Chapter Text
The building that housed Runway’s offices rose above Manhattan like a monument to ambition. Its glass walls reflected New York’s gray sky and the endless movement of the city below. Thousands of people passed by its entrance every day without giving it a second glance, but to those who worked in the fashion world, it meant something entirely different. For some, it was a dream. For others, a goal. And for many, a sentence.
Inside, everything seemed to move at a different speed than the rest of the world. Elevators traveled up and down without pause. Assistants hurried through the corridors with phones wedged between their shoulders and ears, their expressions tense. Designers, photographers, journalists, and executives moved in and out of offices like frantic particles inside a giant living organism.
And at the center of it all was Runway, the most influential fashion magazine in the industry. The personal kingdom of Miranda Priestly.
Even when Miranda wasn’t in the building, her influence seemed to occupy every corner of it. Merely hearing her name was enough to make someone straighten their posture or glance nervously at a watch. She was a constant presence.
On the forty-first floor, just outside the editor-in-chief’s office, sat one of the most stressful workstations in the entire building.
Emily Charlton’s desk.
Emily sat in front of her computer, a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold resting beside the keyboard. Her screen was packed with appointments, schedules, names, and impossible requests. The pale blue glow of the monitor illuminated her face.
Anyone observing her from a distance would probably have thought she was elegant and perfectly composed. Anyone who actually knew her would have known she was about thirty seconds away from insulting someone. Her red hair was flawlessly styled despite the fact that the day had started hours ago. Her makeup was immaculate. The designer dress looked as though it had just come off a runway. She looked like a living advertisement for Runway itself. And yet, the expression on her face made it abundantly clear that she would rather be hit by a bus than have another conversation with another human being.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she canceled, moved, and rearranged appointments. One of the models scheduled for a photoshoot was running late, a photographer was threatening to cancel a collaboration, three designers wanted to speak with Miranda, two publicists were arguing, and there were still forty minutes left before the editor-in-chief arrived.
Emily sighed. A long, deeply exasperated sigh. “It’s eight in the morning, and I already hate everyone today,” she muttered without taking her eyes off the screen.
Beside her, Nigel barely looked up from a collection of fabric swatches. “Only today?”
Emily slowly turned toward him. “Today, I hate them with extra enthusiasm.”
Nigel stifled a laugh. Emily turned her attention back to the screen. For a few seconds, the office seemed calm. Then she heard a voice coming from the other side of the room. A voice that was far too familiar. A cheerful voice. Far too cheerful. Unacceptably cheerful. Emily closed her eyes. She didn't even need to look. She knew exactly who it was.
Andrea Sachs.
And the simple fact that she had walked into the office was already enough to ruin her day.
Andrea Sachs had a talent that Emily Charlton found deeply irritating. It wasn't her ability to organize impossible appointments, nor the fact that she had managed to survive Miranda Priestly longer than anyone had expected. It was her enthusiasm. That absurd, inexplicable ability to walk into a room at eight in the morning looking as though she had just received good news.
Emily slowly looked up toward the office entrance. Andrea was crossing the editorial floor carrying a tray of coffees in her hands and a folder tucked under her arm. She moved quickly, weaving around people, boxes, clothing racks, and panicked assistants with a natural ease that, against all logic, continued to irritate Emily. Because she should have been nervous. Everyone here was. Runway—and especially Miranda—made people nervous. Even the air inside the building seemed designed to generate anxiety. Yet Andrea continued to behave as though she worked for a college newspaper rather than at the nerve center of the fashion industry.
Emily watched her approach with the same expression she might have worn while watching a crack spread across the ceiling. A slow and inevitable catastrophe.
Andrea stopped in front of the desk. “Good morning.”
Emily didn't reply. She continued staring at the monitor. Andrea waited a few seconds.
“I said good morning.”
Emily didn't even lift her eyes from the computer. “I heard you.” She paused. “Now go away.”
Andrea sighed. A dramatic, exaggerated, offended sigh. “Every morning I think maybe today you'll be nicer.”
