He shoved me into the hall, and I landed sprawling on the pile of clothes. He slammed the door and shot the deadbolt with a hollow thud.

The door across the hall cracked open, and a single eye peeped out at me. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“You want I call the cops?”

“No! No, everything’s fine.”

The door closed.

I rummaged frantically through the heap of clothes until I found my purse and briefcase. I checked inside. My cash was gone, but I was relieved to find that everything else was there. I rose to my knees. “David?” I whispered through the keyhole. I knocked softly and whispered his name again, and when he didn’t answer, I pressed my forehead to the door. “David, please let me in.”

No response.

“David, please. We can fight this together.”

When his voice finally sounded, it was also through the keyhole and as soft as mine. “I hope you die,” he said.

I sank back on the pile of clothes. He was out of his mind on drugs. He couldn’t mean it.

I looked around bleakly. I didn’t know what time it was. Very late or very early. People might soon be stirring. I couldn’t stay here. But I didn’t know where else to go. I had nowhere to go.

No, I remembered. As long as I had a job, I had somewhere to go.

I stood up and hoped that no one else would crack their door open in the next five minutes. I peeled off my T-shirt and rooted through the heap on the floor for underwear and a blouse, then put on my suit skirt and jacket. My rail pass was still in my wallet. My keycard was still in there. I could get to the office. The only place left in the world to go.

IT WAS A Sunday, and so early that I had the office to myself. I made a fresh pot of coffee and searched for any food that might be left over from Friday, but there was nothing. The vending machine was stocked up, and the candy bars and chips and crackers were tantalizing through the glass, but without money that was where they had to remain.

Lester wasn’t scheduled to come in today, and I didn’t have any work to do that wasn’t in The Lab. I played solitaire on my computer. I read the news online. I read about Operation Super Bowl and the arrests of thirty sex traffickers and the rescue of seventy victim workers. I read about a typhoon in the South China Sea and the feared loss of an entire Thai fishing fleet. I did the Times crossword. Anything to keep from thinking. To keep from hearing those ugly words. Loser. Worker bee. Wage slave. I never would have married you. I hate you! I hope you die! They ricocheted inside my head.

One phrase kept haunting me—You act like you’re something, but it’s all just an act—because that much was true. It had always been true.