The key clicked inside the lock and the door to Scottie´s apartment opened. It didn't feel a lot like coming home.

Carelessly Scottie threw her key into a bowel that stood on the drawer beside her door and discarded her coat. She switched on the light and watched as the hallways was illuminated by the sterile white light. She hadn't bothered to replace the light bulbs with ones with warmer lights.

This apartment was only one stop of many until she could afford something better. Her dad had purchased it for her when she made Senior Associate and had used up all his savings in order to be able to afford it. Scottie appreciated it, but she was Junior Partner and would soon make it to Senior Partner, thus she needed something more appropriate for her station. Until then she would use the money she didn't need to spend for rent to pay her father´s medical bills.

Scottie looked at the pile of papers that were lying on the kitchen tables which she knew were another round of bills and sighed. She didn't know how Harvey was able to afford his condo, his car clubs and the expensive restaurants he was always taking his dates to on his Junior Partner salary. Even if Scottie didn't need to pay all those monthly bills she wouldn't have enough money for all those luxuries.

She was still angry that Harvey had just ended their – not relationship – agreement just for some other man. Maybe she didn't want it to confess it even to herself, but Scottie found a lot of confidence in the fact that it was she to whom Harvey always returned to when he had enough of his other flings. She knew that it was unhealthy – no woman should draw her self-respect from others – but the thrill and endorphins that coursed through her when she knew that she had again prevailed against some other woman always send her on a new high.

And Scottie had always assumed that she – as strong, independent, successful woman – would end things with Harvey. That Harvey got the drop on her was a hard blow against her pride. Everyone in the office would either pity her or overflow with glee that she had been the one who had been on the receiving end of a break-up. Harvey would regret that!

The ringing of her phone tore Scottie out of her sinister thoughts. She looked on the screen and saw the number of the clinic her dad was in appearing. They never called but for the monthly updates on her father´s health. Filled with trepidation Scottie took the call.

"Dana Scott speaking."

"Ms. Scott?" the voice from the other end spoke. "It´s Dr. Hendriks from Rose Medical Center in Denver. I´m very sorry to tell you that your father passed away in his sleep last night…"

passed away in his sleep last night

passed away in his sleep

passed away

passed

Dr. Hendriks continued talking, but Scottie couldn't hear him anymore. Empty words of condolence, of pity, she didn't want to hear. Her phone glided out of her hand and shattered on the ground, the sound echoing through her flat like a gunshot. Slowly Scottie sank to the ground, her gaze unfocused and her hand coiled as if she was still holding her phone.

Her father was dead.

She would never have the chance to talk to him again. To see him smile, to see that mischievous glint in his eyes when he told her how he´d flirted with the nurses on the station. She would never again rant at him about Harvey Specter and Louis Litt and never see the proud expression on his face when she would tell him of how far she had made it.

Her father was dead.

Scottie barely felt the tear that was running down her cheek and the others that followed soon after. She was too numb to care, the disbelief within her wrestling with all those other feeling that slowly emerged to take her over.

Her father was dead.

"Argh!" she screamed and threw one of the nearby glasses against the wall. It shattered into hundreds of pieces that slowly fell down on the ground. The prognosis had been great, the doctors had said, they even planned to take her dad off his medications. How could they have let him die? How could they?

Her father was dead.

But the worst of it all was that Scottie hadn't been there. Her father had died alone in a sterile hospital room without the daughter he had raised. He had died not knowing all the things that were now making their way on the forefront of Scottie´s mind. And all of it was her fault.

Her father was dead.

She couldn't stay here. The space around her was suddenly too small, the air suffocating her and the white light seemed to taunt her with its cleanness. The shadows all around the flat had become so menacing, stretching out to cling onto her. The silence was too loud. She couldn't hear – couldn't think, couldn't feel – anymore. She needed to get away from this silent reminder of what her dad had sacrificed for her.

Slowly Scottie picked herself up from the ground and staggered to the door. She barely remembered to pick up her key before she fled her apartment.

Scottie didn't know how long she had been walking – it could have been just minutes or several hours, she didn't really care – but during her escape all the despair, grief and rage within her had slowly turned into bone-deep exhaustion. It was like she had used up all the energy she had and now she had trouble setting one foot in front of the other.

