A week passed.

On a Monday morning, Sarah received a call from HR to collect her belongings and finalize the formal procedure at work. She tidied herself and did her best not to look too miserable. Her mom always said that the world should always see your smiley face. As nicely as they put it, this was more like 'return all the company's property, grab your things, and get the hell out of here'.

It did not take her too long since she only had a laptop and a handful of documents. She had already transferred all the company's documents to a flash drive and handed in each one of them. She did not even get to keep one as a future reference. They even had the audacity to ask her to hand in her personal project that she was working on!

Guess what? They wanted her to finish the incomplete project because they couldn't find anyone else to do it better than her. Why were they firing her then? Anyway, she was done in an hour and left the HR's office for her former office to get her things.

"Hey Sarah, I heard you got back at Manager Chen." Mandy, her friend at work, announced as soon as Sarah walked in.

"No, that was an accident," Sarah said without bothering to give further explanation.

"Don't be so modest," Mandy said excitedly. "Guess what, he's been locking himself in his office these few days. He hasn't yelled at us in a while." This successfully attracted the attention of all six employees in the office.

"Oh, I heard he ordered people to search his house and smash all hidden cameras. Tell us, what happened?" Someone joined in, and the rest of the employees gathered at Sarah's desk. They couldn't miss out on this juicy gossip.

"And he banned everyone from taking pictures whenever he is in the company."

"I didn't know you could hold a grudge for that long," someone sneered and shook her head. "He only posted your sleepy face with drool on a stupid company forum, and you got back at him in front of all the important people."

"Sarah, you are my queen. All the other managers don't dare go overboard with us anymore." Mandy threw her hands in the air, cheering, "Yay! Now we don't have to walk on eggshells all day."

"If my unemployment makes people this happy, then I guess it is worth it." Sarah sighed as she resigned to her fate. They wouldn't understand it anyway, even if she explained it for the whole day.

"What?" they exclaimed, their expressions changing immediately. "They told us that you were suspended." Most of them revealed worried expressions.

Sarah was not foolish. It was well known that everyone was working to feed themselves, and no one would offend someone else without a reason. She knew that the people in the company were not all so sensitive, so how would they know what had happened?

She arranged the few documents on her desk into a neat stack and placed them in a box. Most of the important ones went into her small, stylish backpack. She did not speak for a long time, and they all got anxious. She picked up the last of her items as she composed herself and raised her head to meet those anxious gazes. "They lied."

Sarah leaned on her desk and crossed her arms as she watched the colorful expressions on their faces. Their thoughts remained hidden behind the surface as they said a few words of sympathy. Even though they concealed it very well, she still caught a trace of glee in their carefully crafted words of sympathy.

Sarah smirked. How could she not understand their way of thinking? Her exit meant one competitor less, and a higher chance of getting a promotion. Who wouldn't want a chance to earn a little more in this material-based world? If blood brothers could betray and kill each other for money, who would care for a totally unrelated person?

"Are they going to fire us too?" someone asked in a panicky voice as the rest scampered to their working stations.

"No, no, I have to cut ties with Sarah. I can't afford to be fired." Mandy ran to her workstation and returned with every gift that Sarah had once gifted her. She placed them on Sarah's desk and said, "Take this with you; they might think we are close and fire me too."

Sarah picked up the grey coffee mug and stroked it with her thumb. She had given this mug to Mandy a year ago when they joined the company. Like any other new employee, the old employees were not so friendly to them. She had faced hard times with Mandy, and they made a promise to take care of each other. She had given her this mug on the same day they made that promise.

She looked at the mug one last time before tossing it into a trash can under her desk. There are no real friends in the workplace; only colleagues. Mandy did not hesitate to throw her under the bus at the first sign of trouble. She smiled bitterly at her discovery as she picked up her box and left the office.

She walked out with her head held high, refusing to bow down to her failures. As she stepped out of the gate, she turned around to look at the building one last time. She would never want to set foot in this company again.

She took a deep breath and headed to the bus stop. And then her steps came to an abrupt halt. In the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a familiar figure in a coffee shop on the other side of the road. Clara and the head of the IT department were having coffee in the nearby coffee shop. She frowned, and then it all started to make sense.

The glitch, the proposal disappearing, and the inexplicable firing had something to do with her. Brandon's betrayal was also her doing. She felt her anger rising, and several emotions whirled up in her. She walked straight ahead, concealing the chill in her eyes. She headed to the bus stop with the box in her hands.

As she headed to the bus stop, she spotted a young girl, about six or seven years old, and her father walking by the bakery nearby.

"Daddy, I want that for my birthday." The little girl pointed at a pink ragdoll in the adjacent toy shop.

Her father smiled and nodded. They walked into the shop, and that piqued Sarah's interest. She followed them into the shop, walking a few steps behind them but close enough to hear the conversation. Even though she did not know why she had followed them, something inside her wanted to tag along.

