Double-Take

Emma swung open the front door and sighed, trudging through and weakly pulling it closed behind her. She dropped her bag onto the floor and dragged her feet as she walked over to her couch. As she fell back, she felt the soft cushions catch her, and she immediately felt relief flood through her tired and swollen feet. Work had been so stressful lately- between moving out of her parents’ house last year, being a full-time college student, and having seemingly endless bills to pay, her issues at work were almost too much to bear. At 19 years old, Emma was already in her senior year of college working towards a master’s degree in engineering. Her internship at SPARK robotics had become a full-time job, and even though it was a dream job for any 19-year-old girl interested in developing new technologies, the job was much different than she had anticipated.

Emma searched for the television remote, wedging her hand between couch cushions until she finally felt the cool plastic beneath her fingers. She pulled it out and clicked the TV on, lazily flipping through channels until she settled on a cooking show that she wasn’t really interested in watching. Her mind was somewhere else anyway- it was hard to focus on pork chops when she had school and work to think about. Emma knew she had a lab report due in three days that she hadn’t even started, and she had four chapters of reading due tomorrow, but she was way too exhausted to even begin to tackle her schoolwork. She felt guilty about procrastinating- the one other time in her life that she relaxed off of her schoolwork was in her freshman year, and she was trying to maintain a social life on top of her studies. At the end of the semester, her GPA dropped from a 4.0 to a 3.8, and her parents never fail to bring it up in every conversation to this day.

School was starting to be less of a priority to Emma anyway- what she was really focused on was her job. If she could get the right opportunity, this job would be her entire future. What she really wanted to do was use physics mechanics to build robotic systems that would fix themselves- service robots that never needed human repairs- but for now she was stuck in an entry level position. Her job right now consisted of the same monotonous routine, the same tedious routine maintenance on other engineers’ developing technologies, the same demeaning calls for coffee runs by stuck up tech workers that made more money than what they were worth.

After what seemed to be hours, Emma impatiently shut the television off and jumped up from the couch, unable to sit still any longer. She passed her kitchen table, which was full of different robotics projects, borrowed tools, and an infinite number of nuts and bolts. Normally she itched to work on her designs, but today her fingers simply had no motivation. She went to her bathroom and began running water for a shower. She reached in and felt the water with her fingers, yelping and pulling away from the icy drops. Her water heater was acting up again, and her landlord had ignored her pleas for help for days now. Sighing, Emma reached in and turned off the water. Washing her face would just have to do for today, again. Maybe if she were lucky, she could bring some extra clothes and find time to slip into the campus gym and shower there.

The faucet squeaked as she turned it on, cold water rushing into the sink and splashing little drops of water onto the counter. Emma cupped the frigid water in her hands, took a deep breath, and splashed it onto her face. The cold water always stung at first, but the stinging usually turned into a calming sensation. She collected more water and splashed her face again, feeling the cool water drip down her skin. She reached for a towel and dried her face, the fuzzy fibers tickling her nose. She set the towel to the side and looked into the mirror across from her, but she was startled by what she saw in her reflection. Her face was pale, her eyes were bloodshot with bags underneath them, and she was starting to get deep creases in her forehead from stress and anxiety. It had been over a year since she started working at SPARK, but in that time she’d been completely oblivious to the toll it was taking on her. She really needed a day off, along with a few nights of sleep.

Her gaze settled back onto her eyes, staring back at her from her reflection. Beyond the obvious signs of sleep deprivation, Emma was disturbed by what she saw. She saw exhaustion, weariness, and stress, but most startling of all, she saw defeat. Emma had always been driven, motivated, and passionate, from the day she was born- it was how she graduated high school at fifteen, how she was about to graduate college at 19, and how she managed to keep track of her bills, her schoolwork, and her job up to this point. She was known among her family and friends for her tenacity and her perseverance, and she was never one to back away from a challenge. She had been through many tough times and many trying emotions, but she had never felt defeat. She felt tears swell into her eyes, and as her own reflection stared back at her she began to recall every hardship, every mental breakdown, every demeaning moment from the last year, memories flooding her mind and spilling out through tears falling down her cheeks.

