Monday morning is my worst enemy. I don't want to say goodbye to my blissful weekend, I hate to go back to my chores after having a super lazy Sunday, and I loathe this stupid traffic. But with another human being sitting in my backseat and needing to be at school in fifteen minutes, I have no choice but to dip my butt into this craziness.

Sitting in the driver's seat, I lean forward with my fingers clutching the steering wheel. My eyes are fixed on the traffic light, wishing I could burn it down with an invisible laser light coming out of my brown pupils. We've been stuck at this intersection for a good twenty minutes, and the freaking light turns green only for fifteen seconds before switching back to red. I swear I will sue the person who made this rule.

To add to that, my seven-year-old daughter hasn't stopped chirping since she woke up this morning, prompting me to bite the inner part of my cheek to refrain from snapping at her.

"Diana and Robby kissed last week," Chloe says. "Does it mean Robby is Diana's boyfriend now?"

"Uh..." I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to recall any conversations with my sister about her daughter having a boyfriend. Nothing comes up. "Can be. What did Diana say about it?"

"Well, Robby never really said they are a couple but Diana thinks that they are."

"Oh." The green light blinks. I grab the stick and shift, ready to hit the accelerator but the red mini cooper in front of me doesn't move its ass fast enough. "Come on, come on, come on, you turtle!" The orange light flickers and right after the car passes the line, the red light returns. I throw my hands in the air and cuss, "Dammit! You gotta be kidding me!"

"Calm down, Mama."

I grit my teeth. "We're late, honey."

"I know, but swearing is unnecessary."

Shit. I gulp down a fake lump in my throat, having a taste of my own medicine. She just repeated the very line I said to her every time people cursed in front of us. I sigh. "You're right. Sorry. That was unnecessary."

"So, do you think they are boyfriend and girlfriend now?"

Here we go again. She will not drop the topic until she says so. "I can't answer that question, to be honest, but if they have kissed like what you said, they probably are."

Children nowadays are nothing like what I knew back in the day. I don't know if I wanted to laugh or cry when I learned that kids at Chloe's school were already familiar with the idea of dating and kissing. Some of them even went home with plastic bands wrapping their fingers and proclaimed that they were married! It's just a puppy love thing and it's harmless, but it's enough to give me a headache when my daughter shoots random questions now and then. Especially when I suck at that department.

"Mrs. Donegal kissed the gardener but they are not a couple."

My breath hitches in my throat. "What?"

"Mrs. Donegal kissed Mathew but they are not a couple," Chloe repeats her line, slower with more pressure in her tone as if I'm too dumb to understand her.

"Yeah, I heard that," I reply, shifting my gaze to her in the rear-view mirror. "But how did you even know about this? Did they do that in the open?"

"No." She frowns but then her eyes widen. She lets out a soft gasp as she brings her hand to cover her mouth.

I peer at her. "Chloe Ann Garnett, did you use the telescope to spy on our neighbors?"

My daughter winces before reluctantly lifting her gaze to look back at me, a regret coating her eyes. "It was an accident! I didn't mean to spy. I was just cleaning it up and peeking through it to check if the lenses were clear enough, and...I saw them."

I take a deep breath as I massage my temple. "You know the rule, young lady. No telescope for a week."

"But I didn't do it on purpose, Mama. It really was an accident!"

"It doesn't matter. You broke the rule, so you need to hand it to me tonight. End of discussion."

My daughter grunts in the backseat but she doesn't dare to say anything further, which is smart of her. We've agreed about this before. Since she'd developed an interest in astronomy and all the things happening in space, I bought her a good-quality children's telescope for her birthday gift six months ago which she loves to bits and pieces. However, there are rules that she needs to follow: regularly clean it by herself, and not use it to spy on neighbors.

The green light finally blinks again, granting permission for me to run my car at the maximum speed limit. But it's useless. A few hundred meters ahead, we are greeted by the same problem again. That's it. I'm done with this nonsense. I need to either move to the neighborhood closer to her school or transfer her to the school closer to our house.

This was never a problem before, but since they built the toll road across our town last year, the traffic hasn't been the same. To make it worse, the toll entrance is right between our house and Chloe's school. Every morning, cars are piling up on the street, waiting for their turn to pass the gate. And Monday is absolutely the worst.

