Being A Fangirl

Seven

Tori stared at her mother for a few seconds, taking in her appearance with a shocked expression. And then she spoke.

"Mom, why are you crying?" She asked in a whisper as she sat down beside her mother.

"It's nothing, dear. It's really nothing, I'm just being stupid." She quickly wiped her tears away and looked at her daughter with a tight-lipped smile. Tori looked back, studying her. Her mother kept looking at her with the same smile for a couple of seconds until Tori noticed that a new wave of tears welled up in her mother's eyes and rolled down her face. Her mother looked away.

"Mom," Tori said in a demanding tone and held her mother's hands. She let her. "Why are you crying? What happened?"

Tori's mom looked at her again and sighed. "Guess I should tell it to you about it now. I lost my job, Tori." She croaked.

"What?" Tori nearly yelled. "But how? Why?"

"They fired me." Her mother spoke as another tear rolled down her cheek. Tori quickly caught it and gently wiped it away with her finger. "They said I had been slacking off on the job recently. They told me that I was leaving assignments unfinished, I wasn't obeying orders correctly..."

"Well, didn't you say anything in return?" Tori asked, the lines on her forehead deepening.

"Of course I did. I told them it wasn't anything like that. I had only slowed down because of all the increasing work they had loaded on me. Day by day, I had more assignments to fulfill. There was only so much I could do. Besides, I told them I had to look after you too, so I couldn't afford staying late at the office as well." Her mother looked at her daughter and tucked a strand of hair behind Tori's ear.

Tori nodded. "But you've been a secretary there for like two years now?"

"I know. I even told them that, but they weren't being reasonable. They said I had lost the spark and if I wasn't able to keep up with my job, then there was no reason I could keep it. They also told me that they were trying to downsize their workforce, so they had to make some employees redundant."

"But why you?"

"I don't know, dear. I guess I wasn't valuable to them much."

"You lost your job today? Or yesterday?"

"Uh...no." Tori furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Her mother looked down at her hands and began fumbling with her fingers.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Tori, I lost my job a month ago."

"What?" Now Tori yelled. She stood up abruptly, shock clouding her whole face. "You lost your job a month ago and you're telling me this now? Then why are crying right now?"

"Tori, listen to me. Let me explain." Her mom spoke. Tori huffed and nodded. She sat back down beside her mother.

"I lost my job a month ago. And since then, I have been trying to find one ever since. For the past twenty seven days, I have been going in and out of various offices and have been dropping in copies of my resume, just so that I could get another one."

"But you have arrived home late, like you always do after work?" Tori stated, more like a question.

"Yes, I have been doing that, trying to kill time so that I could arrive home at five like I usually do so that you don't have any suspicions."

"But then what about the day Ally came over? Why were you home early?"

"I had received a call from a company telling me that I was rejected, I hadn't got the job there either."