Scottie looked around. In her desire to escape the confinement of her perfect empty apartment she had paid no attention to where she was going. She hadn't cared back then. The world was an ugly, monstrous place full of selfish people and pain, so why did it matter where she was going? The sky was grey everywhere, the people´s gaze harsh and cold no matter if you were in Manhattan or the Bronx and you couldn't run from hurt that had buried itself deep inside your heart. There were no streets that could help her escape the pain. Each of them just led back to the beginning.

Scottie took a deep breath and felt the fresh air cursing through her lungs. It tasted cleaner – purer – than amidst the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan, even though it couldn't hold a candle to the air around the vacation home in the Rocky Mountains her father had always taken her to. Scottie remembered the smell of grass, elder and pines; the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves and the gurgling of the crystal clear water in the small stream not so far from the house.

The memories, once a source of happiness and joy, now only brought pain with them as Scottie remembered the laughs of her father that had rang over the clearing. How he took her younger self at her hand and explored the forest with her, patiently explaining every plant and its function in the forests ecosystem to an enraptured little girl for whom her father was the centre of the world. All gone now.

The pain suddenly became too much – too intense, overwhelming – and Scottie had to sit down on one of the stairs leading up to the buildings behind her. The people continued to pass by her, not bothering to even look at her as they made their way down the street and it made Scottie furious. How dare they ignore her and her pain? How dare they to smile, to be happy, to continue their lives as if nothing had happened? Didn't they notice that everything was wrong? That the world they had gone to bed in yesterday wasn't the same as the one they did wake up to today? Scottie wanted to scream and to rage at them, just to feel something other than grief, but she was too tired to do anything. If they couldn't bother why should she?

So Scottie just sat there on the stairs, watching people and cars pass by, until her feet were numb and her hands so cold that she couldn't feel them anymore. She looked at her hands – those elegant, slender and perfect manicured things – like they were something foreign. Like they did not belong to her body. What a peculiar feeling. She should tell Harvey about it.

But then Scottie remembered that Harvey had cast her aside for someone else and the realisation that she was alone – alone in a city of millions – threatened to overwhelm and consume her. Her hands began to shake as it dawned her that without her father there was no one left that would defend her unconditionally. She had to fight for herself now, because no one else would.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Scottie was torn out of her reverie by a hesitant male voice. She looked up to see a young man standing in front of her. His blond hair was dishevelled as if he just came out of a storm, he wore a stylish skinny tie to his expensive blue suit and his sky-blue eyes looked at her with worry.

"Are you alright?" the man asked and Scottie snorted.

"Do I look like I´m alright?" she shot back and the man flinched. A wave of guilt washed over Scottie. The man was just trying to do what he thought would help, there was no need for her to be that nasty.

"Sorry," she apologized. "Today´s been…difficult." The man nodded and to Scottie´s surprise sat down right beside her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked and Scottie looked at him incredulously.

"Why would I talk about it with a complete stranger?" she demanded to know. The man just shrugged.

"I don't know," he confessed. "But it´s a classic trope in several books and movies, isn´t it? Meeting a stranger who listens to your worries and spouts some piece of wisdom which helps the other person to find the resolution for a problem of his or hers." He grinned at her, which made him look even younger, but not in a negative sense. He had a boyish sort of charm, Scottie thought.

"Are you wise then?" she inquired.

"I´m twenty-seven," the man chuckled. "I think you have to have at least a few strands of grey hair and an eccentric hobby in order to be wise." After that silence descended upon them. It wasn't awkward or forced like those moments when you ran out of topics to discuss. To Scottie it was somehow soothing to just sit there with this strange man who just decided to sit there with her without demanding something in return. Who would listen to her without her having to worry about possible repercussions. Scottie couldn't remember the last time something like that had happened.

"My father died today," she said after a while, ending the silence with her words that sounded so loud to her own ears. "I got the call today." It was so difficult saying it out loud. It was childish, Scottie knew that, but it was less real as long as she wasn't forced to say it. The words leaving her mouth made her father´s death real – tangible – and she couldn't take them back. Now the stranger knew and soon others would know as well and then her father´s death would be a fact that she couldn't escape anymore. "He was the only family I had left. My mother left us when I was five and he raised me alone. And now he´s gone." She swallowed as tears threatened to spill.

"I won´t bother with condolences," the man replied. "Because I know that the last thing you want is pity from someone who can just turn his back at your misery, go home and leave you behind with your grief." The man took a deep breath. "And I won´t tell you that the pain will fade away, because that´s utter bullshit. The pain won´t go away. Never. You just learn to live with it. You build a cage around it and banish it back into the darkest corners of your mind, so that on most days you can forget that it exist. But on some days the pain will break free and you have to fight it back again."