Emily let out a short laugh. One of those laughs completely devoid of any joy. “And every morning you demonstrate a remarkable inability to learn from your mistakes.”
Across the room, Nigel coughed to hide a smile. Andrea noticed immediately.
“See? Nigel understands me.”
“Nigel is laughing because he’s a kind person.” Emily returned to typing. “I'm not.”
Andrea remained standing there, and that was the problem. Most people, when Emily became particularly unpleasant, retreated. Andrea didn't. She stayed and kept talking, kept smiling. She kept existing, and Emily found all of it extremely offensive.
“Miranda will be here in twenty-five minutes,” Andrea said.
“I know.”
“Have you already checked the invitations for the charity dinner?”
“Yes.”
“And next week's schedule?”
“Yes.”
“And the-”
“Andrea.” Emily's voice cut her off, dangerously calm.
Andrea crossed her arms. “What?”
Emily stared at her. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. It was a scene that had repeated itself so often that it had become familiar to the entire office. People passed by their desks, casting quick glances in their direction. Like spectators watching an aggressive tennis or ping pong match.
“Do you need something?” Emily asked. “I'm working.”
“I was just making sure everything was under control.”
Emily tilted her head slightly. “And you thought that without your supervision I might make a mistake? Me?”
Andrea let out a brief laugh. And there it was again. That irritating sense of lightness that seemed to follow her everywhere. Emily couldn't understand how someone could be so annoying without even trying. Maybe that was exactly the problem. Andrea had no idea what effect she had on people. She didn't realize how exasperating she was. She didn't understand how difficult it was to hate her when she kept behaving as though the entire world deserved a second chance.
Emily lowered her gaze back to the computer. “Why are you still here?”
“Because we're having a conversation.”
“No.” Emily picked up a folder from the desk. “You're having a conversation.”
Andrea opened her mouth to reply. But before she could, the sound of the elevator immediately drew the attention of half the office. The change was instantaneous. Conversations stopped, phones were lowered, people quickened their pace. The entire editorial floor seemed to hold its breath. Emily glanced at the clock.
Twenty-eight past.
Miranda was early.
A shiver ran through the office. Andrea sensed it immediately. Even after working there for quite some time, there was still something almost surreal about the effect Miranda Priestly had on people. It was like watching a storm roll in. Emily’s attention, meanwhile, had shifted completely. Any argument with Andrea had been set aside, because there were more important things to worry about.
“Move.” she said without looking at her.
Andrea blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Emily grabbed a few folders. “You're still standing here staring at me while Miranda is on her way up. Go do your job.”
Andrea narrowed her eyes. “You could ask a little more politely.”
Emily stopped. She looked at her and then smiled. A terrible, almost unsettling smile. “No.”
And for a brief moment, Andrea had the very real urge to throw her coffee at her.
The smile lingered on Emily’s lips for only another second, just long enough for Andrea to see it clearly and feel that familiar surge of irritation she had come to associate almost automatically with her colleague. It was incredible how Emily could turn a one-syllable answer into something that felt like a personal attack. Andrea had never met anyone like her. Not even during her years at university, when she had dealt with arrogant professors, competitive students, and editors convinced they were the future Hemingways of American journalism.
Emily was different. She wasn’t just unpleasant. If she had merely been unpleasant, Andrea would have learned to ignore her months ago. The problem was that Emily seemed to possess a natural talent for finding the exact right way to annoy people. She almost never raised her voice. She never lost control. She never openly insulted anyone. She simply looked at you with that vaguely disgusted expression and delivered a sentence that somehow made you feel like the most irritating human being on the planet.
As Emily hurried away from the desk to prepare for Miranda’s arrival, Andrea remained still for a few seconds, watching her cross the office. As always, Emily moved with an almost irritating confidence. She seemed to belong to that world so naturally that every effort she made became invisible. No one would have guessed the impossible hours she worked or the level of stress she lived under every day. From the outside, she looked perfect, composed, and flawless.
Andrea, on the other hand, had always had the impression that beneath that polished surface there existed an impressive amount of repressed anger. Maybe that was why they kept clashing. Because Andrea was the kind of person who always tried to understand others, while Emily seemed to do everything possible to prevent anyone from getting close enough to do exactly that.
