It is such a relief when I set foot in my apartment to find nothing askew. I am pulled into its comfort and feel myself wind down. I prance through mindlessly passing my fingers over the furniture unsure if this is real or just a joke I am being played on by whoever governs heaven.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the light blinking from my home phone. I walk over and pick it up.

"Come to the studio immediately when you get this." It clicks off. Donald must have needed me a lot to leave such a hurried voicemail.

I propel myself towards my room opting to take a bath before I can head out. I let the shower run until the water is warm enough, then strip and step in. The first minutes are spent standing under the splay of the shower, thinking.

This shouldn't have happened. Both the affair with Calix, and being alive right now. What am I supposed to do now?

I reach the office when I have regained some of my calm demeanor. The inside is a mess, with furniture overturned, papers scattered everywhere, broken chairs; it is dreadful. I forge a path across the lobby by skipping onto chairs, between upturned coffee tables until I finally make it to the elevator and go up.

"Thank God you're here." Donald says when I exit the lift. He was waiting for me this whole time. "Our headquarters was mobbed last night in this end of the world purge." His use of the word purge astounds me.

"What really happened?"

"You don't know?" He asks incredulously. "What were you doing last night?" He asks as a joke, but my face heats up.

He continues without noticing my unease. "It might have been a hoax or a mad theory but whatever Loretta was, wasn't obviously the end of the world." He answers. "The universe wouldn't also, couldn't, let me lose you," He adds perversely.

I look at him with abhorrence. He just smiles and walks off with a peculiar bounce in his step. I make my way to the studio and get my makeup done for the primetime news. Simultaneously, I peruse through the available articles of news. The headline says, ''Three centimeters of Hoax?" Three centimeters?

"Despite the prevalence of the asteroid, Loretta 1009,

as it was seen earlier yesterday coming fast paced towards the Earth,

its particles completely disintegrated as it entered the earth's atmosphere.

Just fragments of what had been perceived as the end for humanity,

landed on the ground measuring approximately three centimeters each."

A bitter laugh escapes my lips, it's so humorously anticlimactic how after having the best night of my life, which was supposed to be the last one as well, I had to wake up to face the ruins of my life. Just three centimeters worth of celestial debris to jumble my orderly, mapped out and uncomplicated life. Just stellar!

"Tara, you're on in five minutes." Jack says as his chair zooms past me, testing the cameras. I get up from the chair and ascend onto the podium.

It's not until midway through the show that my career also hurtles down the drain like all the other fragments of my life.

Phones ding across the studio. Out of the corner of my eye, I see people pointing at me. What is going on?

The red light from the camera goes off. I look at Jack, discombobulated. He looks back at me with an expression of pity. "Why did we stop?" I ask him, still standing on the podium.

"I think you should see Donald." He doesn't divulge any information. I descend the podium and take the right hallway towards his office. Poeple turn to me with expressions of disgust; just yesterday they were hugging me like there was no tomorrow. I guess some people never change.

I knock on the door and wait for Donald to let me in.

"Come in." His gruff, almost choked voice replies. I enter. He stares at me as I walk the distance from the door to the front of his desk. His gaze is pervasively intense as it usually is, with anger is mixed in.

"Can you explain the meaning of this?" He says after I sit down. He turns his computer around with the screen portraying a scene, too fresh and familiar, caught on video.

I watch with horror, as the events of this morning play on his monitor. Not that many people have seen it, but even those are too many.

"Where did this come from?" My throat constricts. I start to wonder what will happen if my family- when- they find out? I can already imagine the delirious smile on my brother's face on seeing my name dragged in the mud.

"I ask the questions, you answer." He says, his eyes flashing. "What were you thinking?" He asks. "Did you consider how it would affect the company's image? The bosses have been calling me since the video came out!"

I feel attacked. I am not the one who posted my personal life online, I was just stupid enough not to believe Carter's fiance's threat when she made it. I should have atleast reasoned with her.

"I apologize." I reply. He is after all my superior, one with the ability to fire me on the spot.

