Chapter 4

"What??" Philip, startled, asks. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I knew it was too good to be true," Daniel says. "Hangover and bad news all together, what a great Friday afternoon!"

"It's NOT my fucking fault! She said the client wanted these changes before giving the go ahead!" Ruth exclaims, probably as much upset as everyone else in the room.

A tense silence hovers in the meeting room. Philip has his hands in his head, trying to cope with the fact that he has a huge load of work for this weekend to deliver what Agatha obstinately demanded in her morning meeting with Ruth.

"What a fucking bitch," he says, exhausted. "I mean, it's not even the client's fault; she delivers us on a silver platter to them. What is this shit? Is she even getting more money from them for the extra work? Are we getting paid for the fucking extra hours?"

"C'MON, Philip!!" Daniel shouts! "Of course not! These fucking bastards don't care SHIT about YOU, about RUTH, about ME, about anyone other than themselves! Not even about the fucking COMPANY. They just want to look good by getting a shitload of projects!"

"Daniel, this is out of my control. What do you want me to say? I fucking tried to tell her it was impossible and completely out of hand having the team do this over the weekend!"

"Ruth, it's not YOUR fucking fault! I've been in this company long enough to know how this 'elite' of stuck-up assholes works." Daniel pauses, and closes his laptop. "Monday, I'm signing my resignation letter; I don't need this shit. I'll help Philip and everyone else over the weekend, but after that, I'm fucking gone from this shithole of a company."

Daniel leaves the meeting room, along with the other colleagues, leaving Philip and Ruth sitting next to each other, silent before the tension that built up in the room.

"Well ... The hell with it, Philip," Ruth says, as she begins to pack her laptop and notes in her case. "We'll get this shit over in the weekend. C'mon, a bit more of patience ... And hey, at least we had some fun yesterday."

Philip doesn't even look at Ruth as a sad, awful feeling of guilt crashes into him.

Since he got home yesterday and found Ilene sleeping in the bed, he's hardly uttered a word to her. Even during their morning nine blocks walk to the company, he barely said a word, let alone looked directly into her eyes.

Philip feels irremediably devastated.

"Ruth ... We'll talk on Monday, OK?"

And with that, Philip leaves the room.

Saturday morning, and Philip is typing code in his laptop, sitting in his old couch in the cold, faintly-lit living room of his rented old apartment. Tiredness and frustration weigh on him; each line of code he does more painful than the last one.

Ilene walks out of the kitchen, in a warm, worn-out grey pullover and panties, wearing nothing to protect her legs from the creeping coldness. All of the few other pants she has are drying out.

"Here, I brought you some hot chocolate," she smiles.