“Okay.” Navie nodded, taking the big man’s outstretched hand. “I don’t like being alone. Especially in the dark.”

Officer Michaels’ fist clenched tighter around the little girl’s tiny hand. If he could, he would have scooped her up and taken her home with him. That just wasn’t feasible, though. He could only pray that CPS found a decent foster home for the child and that some loving family would come along in the near future to adopt her and give her the life she deserved. He also prayed he never crossed paths with her mother.

It was a good thing to pray for. Those hopes made it easier to hand her off to the social worker a few hours later. As the little girl with the big, navy blue eyes turned to look at him over her shoulder, fear evident in their dark depths as the worker led her away, he found himself rubbing at a dull, lingering ache in the center of his chest.

Closing his eyes after she rounded the corner out of his sight, he offered up his silent words as a lone tear trailed down his cheek.

Dear Lord, please give that little girl a beautiful life.

“I look like a turd.”

My top lip slowly curled up in disgust as I stood in front of the full length mirror in my bedroom, taking in the boxy, ill-fitting skirt suit I was wearing. The ugly brown garment hung from my petite frame in the most unflattering way, making me look at least twenty pounds heavier than I actually was. I wanted to rip the damn suit off and burn it so no other poor, unsuspecting woman would ever have to fall victim to such a crime against fashion ever again.

“You do not!” Harlow insisted passionately from her spot on my bed. A quick glance at my best friend and roommate had me rolling my eyes. She hadn’t even bothered to glance up from her damn magazine long enough to actually look at the monstrosity I was wearing.

“You didn’t even look!” I whined. I even threw in a foot stomp for good measure.

“Oh, my God,” Harlow grumbled dramatically, rolling her eyes. “You look…” As soon as her eyes hit me and she clammed up, I knew it was bad. “Oh, sweet Jesus’s mother, Navie! What the hell is that?!”

“I knew it!” I shouted as I threw myself back onto the bed. “This is awful! I can’t go. I just can’t. There’s no way I can walk into that place dressed like this.”

“What the hell happened to your other outfit?”

As I thought about my sleek, black pencil skirt, I silently mourned its loss, trying my hardest not to openly weep at its demise. “I ripped it on the turnstile,” I sniffled.

I thought back to my first interview with Lauren Brown of Enterprise PR, and how wonderfully it had gone. I’d been on cloud nine the whole way home, when I went through the subway turnstile and ripped a massive hole in the side of my one and only interview outfit. When she called yesterday requesting a second interview, I spent ten minutes doing a happy dance before realizing I didn’t have a single suitable article of clothing in my closet and spiraled into a full blown freak out.

“This was the only thing at the thrift store that even came close to fitting,” I lamented as I stared up at the popcorn ceiling of my bedroom. The tiny Murray Hill apartment wasn’t the best, but it was one of the only places Harlow and I had been able to afford after graduation. We’d been on cloud nine when we signed the lease, convinced we were about to take the world by storm.

Yeah, not so much.

Who’d have thought jobs didn’t just fall into recent college grads’ laps? It was mind boggling when I stopped to think about it. I’d earned a generic business degree for the simple fact that it made job hunting easier. I’d have loved to major in something more creative, but I wanted to ensure that I’d have a way to stand on my own two feet when I was finished. My foster brother, Carson, and his wife, Cassidy, have been fabulous throughout the past four years, but I refused to take another cent from either of them. Cassidy had come into their relationship with a toddler already, and they were expecting another baby in a matter of months. I knew Carson would offer up anything he could to help me out, but he had other things to worry about. I was determined to take that burden off his shoulders once and for all.

Harlow had landed an executive assistant job for some clothing franchise a week back, but had yet to get her first check, while I’d been spending every available hour not spent job hunting, waiting tables at the café I’d been working at since freshman year of college. Needless to say, tips weren’t going to cover my half of the bills much longer.

Call me crazy, but I’d grown accustomed to having a roof over my head and four walls surrounding me. I kind of preferred electricity and running water. I felt pretty confident in admitting that I wouldn’t fare well without it. I watched Naked and Afraid. I wasn’t embarrassed to admit my limitations. And homelessness was definitely a limitation.

Why, oh why, did I have to fall in love with a city that was so damn expensive?

Harlow dropped the magazine onto the bed and stood to her full five feet, seven inches. When she propped her hands on her slender hips and appraised me with narrow, assessing eyes, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat inferior. She was absolutely stunning, statuesque… basically any adjective you could come up with to describe tall, slim and gorgeous, that was Harlow.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t fat at all, but being cursed to only stand three inches above five feet—all right, so I only stood one and a half inches above five feet, so sue me—made it much easier for a slice of pizza, (or the mac and cheese I just couldn’t resist the night before) to show on my teeny-tiny frame. Not only was I a shorty, but I was curvy as well. It wasn’t exactly easy to go shopping for new clothes with my body type. Being poor, short, and curvy, and having no option but to dress like the plain brown M&M no one ever wants to eat was just another one of God’s cruel jokes.

“You know,” she started, “if you’d just call—”

I cut her off with a wave of my hand. It was the same predictable conversation we’d been having for months. “Don’t even start, Har. I already told you. I’m not calling Carson or Cassidy. They have enough on their plates as it is. I’m not asking them for more money.”

“Jesus, you’re stubborn,” she huffed.

I lifted my head from the mattress and narrowed my eyes at her. “Four years of living together and you’re only just now realizing this?”

“You know they’re going to be pissed if they find out you’ve been keeping this from them. They’re your family and they want to help you out. Hiding the fact that you’re broke from them won’t make the situation go away.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I asked sarcastically as I sat up to look at her. “I tapped the last of the savings Carson had for me to put up my half of the deposit on this place, and I’ve been so damn busy with school and work and looking for a stupid grownup job that I haven’t been able to make any jewelry in months, so there’s no income coming in from that, either. What I need is to nail this interview so I can start pulling my weight around here. You riding my ass about keeping things from my family isn’t all that helpful at this point, Harlow.”

“Okay…” she drew out, a look of determination skating across her stunning face. “Then let’s make sure you nail this interview.”

“Yay!” I shouted, hopping from the bed and holding my arms out. “So? Can you help me?” I asked, turning from side to side, hoping she could somehow make the poo-suit work.