"But there´s one thing I can promise," the man continued and looked at her. "I can promise that you´ll be happy again. One day – not tomorrow, the next week or in a month – but one day you´ll have made so much new happy memories that you can think of him and smile."

"You sound as if you had experience with that," Scottie inquired carefully.

"My parents died in a car crash when I was eleven," the man explained. Scottie didn't say anything at first. The blonde had probably heard all variation of 'I´m sorry' and hated them with the same passion that she would if she was in his situation.

"That sucks," she replied.

"You´re the first one to word it like that," the man said with a dry laugh. "But it´s in the past. I had my grandmother and great friends who helped me deal with it. And now I live a life that my parents would be proud of. Would your father be proud of what you achieved?" Scottie thought about it. About her father who fought the whole neighbourhood for her so that she could join the boys' soccer team because there hadn't been one for girls in a radius of several miles; about her father who didn't even blinked when she joined both the cheerleaders and the debate team in High School and supported each equally; about the father who created mock test after mock test when she was studying in Harvard because they couldn't afford the expensive booklets; about the man who cried unabashedly when she finally graduated and spent every single dollar he could on her so that his daughter would have no disadvantage in the world of legacies, corporate heirs and trust-fund-babies.

"He would," Scottie said. "He was." She felt lighter after that realisation. Her father had always been proud of her, but having it spelled out by a stranger made it even more obvious. Maybe Scottie had needed that. Had needed that certainty. She turned towards the stranger.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, not suspicious but curious. Scottie would have never spoken to a complete stranger simply because he looked like he needed it. What had driven the man to do it, though?

"Talk to you? Wanting to help you?" the man replied and Scottie nodded. "Because I can´t simply walk past a person who looks like she needs help. That's not who I am. And maybe it´s idealistic and naïve, but it´s something that I chose to do and I won´t give that up."

"Did it help at least?" the man asked.

"I think it did," Scottie replied lost in thought. "Only time will tell."

"By the way, my name is Mike," the man introduced himself. "I think I forgot to mention that." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment and looked at her coyly. It was somehow adorable and a faint smile appeared on Scottie´s face.

"Dana," she introduced herself as well.

"Will you find the way back to your home by yourself?" Mike asked. "You looked like you were lost before."

"It would be appreciated if you could show me the way to the next subway station," Scottie conceded. No way she would walk all the way back.

"Well, Dana," Mike leapt up from where he was sitting and made an excessive bow towards here. "It´d be an honour to chaperone a lady as beautiful as you." He held out his hand.

"Such a charmer," Scottie replied and took it.

"But totally innocent," Mike added as they made their way down the road. "My admiration for the fair sex is purely intellectual." Scottie led out a breath of relief. She had already readied herself to refuse Mike´s advances, but apparently that wasn't needed.

"Mine as well," Scottie joked and Mike cracked a smile at her.

"Here you go: a subway station," Mike said and pointed at the sign at the end of the road they had just entered. "I take you´ll find your way from here? I have a date in an hour I want to go on."

"I will," Scottie confirmed. She hesitated for a moment, then turned back towards Mike.

"Mike," she said. "Thank you." There was no need to say more. Scottie could see in Mike´s eyes that he understood what she wasn't saying. Thank you for being there; for talking to me; for preventing me from doing something stupid. Mike just nodded.

"If you ever need some stranger to talk to, just call me," he said hesitantly and offered her a small piece of paper on which a barely legible number was written. Scottie smiled and Mike visibly relayed.

"Do you offer your number to every stranger you meet on the street?" Scottie asked jokingly.

"I made half of my friends that way," Mike replied with a grin. "I have contacts all over the city."

"You´re one of a kind," Scottie said fondly and pocketed the number in her pocket. "Bye, Mike."

"Take care of yourself, Dana," Mike replied. Then she turned around and made her way to the subway station, wind wafting through her hair and a small smile on her face.

The key clicked inside the lock and the door to Scottie´s apartment opened. It felt a lot more like coming home now.

Carelessly Scottie threw her key into a bowel that stood on the drawer beside her door. She switched on the light and watched as the hallways was illuminated by the sterile white light. She would replace them tomorrow.

"I´m home," she whispered.