The worst memory of all was that stupid promotion that she didn’t get chosen for. She had been working there for close to a year at the time, and somehow they gave it to Kyler, a newbie who was barely competent enough to analyze algorithms. Emma stared at her cheeks grow redder as more tears fell onto the counter below. What was so wrong with her? Why didn’t people at her job like her? Was it because of her looks? Emma had never been conventional looking- she had always had a bigger nose and sharp features, with a pointed chin and narrow dark eyes. Normally Emma was fond of her unique appearance, but today she loathed everything she saw, from her thick eyebrows to her lackluster sandy blonde hair, each wave looking messier and messier. Did people not like her because of how she acted? She never had a problem communicating with people, and she was generally pretty nice, but Emma knew she was stubborn and outspoken. She had always loved those traits because they had helped her get to where she was today, but suddenly she was acutely aware of how abrasive she came off around her fellow co-workers. Or, was Emma never even considered for the promotion because she was a woman…?

Her knees suddenly weak, Emma backed into the wall behind her and sunk to the floor, her cries turning into sobs. She felt pain, anger, frustration, self-loathing, but worst of all, Emma felt doubt flooding through her like never before. She began doubting her job, her career choice, her decisions in school, her decision to move out of her parents’ house, and even her own capabilities. Would she ever actually be able to pull off getting the job that she wanted? What if she wasn’t attractive enough or likeable enough, or simply not good enough? How was she even able to be as successful as she had been up to this point? Did her accomplishments even mean anything, or were they just worthless? That word left her gasping for air: worthless…

Emma shuddered, feeling a sensation similar to knives stabbing through her chest. She always knew her parents pushed her to be more, be greater, be better; every time Emma accomplished anything, they would tell her that it could have been done better. She always used their high standards as motivation, but she began to wonder if all those years they were trying to tell her that nothing she did would ever be good enough, that she was worthless….

Her head was pounding from crying, and she began to hiccup while struggling to breathe. Her face felt tight, and she realized that she had been clutching her hair tightly in her fists. She slowly untangled the hair from between her fingers, and when she drew her hands away, she saw strands of hair come out with them, causing her eyes to swell yet again. She put her head in her hands and tried to breathe, her body trembling and her chest in pain. Breathe Emma, you’ve got to breathe she told herself. She knew she was in dangerous territory when her eye started twitching- a sure sign that she was on the verge of an anxiety attack. She hadn’t had one of those since she broke down and began taking the medicine her family’s psychiatrist had prescribed her. She took a shaky breath and crawled forward, reaching up and clutching the counter to help pull herself to her feet. The faucet squeaked again as she turned it on, the sound piercing in her head. Cupping the water in her hands, Emma splashed the water onto her face, the brisk water soothing her tear-stained cheeks. She blindly reached for her towel, grabbing the rough cotton and pressing her face dry, her hands still shaking as she set it to the side.

Emma sighed and reluctantly looked back into the mirror. Her face was red and her eyes were puffy, her nose running and her hair a knotted mess. She stared at her reflection, analyzing every inch of her face. Depression, anger, and frustration filtered rapidly through her mind as she watched her shoulders rise and fall with every breath. She was staring at her rounded ears when she felt a buzz in her pocket and jumped. Shaken, she pulled her phone from her pocket, reading the name and rolling her eyes. What could Carson possibly want right now? She did all her work at the lab before she left today, she greased all of the problem areas on the developing projects, and she knew that she clocked out on her timecard- unlike last week.

She unlocked her phone and scanned over Carson’s email; her eyebrows raised in shock after the first line. They fired Kyler! Emma glazed over the rest of the message barely reading it- something about a poor work ethic and mistakes in the Hunnel Project- until she got to the last few lines. The Hunnel Project was due in three days, and Carson asked Emma to come in to work on the design software with the rest of the team. She couldn’t believe it! The Hunnel Project was one of the biggest projects that SPARK had ever developed; it had taken the company three years to develop the robotic system units that would work to collect pollution in the ocean at new depths than ever before, and the buyer for the project- WasteCo- was a multi-billion-dollar company led by one of the richest executives in the world. The team was under a lot of stress because they had hit a wall with some of the design software functioning properly and being receptive of home signals once the systems reached certain depths of the ocean- and now they wanted Emma’s help!

She sent Carson a quick email agreeing to come in and then shut her phone off. She looked back in the mirror and realized that she had a smile on her face. She let out a little chuckle, and the gaze of her reflection caught her eye once again. All of the fear and doubt in her eyes were long gone- now she saw strength, resilience, and determination. It’s really funny, she thought, how you can look at the same face so many times, and it always seems to look different. Her smile widened, and she felt a new hope rising within her.

She didn’t know how she was going to get her schoolwork done, and she had no idea what her future looked like at the company- but she did know one thing.

Emma was going to fix that design software.

Her head began filling with ideas and excitement, and she turned to leave the bathroom. Maybe she was crazy, but she could have sworn her reflection gave her a wink.