The hum of the office suddenly transformed into frantic activity. Assistants who only seconds earlier had been chatting near the coffee machine rushed back to their desks. Several editors quickly disappeared from the hallways. Someone nearly tripped while trying to reach an office before Miranda stepped inside. It was always like this. Andrea remembered her first day at Runway perfectly. She remembered the confusion, the feeling of having accidentally ended up in a parallel universe where everyone seemed to know invisible rules that she was completely unaware of. Back then, she had thought people’s reactions to Miranda were exaggerated.
Now she knew they weren’t. If anything, they were completely justified. A few moments later, the elevator doors opened and Miranda Priestly appeared in the main corridor, accompanied by her driver and an invisible trail of tension that seemed to follow her everywhere. She was wearing an elegant ice-colored coat and walked without slowing down, without looking at anyone, as though the entire building had been constructed solely to allow her to reach her office.
Andrea moved immediately. Emily was already at her side. For a few seconds, the two of them worked in perfect sync, as they always did during emergencies. It was one of the ironies Andrea found most frustrating. Despite their disastrous relationship, they worked surprisingly well together. They were both competent enough to anticipate Miranda’s needs and quick enough to react without needing explanations. Naturally, neither of them would ever admit it.
Miranda crossed the office, handing off items and firing out instructions with the speed of a machine gun. “Emily, move the eleven o’clock meeting.”
“Yes, Miranda.”
“Andrea, call James Holt and tell him his assistant cost me ten minutes.”
“Right away.”
“Emily, where’s the updated schedule?”
“On your desk.”
“Andrea, I need the European sales figures.”
“I’ll get them immediately.”
The requests continued without interruption as Miranda entered her private office. Only when the door closed behind her did the entire editorial floor seem to breathe again. Andrea slowly released the air from her lungs. By now, both of them were seated at their desks again.
Returning to Emily, Andrea sometimes had the feeling that she was incapable of distinguishing between arrogance and simply stating facts. The more time she spent working beside Emily, the harder it became to maintain the simple image she had formed of her at the beginning. When she first arrived at Runway, Emily had been nothing more than the insufferable woman who treated her like an idiot. Now things were more complicated. Now Andrea had seen Emily work late into the night. She had watched her manage impossible crises. She had heard her on the phone with designers, photographers, and executives who genuinely respected her. She had even noticed, in very rare moments, something that almost resembled a normal person hidden beneath all those layers of sarcasm and aggression.
Naturally, those moments always disappeared within seconds. Like now. Because Emily noticed Andrea looking at her and immediately frowned. “Why are you staring at me, Andrea?”
Andrea blinked. “I wasn’t staring at you.”
“Yes, you were. Stop it.”
Andrea let her head fall back and sat for a few seconds with her eyes closed, trying to convince herself that ignoring Emily was a better strategy than responding to her. Experience had taught her that every conversation with Emily was a trap. It didn’t matter where it started. You could begin by talking about the weather, a meeting, or an important deadline, and within a few minutes Emily would somehow turn it into a psychological endurance contest.
The problem was that Andrea wasn’t particularly good at letting things go. Not because she was overly sensitive. Quite the opposite. She was usually a patient person. She was used to dealing with difficult people, impossible professors, and arrogant coworkers. However, Emily had the extraordinary ability to strike precisely that thin line between annoying and unbearable. When Andrea opened her eyes again, she found Emily exactly where she had left her. Sitting in front of her computer, completely absorbed in her work. The image might almost have seemed normal if it weren’t for the fact that Emily typed on the keyboard with the intensity of someone trying to declare war on an entire nation.
The light streaming through the office’s large windows reflected off the glossy surface of the desk. Behind her, Manhattan stretched out in all its grandeur. Skyscrapers, traffic, people hurrying along the sidewalks, and yellow taxis moving like a constant river through the city. From that height, the world looked smaller, more orderly, and less chaotic. It was an illusion Andrea had learned to recognize very quickly, especially because Runway was anything but orderly. The appearance of perfection the magazine presented to the outside world was supported by an incredibly complex system of exhausted people, impossible deadlines, and constant emergencies.
