From ninety floors up, no one on the ground is significant. No one is a special, unique snowflake. Everyone is a dot on the screen of our eyes, moving around like an ant.

Ten minutes left.

Thinking about the stairs is a bad idea. How you could trip, fall, and kill yourself tumbling down them. How you could get shanked by some desperate homeless guy looking for drug money. How 9/11 could happen again, in this building, right now, and you'd be totally fucked.

Nine minutes left.

Thinking about the windows is a bad idea too. Smoke filling the room as you decide to jump to escape the flames. You're fucked either way.

Eight minutes left.

I'm running up the stairs. Floor ninety-one. Floor ninety-two. I'm out of breath. Why is the elevator still broken? Who cares about this fucking job anyway? One more time, the boss said. If you're late one more time, you're fired. The corporate machine has swallowed me whole.

Seven minutes left.

I still can't breathe. My lungs are exploding and it's getting worse. Maybe I should jump. No sign of flames yet, though. No excuse to give up (other than the fact that I hate my job). I forgot my financial report at home. Shit.

Six minutes left.

Forty floors to go. I'm not gonna make it. God, I should work out more. My legs are killing me. Literally. They're disintegrating beneath me. Why the fuck couldn't they just fix the elevator? This is ridiculous.

Five minutes left.

I'm still thinking about jumping. Fuck this job.

Four minutes left.

My boss is going to kill me. I should've called in sick. Wish I hadn't forgotten those fucking reports. I'm screwed.

Three minutes.

"You're late," my boss muses with a smirk.

I can tell he hates me. He always has.

"You're also fired," he says, looking triumphant.

He wanted this. He's been waiting for it. He knew I'd be late. I didn't even know I'd be late. The fuck is his problem?

"Yeah… Alright," I finally say, shrugging my shoulders.

I'm covered in sweat.

"You're not getting that financial report then," I tell him. "You'll have to figure that one out on your own. Good luck trying to run the department without me."

But I know I've been absolutely no help at all for the past three months. I barely even managed to get the report done. My insomnia gives me the demeanor of a drug addict, and everyone's noticed. I'm getting stared at. He shrugs his shoulders, and I stare at him, wondering at how scrawny he is and how easily he'd lose in a bar fight. Eventually, he speaks.

"Get out."

So I do. But not before looking out the window, down at all the insignificant, identical snowflakes walking around below me. Boston's been my home for too long. I hate these buildings. But I hate being down there with the masses even more. I'd prefer to remain up here and keep everyone else anonymous. I wish my coworkers could be anonymous too. But they're not. They know me. At least, they know who I am and where I live.

None of them know me. I don't even know me.

This is what I'm thinking about as I descend the staircase. When I reach the bottom, I'm out of breath again. It's 8:23 AM, and I want a cocktail. The nearest bar is four blocks away, and I don't think I can make it. Then I remember that it's 8:23 AM and no bars are open. I think of all the people I'll pass on the street and feel nauseous.

"Fuck me," I mutter, kicking the door of the building open, half-hoping it breaks, and stepping out into the street.

Seven blocks away, I'm sweating profusely, but I've found a diner that'll serve me alcohol. Even though it's 8:37 AM.

"Rum and coke," I tell the waitress, using a napkin from the table to wipe the sweat from my brow.

"Rough day already?" she asks, but she doesn't really care.

She's laughing at me inside. I can tell.

Part of me wants to be honest, but I just say, "Something like that," and show her the ID that tells her I'm twenty-five and old enough to drink.

When I look down at the newspaper in front of me, she walks away with a smirk on her lips. I want to slap it right off her face, but I'd rather be drunk, so I wait for her to return with my drink. Three drinks in, someone taps me on the shoulder from behind.

"Can I get you one of those?" the woman asks, nodding at the empty glasses on the table.

She's beautiful. Her dark hair frames her olive face and chocolate eyes in a way that makes it impossible to break her gaze. She's captivating. Why is she talking to me?

"One of what?" I ask dumbly, then look back at my table where she's gesturing and realize she's talking about my drinks. "Oh… Um… Sure."

I'm not slurring yet, but soon I will be. Still, I accept the drink and down it quickly. Nothing like a little booze to ease you through a rough day at 8:49 in the morning.

"So what's got you drinking before nine A.M.?" she asks slyly.

She's judging me. I can tell. But she bought me a drink, so I can't really be rude.

"Got fired," I tell her shortly.

"Just now?"

"Yeah. I was three minutes late."

