An exhausted groan was heard inside the tiny bedroom, as the alarm would not stop ringing.
Stretching out her left hand towards the wooden table, Paola switched off the alarm clock and weakly sat up on her bed, stretching her hands up in the air as she yawned with her eyes closed.
She was completely exhausted.
Yesterday, she worked overtime at the company (her place of work) where she was an office worker. She returned home at exactly 10pm, and did not even have the time to cook something nice to eat.
She simply went to her small-sized refrigerator and brought out the leftover noodles she didn't finish eating in the morning, all in the name of hurrying to work, so that she would arrive there early and keep a perfect record as usual.
A perfect record that was of no use. After working in the company for two years, others were promoted countlessly.
As for her, she had never smelled any promotion, let alone grabbed it.
But she kept on fooling herself, by believing that one day, her own promotion would surely come to her.
However, who was she kidding?
Paola got out of bed and entered her bathroom. A bathroom that was so small that it could be called a closet. Unfortunately, she was broke. Therefore, she did not have any money to rent a bigger apartment and had no other choice but to manage this apartment.
After all, she was the only one living in it.
She stood in front of the sink cabinet and sighed in defeat as she stared at her reflection in the mirror that was hung on the wall.
Her brown hair was very messy and unhealthy. She had split ends almost all over her hair.
And her face, she would believe it if someone told her that trash was thrown at her face.
"I look very horrible". She admitted the obvious. Her palms were on both sides of her cheeks as she continued to look at herself in the mirror.
"I look completely like a trash can. The orphanage should not have sent me away. Being outside the orphanage and working in a company is much harder than I ever imagined. Being independent is extremely agonizing". She said to herself again, and rubbed her palms on her face.
This year, she was 26 years old.
She could vividly remember how excited she was when she celebrated her 18th birthday, eight years ago.
The moment she had been waiting for her entire life. To be free from the orphanage.
You see, she has not been very lucky like the other kids since her childhood.
All the kids were adopted by nice parents, wealthy parents.
But her? She was a complete outcast. No parents wanted her.
They always walked past her and adopted the very kids standing next to her.
'What have I done wrong to deserve this?'. She always wondered.
It got to a point, and she turned fourteen. That was when she lost all hope of having a person to call her own parents.
Even the orphanage guessed that no one would want to adopt an older child, so they tasked Paola with taking care of the other kids, as she was the oldest of them.
Four years later, after Paola turned 18, she got the wish of her life.
Her life-long wish of finally leaving the orphanage, making a lot of money, and traveling around the world.
As she left the orphanage, the orphanage provided an apartment and a job for her, with some money after they assisted her in opening her very own bank account.
There, her real-life journey began.
A year later, she regretted leaving the orphanage.
As a young adult, she suffered too much.
First, she was kicked out of her apartment because she didn't have enough money to cover the rent.
Second, she was fired from her job after being framed by her best friend.
With the little money in her hands, she used it to rent this tiny apartment, as it was very cheap.
She began to work all sorts of jobs. Including working overtime in countless convenience stores.
With her hard-earned money, she graduated five years later from a university with an engineering certificate.
But in the end, what happened?
She ended up as an office worker, all because she did not have higher-up friends or supporters who would help her get a job as a professional engineer.
This year marks 2 years since she started working for the company as an office worker.
Paola stopped looking at her reflection in the mirror after letting out a deep sigh.
She went ahead and brushed her teeth, before removing her clothes and standing under the rusty shower.
The expression on her face looked dull and void of emotion as the cold water poured on her skin.
Actually, the shower was faulty, and she needed to fix it, so that she could bathe using warm water.
But, fixing the shower was not on her budget list for this month. She decided to have it fixed next month.
Paola finished bathing and went out of the bathroom, with a white towel wrapped around her body.
After walking toward her tiny closet and standing in front of it, she opened it, and only a few outfits greeted her, as she didn't have extra money to purchase more outfits to wear.
In every week of work, she always repeatedly wore a particular outfit twice, sometimes, three times.
Her colleagues had asked her about it, but she politely dismissed them with the usual words with a bright smile on her face, "Seriously, I do not know how I always made the same mistakes and ended up buying the same outfit twice. Making you guys think otherwise".
Paola picked out jean trousers with a white t-shirt that had short sleeves. Today was Wednesday, and she had worn this particular jean trouser on Monday already.
…
Tina Nwuba: "Welcome to my new book, readers. I hope you enjoy this book too, just like the other book (Mr Alpha, I Am Not Your Typical Lady!)".