He looks at me for a silent moment and then bursts into a mirthless laugh, "I didn't understand you before but I've quite deciphered you now." He says with a smirk on his face, "You're just an easy gold digging bitch." He says so nonchalantly, a passer-by wouldn't have distinguished it from praise.

"You should take that back." I urge with fury.

"But it's true, ain't it?" He asks tp rub it in. "All you needed was a rich, good-for-nothing, for you to let him into your pants."

"You're wrong," I start to explain myself but then I remember, "My personal life isn't any of your business anyway." I resolve with my voice raised.

"You think so?" He gets up and swiftly grasps my arms roughly, his stubby calloused hands almost stopping blood flow where they are touching.

"Let go of me." I say while struggling to push his hands away, but they don't budge.

"What if I took you right here? What would your lover do about it?" I whimper in protest as the pain on my arms expedites. "Or do you prefer to get this," he motions to the video, "broadcast at primetime?" I fervently shake my head no.

"I thought not," He let's go and goes back to his seat. "From today, you'll be attending to the articles from the mailroom that are going to be broadcast. Jenny will take your place until I feel like you deserve your position back, or never." He adds and laughs like it is funny. "You can leave for the day. Go and reflect on your 'actions' until this blows over." Like that I am dismissed from the office and my top-tier position.

I storm into the ladies'. Tears of anger slide down my cheek as I look at myself in the mirror. How I could be so pathetic and let him handle me like that and then say nothing.

I hold onto the sink to avoid sinking to the ground right then and there as my body convulses with sobs. I notice the red marks left on my arms, imprints of the harassment done to me. I could report him to the police, I think while smoothing my hand over the inflictions. I could, but not now.

I steel my resolve once more, wipe away my tears, and apply a fresh dab of concealer on my eyes to hide the red, splotchy skin. I pull down the sleeves of my shirt and walk out of the bathroom. By now everyone in the office knows about my hookup and soon gossip will start flying around. I won't be here to face it.

I walk into my apartment and shrug out of my coat. The marks on my arm stand out grotesquely on my fair skin. Despite being in the safety of my home I resist the urge to cry. This isn't really the first time he has left bruises on me. I should be beyond crying by now.

I take a solitary dinner in the kitchen while reading incoming articles and sorting them for my substitute on the job. An incoming text from my 'favorite' sibling stops me short.

It reads:

Looks like my little sister finally learned her true worth. Dad sends his best wishes in your new profession.

For a moment, I wonder how he knew about me being demoted but I am disillusioned seconds later when a video follows it with a banner saying,

"Newest whore for hire.

Call me at +1 917 *******"

I hurriedly slam the monitor down with a rage capable of pulverizing steel. How dare he add my phone number there? "Aargh." I yell , unable to control myself. All of a sudden my baked chicken, potato puree and vegetable composed dinner no longer appeals to me. I pick it up and toss it in the bin with a restless fury to my gait.

So much for blood being thicker than water, ours is bleak. Saying that I hate August would be an understatement. Ever since we were old enough to know right and wrong, I knew he was what's wrong in my life. He is lucky he has dad's favor, something I've never known.

I do us both a favor and refrain from answering his message. It saves me abortive arguments that would only leave a bad taste in my mouth. Rather I grab my phone and make the call I should have made ever since that video surfaced on the internet.

"Tara, ma chere." Francois de Laure says in his posh French accent, enunciating the 'r' in my name. A man with short stature with an ever-gelled pushed back haircut and a sneer so profound, I wonder how I approached him in the first place. De Laure is the one person I trust to get rid of such bothersome pranks done by my brother. "How are you faring?" He asks with a tenseness to his tone. I presume he already knows, as he should.

"Can you do something about it?" I cut straight to the chase, relieving him of the burden of small talk.

His voice procures a confident, somewhat cynical air, as he returns to his area of expertise, unlike small talk where he is trashy, "It's not a question of if, but when." I take that as a yes.

"Good." I answer and hang up.

I indulge myself in a glass of wine and open Netflix to watch whatever gruesome, bloody movie they have, and let my mind wonder what it would be like to get rid of August.