The Distance Between
Copyright© 2025 by Art Samms
Chapter 38
DARYA
My hands were still trembling when the interview window closed. Not from fear—well, not only fear. Mostly adrenaline. The good kind. The kind that made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t in months.
I stared at the black screen for a moment, then burst out laughing. A slightly hysterical laugh, but still.
I’d done it. I’d actually done it.
I called Leila immediately. She picked up on the first ring.
“How did it go?” she asked, too fast, like she had been pacing her entire office.
“I—Leila, they liked me.”
She squealed. She actually squealed. Then shouted for Elias, who apparently was in the next room.
“Okay,” Elias said when he joined, his voice steady but warm. “Give us the full report.”
So, I did. I told them everything—the moment when the lead interviewer leaned forward with that spark of interest, the smile when I talked about layout design, the way they kept asking follow-up questions like they genuinely cared what I thought. At one point, one of them even said my English was “remarkably natural.”
Coming from an Irishman, that felt like being knighted.
Leila clapped her hands. “Darya, that’s incredible.”
“I don’t know,” I said, though I was grinning hard enough to hurt. “Maybe they were just being polite.”
“No,” Elias said firmly. “Trust me. You know how many unimpressed faces I see in staff meetings? People can fake politeness, but they can’t fake engagement. If they were leaning in, asking questions—they’re interested.”
I let those words settle, warm and dizzying.
Still ... I couldn’t let myself celebrate. Not yet. Not completely.
“They said they’d get back to me within a few days,” I said. “So ... now I wait.”
“And we wait with you,” Leila said.
Her voice was soft, certain—anchoring me in a way I desperately needed.
Four days later, the email arrived.
I woke up to it—my phone buzzing on the nightstand, the morning light slanting weakly across the cracked wall.
The subject line read:
Job Offer — Editorial Assistant
For a second, I didn’t breathe. Then I sat up so fast I knocked over a glass of water.
I opened the email.
I read it once. Twice. A third time.
I pressed a shaking hand to my mouth, like I needed to physically hold in the emotion rushing up my throat. I laughed and cried all at once—quiet, helpless sounds that filled the tiny room.
I had a job. An actual job. In Ireland. In Galway.
A real position. A real future.
But the elation didn’t get to stay pure—not in my life.
There was a paragraph halfway down:
As you are a non-EEA national, we will need to pursue a General Employment Permit on your behalf. We are prepared to begin the process immediately. Please confirm your continued interest.
My heart, which had been soaring, dipped sharply.
Sponsorship. I knew this would be an issue, but still.
Another permit. More bureaucracy. Another long, painful wait.
I sat on the edge of the bed and forced myself to breathe. The walls of the apartment felt closer than usual, like they wanted to remind me of reality. Nothing was simple for someone like me. Nothing happened without a hundred hurdles.
But ... the company was willing. They were willing. I couldn’t ask for anything more at this point.
That alone brought tears to my eyes again.
I called Leila. She answered sounding half-asleep.
“Leila...” My voice cracked. “I got it.”
I heard her inhale sharply, then shout, “Elias!” so loudly that I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
A moment later, Elias joined, breathless. “What happened? Tell me she got it.”
“I got it,” I whispered, and my voice wobbled. “But ... I need sponsorship. They’re going to apply for a General Employment Permit for me.”
“Oh wow,” Leila breathed. “That’s ... Darya, that’s amazing.”
“It is,” I said, trying to hold on to that truth. “It’s just—the wait. I know how long these things can take.”
Elias spoke gently. “It’s still a huge step forward. The hard part—convincing them—Darya, you already did that.”
“And we’re not going anywhere,” Leila added. “We’ll get through the wait together.”
I nodded, even though they couldn’t see me. “Right. Together.”
When I hung up, I sat back and wiped my eyes, staring at the ceiling of my tiny Istanbul apartment. The room was humble, lonely, still smelling faintly of the cheap cleaning solution I used.
But today, for the first time, it didn’t feel like a trap.
It felt like a beginning.
The permit process would take weeks, maybe months. And I would wake every morning in this tiny place, work odd jobs, stretch my savings, fill out forms, wait for news.
But now I had a destination.
And for the first time since running from Shiraz, I whispered the words aloud to myself:
“I’m going to make it.”
I had to.
LEILA
My Wednesday morning meeting started the way they always did—everyone popping into the call one by one, mugs in hand, still half-asleep or pretending to be fully awake. The O’Shea Languages team had become my little remote family: Michael with his dry humor; Clodagh, who always had a cat crawling across her keyboard; Aoife, who had the warmest smile I’d ever seen; and Liam, who looked permanently confused by whatever time zone he’d woken up in.
I’d worked with teams before, but something about this one was different. They didn’t treat me like a newcomer or an outsider. They treated me like I had always belonged.
“Morning, Leila,” Aoife said as she joined, her hair in a messy bun that somehow still looked professional. “Is it true the sun is actually out in Galway today, or did I hallucinate that?”
“It’s true,” I said. “For an hour, at least.”
Everyone groaned knowingly.
Michael laughed. “Enjoy it while it lasts. The sun is a fickle creature here.”
Clodagh’s cat knocked a pen off her desk. “He agrees.”
I grinned. It still amazed me how quickly these people had opened their arms to me. I wasn’t used to it—or maybe I was still recovering from Berlin, where everything had felt a bit more distant, a bit more formal. Here, even over video, warmth radiated through the screen.
We went through a few translation updates, some editorial queries, a new client’s impossibly convoluted request that had us all laughing. Then, as usual, Michael segued into small talk, which always became the unscripted heart of these calls.
“So, Leila,” he said casually, “have you found your pub yet? Every Galway local needs a pub.”
“Oh yes,” I said with mock seriousness. “We’ve found one.”
Liam leaned forward. “Which one?”
“The Silver Rose.”
Aoife’s eyes lit up. “Oh! I know that place.” She pointed at the camera excitedly. “I’ve been there twice! Great little spot—dark wood bar, loads of candles everywhere, right?”
“Yes!” I said, delighted she recognized it. “That’s the one.”
“I remember their stew,” she added. “And the musician that played something that sounded like ... I don’t know ... heartbreak and whiskey?”
I laughed. “That sounds exactly like the right description.”
The whole team was invested now.
“Does it still have that funny chalkboard sign outside?” she asked. “The one that says, ‘Soup of the day: Guinness’?”
“It’s still there,” I said. “Elias took a picture of it. He thought it was the most Irish thing he’d ever seen.”
“It is,” Aoife confirmed solemnly.
I loved this. The easy banter. So different from Berlin, and even further removed from what I’d experienced in Shiraz.
The feeling of belonging. The way my team—my team—took genuine interest in my new home.
“So,” Michael said with a smirk, “what sort of drinker is Elias? Quiet contemplator or loud storyteller?”
“Oh, storyteller,” I said. “But he swears the alcohol isn’t responsible.”
“That’s what they all say,” Liam muttered, earning a wave of laughter.
I thought about the last weekend at The Silver Rose—how Elias had held court with Lucas, the two of them laughing so loudly they’d practically shaken the rafters. How I’d watched them with a strange mix of affection and disbelief: we live here now. In Ireland. This is real.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.