And at the center of that system were people like Emily. People who seemed to live exclusively for their work. Andrea wasn’t even sure Emily knew how to relax. In fact, she was fairly convinced that if someone offered her a free vacation in the Caribbean, Emily would find a way to complain about it. She would probably describe the ocean as “excessively wet.”
The thought almost made her smile, and she remained there with that expression, looking at Emily. Unfortunately, Emily noticed. Even though her eyes were still fixed on the screen.
“Why are you smiling now?” The question came without warning.
Andrea blinked. “Nothing.” She found it unsettling that Emily had noticed without even looking at her. “Just a thought.”
“I'm sure it was something stupid.”
Andrea took a slow breath. “Sometimes I think you practice.”
Emily barely raised an eyebrow. “Being better than everyone else in this building? There's no need.”
“No.” Andrea leaned against the desk. “Being unbearable.”
For the first time in several minutes, Emily actually looked away from the monitor. The look she gave Andrea was perfectly neutral, but anyone who knew her well enough would have noticed that tiny spark of amusement in her eyes. “And you think you're qualified to judge?”
“Much more than you think.”
“Interesting.”
Andrea shook her head. It was always the same. Every conversation eventually turned into a clash between two completely different ways of seeing the world. Andrea looked for the good in people. Emily seemed to operate under the assumption that there was no good side at all.
Emily was incredibly efficient at her job. She cared about every detail. She made sure everything worked. She spent hours solving problems created by other people. That wasn't the behavior of someone completely indifferent to others. It was a contradiction Andrea had noticed a long time ago. One of the many things that intrigued her despite herself.
Despite all that, if someone had asked her to describe Emily Charlton at that moment, she probably would have used every negative word in the dictionary, especially words like arrogant, irritating, stubborn, and insufferable.
Across from her, Emily lowered her eyes to the monitor, trying to focus on the emails that kept piling up in her inbox. It was a morning like any other. In fact, by Runway standards, it was relatively calm. Miranda had arrived without any particularly devastating crises, no major designer had threatened to pull a collection at the last minute, and no celebrity had yet decided to change their schedule and force half the editorial staff to reorganize the week.
It should have been a good day. Or at least a tolerable one. And yet Andrea Sachs was sitting a few feet away, and according to Emily, that automatically lowered the quality of any experience.
Of course, she would never say that out loud, because it would mean admitting that Andrea occupied a much larger part of her thoughts than her pride was willing to accept.
The real problem was that Andrea had stopped being just the incompetent assistant from nowhere that Emily had met during those first few days. At the beginning, it had been simple. She had been a nuisance, an obstacle, a girl completely out of place who couldn't tell one designer from another and seemed convinced that the fashion world was little more than a gigantic waste of time. Emily had judged her immediately. And, if she was being honest with herself, she had even enjoyed having someone to criticize.
Then things had gradually changed, almost imperceptibly. Andrea had started learning. She had stopped making stupid mistakes. She had begun to understand how Runway worked. She had started earning her place there.
And that transformation had created a problem Emily hadn't anticipated. Because hating someone is much easier when they keep proving you right. When they keep proving you wrong instead, everything becomes more complicated. Emily hated complications.
She looked up from the computer just in time to see Andrea get to her feet and walk across the office toward the archives. She was talking to one of the junior assistants and, as always, seemed completely at ease. The girl beside her was laughing, and Andrea was smiling.
Emily felt an immediate stab of irritation. Not because she cared. Of course she didn't care in the slightest. It was simply... annoying. Andrea could talk to anyone. Secretaries, photographers, couriers, editors, even the cleaning staff. She seemed incapable of crossing a room without forming some kind of human connection. Emily couldn't decide whether that was an admirable quality or deeply suspicious.
The door to Miranda's office suddenly opened, and the effect was immediate. Emily straightened in her chair. Andrea stopped halfway down the corridor. Several conversations died instantly, and the entire editorial floor seemed to tense.
