that's part of the job, and I understand how privileged I am to work here.

The hours fly by and at half-past seven I once again drag myself home.

What is home? Home is where Kary is. Kary is short for Karyme. She is my best friend and flatmate and her story is even more adventurous than mine so far. She was born into a rich family in the Emirates. We are talking billions in oil, heavy rich.

The money of her family gave her the privilege to study in England. It also allowed her to understand herself and what she wanted and that was freedom... and girls.

So when the day of her graduation came, she decided to take control of her life. It went off like a bomb. She came out to her close family, just after the ceremony. They didn't react well. She knew that would happen; she calculated it. It ended with them leaving infuriated, disowning her and forbidding her to ever talk to them or set foot in her home country ever again.

Kary is one of the strongest women I know. She went from billion heiress to dirt poor in seconds with a smile on her face, which was hiding the tears that the rejection of her family caused her.

Fast forward a few years, she is working as a journalist in Switzerland and sharing a small flat with my miserable self.

It happened that I was desperately searching for a place to stay because I was starting work the next day and had no penny on my name after arriving in Bern. The moment she saw me she recognized the look of desperation on my face and chose me, the least suitable candidate, from a long list of potential flatmates. I think I had never felt that much gratitude towards a human being ever before.

We also clicked instantly. Kary is very sassy, smart, and brutally honest. I love that about her. She said she lived most of her life in a lie so she does not want any lies in what is left of it.

"Kary, I am home!" I scream.

"Bitch, it took you forever. Seriously, your boss needs to pay you the extra hours."

"Come on, we already had this conversation several times. They pay me as much as they can afford, I am grateful to have a job in the first place and nobody gets extra hours paid."

"As far as you know... And I bet you never asked around," she says raising an eyebrow circumspectly.

She got me here, but she does not have to know that.

"Let it go, I am starving."

"Lucky you, I am a fabulous flatmate and made chili. Have a seat and a beer," she says smiling, revealing her perfect, white teeth and brushing thick, black curls behind her ear.

"You are," I say genuinely grateful, and take a seat.

I don't manage to have three bites before my phone is beeping.

"No. You are not going to look at that now. Now we are eating," she states, looking me in the eyes.

"It might be from work."

"Precisely that's why. I warn you," she says taking my phone away.

I wrestle her for a few minutes. She has no chance. Site work increased my strength and muscle mass a lot and she is a precious princess in everything but title.

When I finally grab the phone I take a look at the screen and freeze.

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The first chapter usually gets way more views than the rest of the book. It makes total sense, but I would really like to know why people STOP reading. Please, please when you stop, drop a short note and tell me why. You can be brutally honest. Thank you!

I am currently trying to draw little comic scenes for my books. Here is the first. For the chapters that don't have an image yet, you can suggest a scene that you would like to see illustrated.