The Other Ever After

Olivia had been staring at the same sentence for so long her eyes started to feel personally offended by it. Empire Daily buzzed around her, keyboards clacking, phones ringing, the usual symphony of mild panic that passed for productivity. Her coffee had cooled into a sad cup of regret. Her soul felt similar.

She was halfway through rewriting a headline for the fifth time when one of her colleagues drifted past her desk, tapping the edge of her monitor with the side of his hand.

“Boss wants you.”

Olivia let out a small groan. “What does he want now?”

He shrugged. “Maybe to congratulate you. That ‘Ten First-Date Red Flags Women Pretend They Don’t See’ piece is blowing up. My girlfriend sent it to me and circled, like, half of them.”

“Glad I could help your relationship,” she muttered, pushing her chair back. Her legs felt stiff. Or maybe that was her patience. Hard to tell these days.

As Olivia headed toward her editor’s glass-walled office, she let out a long, exhausted breath. Five years at Empire Daily, and not one of them had gone the way her twenty-two-year-old version had imagined. She’d marched into this building as an intern convinced she’d be covering city politics or digging into courtroom stories by now.

Instead, she’d become the unofficial queen of mildly humiliating lifestyle pieces. Dating mishaps. Shopping guides. Articles about emotional burnout disguised as comedy. Things her editor insisted she was “naturally good at,” which was code for “you’re staying in this box forever.”

She reached the door, knocked lightly, and heard his familiar “Come in!” float out.

She stepped inside. Her editor, Chris Bennett, barely looked up from the chaos of papers and two half-eaten granola bars on his desk. He pointed to the chair across from him.

“Olivia. Good, sit. I wanted to talk to you about your next piece.”

“Great,” she said, and she hoped it sounded enthusiastic. It probably didn’t. Her sarcasm liked to get ahead of her better intentions.

Chris brightened a little, the way he always did when he thought he had news she’d appreciate. “I’ve got something very exciting for you.”

“Let me guess,” Olivia said, already bracing herself. “Another deep dive into why women pretend to enjoy dating apps? Or a guide to choosing the right lipstick for your mood swings?”

Chris stared at her, unimpressed. He reached for a paper on his desk and handed it over.

She took it, expecting a spreadsheet or an outline, but instead found herself staring at a glossy photo of a snow covered town tucked against a mountain range.

“What’s this?”

“That,” Chris said, tapping the corner of the page, “is a charming little place in Canada. Revelstoke. Your next story is going to focus on winter tourism. Small town magic, cold weather activities, all that. You can even add one of your fun extras too, maybe something about small town dating during snow season. Readers eat that stuff up.”

The words barely left Chris before Olivia’s whole body went tight. She’d had enough, honestly more than enough, and the irritation rose so fast she didn’t bother trying to swallow it.

“Really, Chris?” She tossed the paper down, the motion quick and irritated. “I’ve been here for five years. Five. And in all that time I’ve written about why first dates feel like job interviews, how to fix your life with scented candles, and whether owning houseplants counts as maturity. I’ve been asking you for work that actually says something. I even pitched you topics I could cover, things that matter. And nothing.”

Chris opened his mouth, but Olivia wasn’t done.

“Last month I practically begged you to let me take the city council corruption piece. And who did you give it to? Ava. Who’s been here, what, a year? And her article didn’t even land.”

“She earned it,” Chris said, a little too quickly. “She’s eager. She takes initiative.”

Olivia kept her expression neutral, though her thoughts didn’t match.

Sure. Initiative. If that was what people were calling late nights in Chris’s office now. It wasn’t exactly a secret. The interns whispered about it near the break room every time someone reheated soup.

She inhaled slowly, trying to steady herself. She wasn’t jealous of Ava. She was tired. Tired of pretending she didn’t want more. Tired of acting grateful for assignments that scraped the bottom of her ambition.

“Chris,” she said, pushing the paper back toward him, “I can’t keep doing these pieces. I need something real.”

Chris blinked at her like she’d missed the point entirely. “This is real. You’re getting the chance to write about actual people in a beautiful small town in Canada. What more could you want?”

Olivia stared at him. “You know exactly what I want.”

“Olivia,” he said, leaning back in his chair as if preparing for a lecture, “you’re good at these pieces. Your articles always do well. You have—”

“No.” She cut him off before he could finish. “I’m good at writing. There’s a difference. I can take the most boring topic you throw at me and make it readable. Not because the story is strong, but because I am. And if you’d let me write about something that matters, my work would be ten times better. You know that. You do.”

Chris rubbed a hand across his forehead, already annoyed. “Liv, I’m sorry, but you need to stick to what you do best. No one else here can pull off these lifestyle pieces the way you do.”

“That’s because no one else wants to write them,” she snapped. “You don’t have anyone else. It’s always me. Poor Olivia. Give her the fluff, she’ll make it shine.” Her voice rose, sharp enough to make him straighten. “But if you don’t start taking me seriously, I’ll quit.”

Chris let out a short, disbelieving breath. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, I do,” she said, heat pushing into her face. “Trust me.”

Chris studied her for a moment, and for once he actually looked unsure. Maybe it was the way she squared her shoulders, or maybe he finally realized she wasn’t bluffing for once. Either way, Chris let out a slow sigh and glanced down at his desk.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Listen. Write this article. And after that, I’ll figure something out. I’ll find you a different assignment. Next month.”

Olivia hesitated. For a split second, she pictured herself standing up, walking out, and never touching another dating-advice piece again. She should do it. She knew she should. But the truth was, she liked this place. She liked the noise, the people, she even sort of liked Chris. Despite every questionable decision, he wasn’t awful. Annoying, yes. Sexist-adjacent sometimes, sure. But not awful.

She sighed. “Alright. One more chance. I’ll do it. But if you don’t give me something real after that, I quit. I’m not joking.”

“Deal.”

“There’s one more thing,” he added, lifting a finger.

“Of course there is.”

Chris cleared his throat. “You leave next week.”

“Leave? Leave where?”

“To Revelstoke,” he said. “You should go in person. Get a feel for the place. Talk to people. It’ll help the piece.”

“Perfect,” she said, flat and unimpressed. “Can’t wait. How long am I staying?”

“A month.”

A month.

Fantastic.

Exactly the timeline she wanted to hear in the middle of winter.

But she was tired, and the fight in her had burned out about three arguments ago.

“Fine,” she said. “But I want to stay somewhere nice. And the company’s paying.”

“Obviously,” Chris said, nodding quickly.

“And I want a raise. My last one was three years ago.”

He gave a short nod, all business. “We’ll sort it out.”

Olivia pushed herself up from the chair and exhaled. “To Revelstoke, then.”

Chris slid the paper back across the desk toward her. “Try not to look like I’m sending you into exile. You might actually like it there.”

Olivia didn’t bother answering. She just picked up the printed photo, stared at the snow covered town for a long beat, and tried to imagine herself anywhere inside it. A street, a café, a tiny shop with bells on the door.

Thrilling. A snow globe. Just what I wanted, she thought.

She set the photo aside and moved toward the door, the mental image of all that snow following close behind.

“We’ll book your flights today,” Chris called after her.

Olivia lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave without turning around. She wasn’t sure if it counted as agreement or surrender.

Either way, she was going to Canada.