The little girl's dad picked an 'Elsa and Anna' poster and hid it behind his back. "Haven't you been watching Frozen recently?" He took it out and showed it to her. "Ta-da! See what I got. Do you like it?"

The little girl's eyes brightened as she held the poster. "Yes, Daddy, I like it very much. We will hang this on my bedroom wall. They will watch over me every night."

"As long as you like it," he said, giving her a high-five.

"Daddy, I want that Barbie doll." She said as she pointed at a cute Barbie ragdoll.

Barbie ragdoll...

Sarah paused. Her smile froze in place as the doll triggered a memory she did not want to remember. She ran outside the toy shop, trying hard to suppress her emotions. Her eyes stung, and she forcefully blinked away the tears.

Daddy.

Sarah hated that word.

She jumped into the first bus that stopped and sat by the window. Trees with colorful flowers whizzed by as the bus drove faster. She would have seen sunlight arrows through the branches of the trees had she paid attention, but her mind was engrossed in a memory.

Childhood memories flooded her mind.

It was her seventh birthday that day. She had stood by the door, waiting for her father to show up for her birthday. She held a pink Barbie ragdoll, the one her father had bought for her on her fourth birthday, as she waited for him at the door. Her eyes glimmered with hope at first, and she was so excited to see her father again. She couldn't wait to show him how tall she'd become. Did he grow tall, too? Did he miss her as much as she did?

Sarah wanted her father to place that tiara on her head so that she could live like a princess. That's what all her friends' fathers would do on their birthdays. She wanted him to cut the cake and play with her as they had done on her fourth birthday. Minutes had turned into hours. Her little legs grew tired and weary, but she refused to give up.

Sarah sat cross-legged on the door and kept on waiting despite her exhaustion. The light in her eyes dimmed a little as the sun disappeared on the horizon. The excitement in her heart had died down.

The sky had turned dark, and Glen, her two-year-old brother, had gone to sleep. Her mother came to persuade her to go inside. Her heart felt unsettled when she considered the possibility that none of the things she had planned would take place.

"Mommy, did daddy forget my birthday again?" she asked, her innocent eyes breaking her mom's heart.

"No, darling," her mom had said, patting her tiny shoulder, "perhaps he's busy with something."

"You said that last year, too." She knew her mom was lying. She straightened her back and asked the question that had been in her mind the whole time. "Mommy, does Daddy hate us now? He hasn't come back in a long time."

Her mother opened her mouth to speak, but Sarah's innocent eyes met hers. "Mommy, tell me the truth," she'd said in a stern voice, a rare voice for a seven-year-old. That had left her mother at a loss for what to say. She swallowed another lie she was about to make up.

Her mother blinked away the tears that had pooled in her eyes. She knelt beside Sarah, cupped her face, and tried to break the news to her daughter while imparting the least possible damage. She had caressed Sarah's cheek with her thumb as she smiled. "Darling, your father has a new family now. You should probably stop waiting for him."

Sarah stared at her mom without blinking. Her young brain could not process what her mother had said fast enough. "So, I don't have a dad anymore?"

This was a question her mother dreaded. It shattered her already broken heart into tiny pieces, but she smiled through the pain. She wiped away a stray tear from her cheek. "Who said you don't have a dad anymore? From today onwards, I will be both your mommy and daddy."

"Okay," she nodded.

Sarah was surprisingly calmer than her mother had expected, but only she knew how bad that was. Mothers know their daughters very well, because the calmer she was, the more damage she had received. Unbearable pain shot through her heart as tears trickled down her mother's cheeks without her noticing. "Mommy, why are you crying?"

Her mother snapped out of her trance, sniffled, and wiped her face quickly. "No, no, mommy is not crying. My eyes are sweating." She got up, took a deep breath, and urged her inside. "Come, the three of us will celebrate your birthday."

Sarah let go of her favorite ragdoll and watched it emotionlessly as it fell on the floor. She stepped on it as she walked towards the table. Her mother followed her without a word.

She ate her chocolate-flavored cake in silence and then walked into her mother's bedroom. She watched her little brother's face as he slept and smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

Sarah sat by the bed and kissed his small face. She stared into the distance and said softly, "Glen, today is a strange day. The chocolate cake did not taste sweet at all. It is my birthday, but it is also the day when Daddy died in my heart." She smiled and continued talking to the sleeping child, "Don't be sad, mommy said she will be our new daddy."

She was silent for a long time and said again, "When you grow up, don't ever ask Mom about Daddy, okay?" She wiped away her tears. "If you do, her eyes will start sweating, and I don't like it." She sniffled and her heartbreaking voice sounded again, "All you need to know is that daddy is dead."

Sarah kissed her brother goodnight and walked back to her room on her own. She turned off the lights and got into her bed. This was the first time she had ever gone to bed alone. She was always scared to be in a dark room alone, and her mother would accompany her until she fell asleep before turning off the lights.