The rain came down in sheets against the glass, turning the Chicago skyline into a blur of gray and silver. Courtney stood at her apartment window, a half-finished glass of wine in her hand, her blazer tossed carelessly across the arm of the couch. Her head was still full of the day—Dwayne's cutting remarks, Harold's veiled smirk in the boardroom, the suffocating sense that no matter how hard she pushed, someone was always standing by to shove her two steps back.
She exhaled slowly, the kind of sigh that carried more exhaustion than breath, and set the wine glass down on the sill. Her eyes drifted toward the small bookshelf in the corner, where a battered leather notebook sat wedged between marketing textbooks and dog-eared novels. The edges were frayed, the binding loose, but Courtney knew every page inside by heart.