At the next traffic light, Chloe still doesn't say a word. She's probably busy licking her wounds from getting her baby suspended for a week right now. I glance at the mirror to check on my daughter who is staring out of the window with a gloomy face. Feeling my chest tighten, I fight the temptation to reconsider my decision. This is one of the real struggles to become a parent: teaching your child lessons with a minimum degree of lenity. But as much as I don't want to see her sad, I need to be consistent with my words. She needs it.

I know she was telling the truth when she said it was an accident. But she also needs to learn that there are two kinds of accidents: the one you can prevent from happening, and the one you can't do anything to avoid. Hers definitely falls into the first category. She might not have done it on purpose but she also didn't keep in mind how important it was not to point the telescope lens at the neighbor's space. Hopefully, this suspension will help her remember it next time.

I clear my throat. "So, about Mrs. Donegal–" I pause a bit, observing her. "You're right. Some people kiss but they aren't necessarily a couple."

Chloe turns her head slowly, and her emerald green irises lock with mine. "Will Mr. Donegal be angry? Diana gets angry every time Robby plays with another girl."

"Pfft." I wrinkle my nose, thinking about the best answer I can come up with. "Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes, adults do confusing stuff, but it's only confusing because we don't know the whole story behind it. Maybe Mr. Donegal knows about it and he doesn't mind. Maybe he doesn't know it and he will get angry when he finds out. But the thing is, it's not our problem to worry about."

Our car stops a few meters from Chloe's school entrance four minutes before her class starts. Once she manages to get out of her seat, she leans over to give me a quick kiss, not quite in a cheerful mood yet.

"Have fun at school, sweetie," I say as I beam at her. "And oh, what you saw in Mrs. Donegal's house is not something to discuss with someone else. Okay?"

"Okay," she mumbles.

After putting on her green knit hat, Chloe hops off the car and runs towards her school gate.

For the third time, I promise myself that I will never drive to my new workplace. It's located in the city which theoretically is only a thirty-minute drive from our place. Theoretically is the keyword because it only happens in the middle of the night. During rush hours, once I enter the city's inner ring, the traffic is pure evil. I make a mental note that I need to find a private school-bus service for Chloe so that I can take a train to work.

This is my second week joining Remington Group, a worldwide energy supplier company. After four years working in the construction & transport industry, I finally made my way through to an account executive position in this multi-billion dollar company. To be honest, I still can't believe that they see me fit to join their team; it feels surreal. It's probably pure luck, or maybe I deserve it —I don't know, but raising a kid on my own has slowed me down with my career path. Sometimes, it forced me to skip opportunities because of my situation as a single mom. Not that I regret it because Chloe is my priority.

I almost decided to let her go eight years ago, but the more she grew in my womb, the more I couldn't bear the thought of losing her. The fluttering, kicking, rolling, or even the rhythmic twitch of her hiccups inside my belly were the moments I waited eagerly for every day. When she was born, I was sold.

The first year of becoming a mom was hard. I had to take a break from university and focus on her, with my parents' help, of course. As expected, they weren't happy at all when I broke the news about my pregnancy, but they fell in love with Chloe instantly once she was born. I went back to school after Chloe was eight months old, determined that it was my turn to focus on the plan for my future that I had abandoned long enough. Little did I know that things would never be the same because Chloe had become a part of my future.

"Good morning, Ms. Garnett," greets a woman behind the receptionist desk as I enter the Remington building. She digs into a white box in front of her and pulls out a small blue card with a gold and yellow string attached to it. "Here is your ID card. You can use it as a building pass and access certain facilities. The details are stated on the backside of the card. Can I have your trainee pass back, please?"

"Sure." I hand her the ID card I used during the welcome training last week. "So, I go straight to the Knight and Co.'s floor today?" I ask after having a quick look at my new company ID card.

"Yes. It's on the fourth floor. You will be expected in the main meeting room."

"Oh?"

"They have a kick-off meeting every first Monday of the month. Everyone will be there and as a newcomer, you will be introduced to the whole team. Good luck!" She smiles at me like a toothpaste model.

"Right. Thanks" —I glance at her name tag— "Francesca." With that, I turn on my heels and make my way to the fourth floor.

Despite being employed by the Remington Group, I was hired for its subsidiary, Knight & Co., which exclusively handles the marketing and distribution work. After spending a few days on the welcome training and corporate introduction last week, my actual first working day has finally arrived. And I'm nervous as fuck.

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