Miranda stepped out of her office while flipping through a stack of documents. She didn't even look up as she crossed the room.
“Emily.”
“Yes, Miranda.”
“Where's Laurent's contract?”
Emily immediately retrieved it from a neatly prepared stack of papers on her desk. “Right here.”
Miranda took it without slowing down. “Andrea.”
Andrea stepped forward. “Yes, Miranda.”
“I need an updated copy of the Paris bookings.”
“I'll bring it right away.”
“And personally check the schedules.”
“Of course.”
Miranda gave the slightest nod and returned to her office. The door closed behind her. The silence lasted another moment before the office came back to life. Andrea turned to head back toward her computer.
That was when Emily spoke. “Check them.”
Andrea stopped. “Excuse me?”
Emily kept her eyes on the monitor. “The schedules.”
“I heard her.”
“Then why do you look confused?”
“I'm trying to understand why you felt the need to repeat something Miranda literally just told me.”
Emily finally looked up. “Because the last time you organized an international trip, we almost sent an editor to Milan on the wrong day.”
“That was the airline's fault.”
“It was your fault for believing the airline.”
Andrea stood still. Emily held her gaze. Neither of them seemed willing to back down.
It was a familiar scene. So familiar that some people in the office had developed a sort of sixth sense for recognizing when it was about to happen. Nigel, who was arranging several outfits nearby, immediately saw the expressions on both their faces and understood that it would be better to stay out of the argument. Experience had taught him that intervening was pointless.
Andrea crossed her arms. “You think you're the only competent person in this building.”
“You've finally said something accurate.”
Andrea stared at her in disbelief. Emily maintained a perfectly serious expression, and that was exactly what made it so irritating.
“It's unbelievable that you always answer me like that,” Andrea muttered.
Emily tilted her head slightly. An elegant, almost feline movement. “Maybe because it's amusing to see how much it annoys you.”
Andrea opened her mouth to respond and then closed it again because, unfortunately, Emily was right. She was very annoyed. And the fact that Emily knew it made everything even worse.
For a few seconds they simply looked at each other. Around them, the office kept moving. People walked from one desk to another, but that strange tension that existed between them seemed to create a small bubble isolated from the rest of the world.
Andrea couldn't explain it. Maybe it was simply the result of months spent working together. Or maybe it was Emily's impossible personality. Maybe it was the fact that neither of them could stand the idea of letting the other have the last word. Whatever the reason, every conversation always ended the same way, like a game neither of them was willing to lose. And as Andrea looked at Emily in that moment, with her irritated, superior expression, she had the distinct feeling that the day had only just begun.
And that Emily would find at least ten more opportunities to ruin her good mood before lunch.
___
One of the things Andrea Sachs had come to appreciate most since she started working for Miranda Priestly was the almost unreal feeling she experienced every evening when she finally made it back to her apartment. It didn't matter how exhausting the day had been, how many phone calls she had made, or how many times her name had been spoken in that icy tone Miranda reserved for her assistants; the moment she closed the door behind her always marked a kind of invisible boundary between two completely different versions of her life.
On one side there was Runway, and on the other there was Andrea. Not the second assistant to the most feared woman in the fashion industry, not the girl who spent her days running from one end of Manhattan to the other fulfilling impossible requests, not the person constantly waiting for the next emergency. Just Andrea.
That evening, the apartment was bathed in the soft light of sunset. The windows let in the last golden reflections of the day, and the entire living room seemed wrapped in a kind of comforting calm that had nothing to do with the immaculate, controlled atmosphere of the Runway offices. A few books Andrea had started weeks ago and never managed to finish were still scattered across the coffee table. A blanket had been abandoned on the couch. A forgotten mug beside the window was evidence of that morning's rushed breakfast. Everything was slightly messy and comfortably lived in. At Runway, on the other hand, disorder was synonymous with failure.
Andrea was arranging a few glasses on the table when the doorbell rang. She didn't even need to check the time to know who it was. Lily had a habit of always arriving a few minutes early, and after years of friendship, Andrea could recognize her presence before even opening the door. When the door swung open, Lily entered the apartment with the easy confidence of someone who practically considered the place her own.
