Each second that ticks by is a death sentence.

The hands of the six different clocks in the waiting room of Wong & Winston PR move torturously slowly, yet with panic-inducing speed. Still, I fix my eyes on them, knowing that if I look away from this one-sided staring contest, I'll end up watching the TV. And the TV is the source of all my problems.

Across from me, another dejected employee under Jennifer Wong's employ checks their phone before shooting me a glance that lingers too long for my liking. Up until now, I've been yet another lowly employee. Now? Well, I'm almost famous now. And it's all thanks to my new worst enemy: televised talent shows.

The flatscreen on the wall plays on mute, set to the E! News channel. I spy my ex-boyfriend's dark hair and blue electric guitar, the image so familiar to me now that it might as well be imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. Especially after last night, when I watched the clip of his America's Got Talent performance so many times that I can recite all the words he sings and speaks. Poppy, my roommate and best friend, called me a narcissist for that. Since he was talking, and singing, about me.

I touch the Pandora charm bracelet on my wrist, decorated with a music note charm that Ryder gave me. It's been six months. I should throw it away, like every other trace of him.

Of course, when his face is plastered on every billboard, TV screen, and social media post, as well as the family photos of my best friend, that's next to impossible.

"Miss Holland." Andrew Ekeocha, Jennifer Wong's assistant, clears his throat and gestures for me to enter her office.

I walk through the opened door, ready to brave the fires of hell if it means my job isn't on the line.

Of course, nothing is going my way.

"Mis Holland, please take a seat." Jennifer Wong doesn't look up from her computer screen behind her glass desk. "I'm sure you know why you're here."

My heart throbs in my chest and I suck in a deep breath as I sit on the edge of the chair. Unpracticed, unscripted words fall from my lips, sure to be the death of me. "Ms. Wong, please. I've been working here for three years. You can't just fire me for the crime of dating the wrong guy!"

I clutch my laptop bag to my chest, fingers digging into the white leather. Normally, I would never speak to my boss this way. But today is far from normal.

"Miss Holland, I already told you yesterday that this meeting isn't about your personal life." Her French manicured nails fly across her keyboard. "The end of this project happened to coincide with Ryder Black's little... incident. And one project manager specifically requested that you be removed, because he felt that you were a distraction."

"How am I a distraction?" I glance down at my beige pantsuit, as if to say, look at this, I'm the least distracting person ever. Usually, I wouldn't touch beige with a ten-foot pole, but I felt like I might need to be invisible after all the drama that has gone down in the past forty-eight hours.

Moving her crocodile-skin Birkin to the other side of her desk, Jennifer sighs. "Skye, I know you've done good work for us these past few years, even when you were an intern and especially as my assistant."

I fetched coffee, filed papers, and managed schedules for a year. I was only promoted to publicist ten months ago and now my job is being taken away from me. I refuse to lose my career just because of a song that my ex wrote about me and sang on live television. Nope. Not happening.

"But you're hardly publicist material now. You've become a quasi-celebrity, in case you haven't noticed." She slides her iPhone across the desk to me: on Twitter, #WhoBrokeRydersHeart is trending, with my name in grey letters under it. Ten thousand tweets have been written about it in the last two hours. About me.

I play my last card. "Let me work with Ryder."

"Excuse me?" Jennifer's eyebrows shoot up, disappearing into her blunt bangs. "I can't do that."

"Why not? I know that you have contacts at Volume. If the project manager doesn't want me to work on the Moore account, that's fine. I can go there and I won't be a 'distraction.'" I make air quotes, bargaining with my last ounce of hope. "But I need to pay rent and I know Ryder better than anyone. I will do the best work. I will be so professional—"

"Skye," Jennifer says, raising a finger in the air before resuming her rapid-fire typing.

I take the hint and shut up. Staring at the scuffed toes of my faux-suede pumps, I fiddle with the music note bracelet from Ryder and feel like a teenager being sent to the principal's office. Finally, she rests her hands on the desk, her eyes meeting mine.

"I just made some arrangements with the board members at Volume," she says. "They'll let you work there on the Ryder Black account, but on one condition."

"What is it?" I'll do anything.

"If this album doesn't sell, you're fired from Ryder's PR team. Permanently," she says, not a trace of sympathy in her brown eyes.

I'll take it. Even skulking back to my family in six months, if this album doesn't work out, couldn't be worse than being fired. Working with my ex would be a dream come true compared to being at the pity of the Hollands. "Define sell."

"It needs to hit a hundred thousand sales in the first week," she says.

I let out a low whistle before I can stop myself. Can Ryder even sell that many records? Or am I putting all my eggs in the handbasket to hell? "I'll do it."

Jennifer stands from her desk, her height matching mine in her four-inch heels that bring her up to a full five-foot-eight. "Don't disappoint me, Skye."

"I won't, Ms. Wong." I shake her hand, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I promise."

"I hope you don't."

With that, I'm dismissed to go join my personal circle of hell.

#

@RyderBlackFanOfficial: OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE RYDER BLACK WON #AGT #RyderBlack #WhoBrokeRydersHeart

@TTang: @RyderBlackFanOfficial yeah, and he ended it by performing a diss track about his ex #WhoBrokeRydersHeart

@ZR789: #WhoBrokeRydersHeart is trending? Don't you guys have anything better to talk about?

@AlexR: @ZR789 Come on. If you really didn't care you wouldn't be Tweeting about it...

@FHasan: #WhoBrokeRydersHeart is this her?? @SkyeHolland1

@TTang: @FHasan: WTH she's related to famous people??? Isabelle Holland is her sister!!