By 10:15 p.m. she had been upright since two-thirty in the afternoon and had eaten a granola bar in the stockroom at some point she could not place. The burger came out in a paper wrapper and she ate it in the car. The first bite landed like something chemical; her eyes shut on their own and she made a sound she was glad nobody heard.

She was twenty-seven, and the fridge at home held oat milk and one lime. She finished the burger in the parking lot with the engine running and the radio off, and by the fourth bite it was just food again. What she kept thinking about on the drive was that the best minute of her week had cost $8.40 and taken nineteen hours of not eating to earn.