“Andrea Sachs, is that really you?” was the first thing she said.
Andrea laughed immediately. “I'm happy to see you too.”
“It's been three days since you last replied to one of my messages.” As she spoke, Lily had already dropped her bag beside the couch and was surveying the living room with the curious expression she always wore when trying to determine just how chaotic her friend's week had been.
Lily was one of the few constants left in Andrea's life over the past few years. They had met at university and, despite being very different, had become inseparable almost immediately. Lily possessed a blunt honesty that sometimes bordered on brutality, but that was exactly what made her so important. She never tried to impress anyone. She didn't care about social conventions. She didn't soften the truth to make it easier to accept. If she thought something, she said it, even when silence would have been considerably wiser.
Andrea watched as she sat down on the couch and immediately claimed the bowl of snacks she had prepared. There was something reassuring about that normality. After spending the entire day surrounded by people who constantly seemed to be constructing perfect versions of themselves, seeing Lily behave exactly as she always had was almost therapeutic.
For a few minutes they talked about insignificant things. Traffic. A neighbor who had decided to learn the saxophone with highly questionable results. A new restaurant that had opened nearby. Simple, ordinary topics that, only a few months earlier, Andrea probably would have considered boring.
Now she found them precious.
Maybe because Runway had transformed her everyday life into something so absurd that it had made her appreciate the charm of normal conversations.
Eventually, however, Lily inevitably arrived at the subject that interested her most.
“So.” She rested an elbow on the armrest and turned completely toward Andrea. “Tell me something about work.”
Andrea sighed. Not because she didn't want to talk about it, but because she didn't even know where to begin. Every day at Runway seemed to contain enough material to fill an entire week of normal life.
“I don't know.”
“Nothing happened today?”
“Things are always happening in that place.”
“Something interesting.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On how interesting you find a day in which four people had existential crises before noon.”
Lily slowly lowered the potato chip she was holding.
“Four?”
“Five, if we count me.”
“What happened?”
Andrea leaned back against the couch.
“Well, at nine twenty a publicist discovered that Miranda wasn't satisfied with a proposal.”
“And?”
“He started sweating. By nine twenty-two he was shaking, by nine twenty-five he had stopped speaking in complete sentences, and by nine thirty he looked like a hostage trying to communicate in code.”
Lily burst out laughing. “And Miranda?”
“Miranda looked at him for about three seconds.”
“Only three?”
“She was being merciful.”
“And then?”
Andrea unconsciously adopted the editor-in-chief's icy expression. “She said something like, ‘I expected something better.’”
Lily blinked. “That's it?”
“Yes, and he was ready to throw himself out the window.”
“Every time you talk about your job, you describe it like some kind of totalitarian regime with expensive clothes.”
“That's exactly what it is.”
“And yet you keep going back every morning.”
“People who live near volcanoes keep living near volcanoes too.”
“I don't think that's the same thing.”
“You've never seen Miranda when someone uses the wrong font in a presentation.”
Lily laughed again while Andrea grabbed a handful of chips and settled more comfortably into the couch. For the first time all day, she could feel the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. Talking to Lily had always had that effect. It allowed her to see certain situations from a different perspective, to turn things that had seemed catastrophic only hours earlier into amusing stories.
“Anyway,” she continued after a moment, “the worst part is that you never know where the problem is going to come from.”
“What do you mean?”
Andrea raised a hand. “It could be Miranda.” She lifted one finger. “It could be a designer who decides to change their mind at the last second.” A second finger. “It could be a celebrity who cancels a cover shoot twenty minutes before it starts.” A third finger. “It could be a courier losing something important.” A fourth finger. For a moment she seemed to think about it before letting out a long, exasperated sigh that immediately made Lily smile. “And then there's Emily Charlton.”
Lily burst out laughing before Andrea could continue. “I knew we'd get here.”
“No, seriously.” Andrea dropped back against the couch.
“What did she do this time?”