"What the hell? Isn't it kind of ridiculous to fire you over that?"

"Not really. I've been late almost every day for a month."

"Oh… I see."

She's still smiling at me. I don't get it. It's almost creepy, but I keep talking anyway.

"Doesn't really matter," I lie. "Got plenty of jobs lined up."

"Mmm. I'm sure you do. To pay for your fancy apartment and elegant furniture from IKEA, I'm sure."

"Hey, how the hell'd you know my furniture was from IKEA?"

"You seem the type."

I don't know whether to laugh or be offended, so I laugh and feel offended, but don't tell her. She's staring at me like I've got three heads. This goes on for several long moments before she waves the waitress over and orders me another drink. I down this one even quicker than the one before it, and start to feel the colors around me blur together shortly after that. She looks just as beautiful, though, so I keep looking at her, until she gets up from her table and walks over to sit across from me at mine.

"Mind if I join you?" she asks, a little too late.

I shrug. So what if I did? This bitch is the type to do whatever she wants. She probably gets whatever she wants too. I wonder if she has a boyfriend. Wait, what? Why am I thinking about-

"So, where'd you work?" she interrupts.

"At the financial center seven blocks down."

"Did you like it?"

"Not at all."

"Then I guess it's a good thing you got fired."

She's right. Except that I have no idea how I'm going to pay my rent. I'm certainly not going to ask my parents.

"How old are you anyway?" she asks boldly.

I blink a few times and stare blankly before answering, "Twenty-one."

People always tell me I look twenty-one, but she senses the lie like some kind of detective and laughs at me.

"How old are you really?"

I wish I was twenty-one.

"Twenty-five. Why are you even asking?"

"Just curious. You look younger than you are."

"Yeah, people tell me that."

I hate people who tell me that, even though I wish I was twenty-one.

"You're very pretty."

"Sorry?"

"I said, 'You're very pretty.'"

She looks serious. I laugh. Surely, she can't be. I'm sweaty and look like a hot, sloppy mess. There's no way she's serious. She can't be. I'm disgusting.

"You are," she assures me, looking irritated by my laughter.

I shrug my shoulders and blurt out, "Not like you are."

I'm definitely drunk now. I don't say those things to other women. But there it is, on the table, between us. It's her turn to laugh, and she does, so I scowl at her drunkenly and lean back in my seat.

"I'm serious," I tell her, offended by her disbelief in my words.

I shouldn't be offended, though. I reacted the exact same way.

The conversation goes on for several minutes before she orders me another drink. I'm completely shitfaced after two more, and I get thrown out on my ass and go kicking and screaming out of the establishment. The woman follows me out. She still doesn't know my name, but she helps me up as I stumble on the sidewalk.

"You should probably get home and sleep this off."

She's right. Drinking is the only way I can sleep, anyway. My insomnia doesn't like alcohol, so it tends to bugger off when I consume enough of it. I nod my head and lean up against the side of the building, trying to catch my balance. She can tell that I'm completely inebriated.

"Let me help you get home," she says. "If you get caught drunk in public like this, a cop is gonna throw your ass in jail."

"I…"

"We'll take a cab. Where do you live?"

"Congress street."

"Nice place," she comments.

There's something she's not saying, but I'm too drunk to press for it, so I stumble into the cab she waves down for us and let her buckle my seatbelt. She's being too… nice. Too helpful. It's making me sick. Or maybe that's the alcohol.

"Which building?" the woman asks as the taxi pulls over on the street.

I know that if I try to speak, I'll laugh, so I stay silent and point. She follows me up, and it takes me several minutes to find my keys in my purse, but eventually, I get the door open and invite her inside. She's laughing at me again.

"I've got somewhere to be. But you should call me."

When she hands me her card, I drop it, and it falls to the floor, so she picks it up and steps into the room, then finds her way to my kitchen. Carefully, she pins the card to the fridge – stainless steel – with a magnet and smiles at me. Why the hell would she want me to call her? She probably just met me at the worst moment in my entire adulthood.

"What's your name?" she finally asks.

I shake my head.

"Not calling you," I tell her drunkenly. "You're too nice."

Again, she's laughing at me. I hate that, but the sound of her laugh is bright and infectious, so I end up grinning and just shake my head when she asks me again.

"No, come on. What's your name? I won't ask your number, and I won't come by. I just want to know who you are. That's all."

"Emma," I finally tell her. "Emma Swan."

"My name's Regina Mills," she informs me, knowing that I didn't have a chance to read the card. "Hopefully, I'll hear from you."