Hope had two university degrees.
Two master's degrees.
She spoke five languages fluently. She could translate legal documents, recite constitutional law, analyze literature, solve economic models, write reports, correct grammar in four of those five languages — and yet, no one would hire her.
Not even for a basic office job.
Every morning, she opened her laptop and applied to more jobs. Every afternoon, she rewrote her CV, updated her cover letters, searched for new listings. Every evening, she refreshed her inbox, hoping for something — even a rejection, just to feel seen. But there was nothing. Just silence.
It wasn’t a pause. It was an erasure.
Months passed. Then years.
At family gatherings — what little remained of them — people would ask politely, “So… still looking?”
Some were blunter: “But with all your degrees, how can you not find anything? What’s wrong?”
As if the failure wasn’t in the system, but in her.
She stopped talking about her efforts.
Stopped mentioning the interviews she never got.
Stopped telling anyone how, sometimes, she didn’t eat all day so she could afford internet for job hunting.
She was living on scraps — not just of money, but of dignity.
Eventually, she took a job at a call center. It was soul-crushing. She answered the same 30 questions every day, with fake cheer in her voice, while her supervisors criticized her for not “sounding happy enough.” One of them told her, “You’re too serious. Smile more. Customers like that.” She wanted to ask if he smiled while trying not to cry in the bathroom during his break.
But she said nothing. She needed the job.
So she answered calls. Fixed people’s internet. Took insults from strangers. And when her shift ended, she studied — because even now, part of her believed that more education meant more chances .
She enrolled in a second university. Another degree. She wasn’t even sure why anymore. Maybe it was survival. Maybe it was hope in disguise. Or maybe it was just fear — fear of stopping. Because if she stopped learning, if she stopped doing, then what would be left?
Nothing. Just her.
She walked to class in clothes that no longer fit. She hid her broken shoes under desks. She smiled at professors and classmates and never once mentioned that her dinner the night before was bread and tea. She volunteered to help with student events, offered free tutoring, even translated flyers into three languages.
No one noticed.
At the call center, her body began to protest. Her knees ached from standing. Her voice became hoarse from repeating the same scripts. She would come home and collapse onto the mattress on the floor — no frame, just a mattress — and stare at the ceiling, wondering how she had become a woman who lived inside a life she didn’t choose .
One day, her father died.
It was sudden — a heart attack.
She didn’t make it in time to say goodbye.
He died without knowing how hard she’d tried. Without ever seeing her succeed. Without ever saying, “I’m proud of you.” Not even once.
She returned to work the next day. There was no paid leave. No one asked about her loss. A customer called and yelled at her because their router wasn’t blinking the right light. She apologized.
She apologized for everything.
Months later, her mother collapsed.
The hospital kept her in a coma for three months.
COVID regulations meant Hope could only visit twice a week, for minutes at a time.
She watched the woman who once gave everything for her now lie hooked up to machines, fading day by day.
And then — she got the call.
Her mother had died. Alone.
Hope didn’t cry.
There was no one left to cry to.
Now she was alone in the world.
No siblings. No close friends. No partner. No children.
Just books. And bills. And silence.
She moved through her days like a ghost.
Still working. Still studying. Still smiling politely.
She signed up for training courses, certifications, online diplomas. She filled notebooks with information she might never use. She submitted government applications to become a public employee — exams, forms, more exams.
For ten years, she tried.
Ten. Years.
And each time, she failed — not because she lacked knowledge, but because there were never enough positions… or the system was rigged… or someone else's name was already penciled in before the exam even began.
She finished the second degree.
Then a second master’s.
And still — no one would hire her.
Not even for an entry-level job.
Not even for a receptionist position.
At her next job — a marketing assistant position — she was overqualified, underpaid, and constantly humiliated. Her boss, an old man with greedy eyes, molested her one day after hours. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She froze. And when he told her not to say a word, she nodded.
But she started looking for other jobs.
One day, he found out.
The company had posted her own position online — anonymously.
She had applied, unknowingly, to replace herself.
When he saw that she had applied elsewhere, he called her into his office and yelled, “How dare you look for another job while I’m still paying you?”
She said nothing.
She walked out.
And the world, once again, moved on — as if her life had never mattered.