Andrea was silent for a few seconds, as if trying to decide which incident to start with. The problem was that Emily generated so much material that choosing was difficult. “So,” she began, “this morning I said good morning to her.”
“And right there I can already see your first mistake. How did she react?”
Andrea unconsciously mimicked Emily’s impassive expression. “She looked at me as if I’d just confessed to murdering someone.”
Lily laughed. “And that was only because you said good morning. Imagine if you'd said anything else.”
“Lily, one time I asked her if she wanted a coffee, and she replied, ‘I'd prefer a general anesthetic.’”
For a few seconds, Lily sat perfectly still. Then she burst out laughing so hard she had to bend forward. “That’s terrible.” Lily wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
“I know.”
“She’s such a funny person.”
“She’s not when you’re the target.” Andrea crossed her arms and fell silent for a moment. The irritation returned almost immediately, fueled by the simple fact that she was thinking about Emily again. It was absurd. That woman managed to be annoying even when she wasn’t there. For Andrea, once she started talking about Emily Charlton, it was surprisingly difficult to stop. “Whatever I do, she always has something to say.”
“She probably enjoys your frustration.”
Andrea considered that, and in a deeply irritating way, the theory seemed plausible. The possibility that Emily genuinely enjoyed provoking her somehow made the entire situation even more unbearable.
The conversation continued for quite a while, although as the minutes passed, the mood grew lighter. After complaining enough about Runway, Miranda, and especially Emily, Andrea began to feel the exhaustion she had accumulated throughout the day slowly catching up with her. It was a familiar sensation, a constant weight that seemed to settle into her shoulders and behind her eyes after hours spent running from one side of Manhattan to the other. On the worst days, she arrived home so exhausted that she could barely remember what she had done during the last few hours of work.
That evening, however, Lily’s presence made everything more bearable. The two friends continued chatting on the couch, moving from one topic to another with the ease of people who had known each other for years. They talked about people they had gone to university with, trying to remember what had become of them. They amused themselves by commenting on social media photos posted by former classmates who suddenly seemed to have become experts on every subject in existence. They discussed books neither of them had yet found time to read and movies they had been postponing for months.
When Lily suggested watching a movie, Andrea agreed immediately, more because she wanted a distraction than because she was genuinely interested in the film itself. They settled onto the couch with a blanket and a decidedly excessive amount of snacks, letting the television fill the living room with light and sound while outside the sky turned completely dark.
For the first time since the beginning of the day, Andrea truly relaxed.
The movie was one they had both seen several times before and required very little attention. Rather than following the plot, they ended up commenting on scenes, making jokes, and constantly interrupting one another. It was the kind of simple evening Andrea had almost forgotten how to appreciate.
Ever since she had started working for Miranda, time seemed to have contracted. The weeks passed so quickly that she often only realized the weekend had arrived when someone pointed it out. Friends, nights out, and everything she once considered normal had begun occupying less and less space in her life. Maybe that was why moments like this mattered so much. They reminded her that there was a world outside of Runway.
By the time the movie ended, it was already quite late. Lily yawned several times within a few minutes, and Andrea felt her own exhaustion returning with full force. The adrenaline she had built up throughout the day had completely disappeared, leaving only fatigue behind.
After quickly tidying up the living room and saying goodbye to her friend, Andrea remained alone in the silence of the apartment for a few moments. The city lights still glittered beyond the windows, and the nighttime traffic created a distant, steady hum. For a few seconds, she simply stood there looking at the familiar view, allowing the calm of the evening to slowly replace the chaos of the day.
Tomorrow, it would all begin again. The phone calls, the rushing around, the impossible requests, Miranda... Emily.
At the mere thought of that name, Andrea unconsciously frowned. Then she sighed and forced herself to stop thinking about it before finally heading toward the bedroom. She needed sleep, because if there was one thing she had learned while working at Runway, it was that facing a new day without enough rest was the fastest way to turn a difficult situation into a catastrophe.
And considering she would have to spend another entire day beside Emily Charlton, she had the distinct feeling she was going to need every bit of energy she could get.