I loved my job and working for Lisa. She’d hired me when my resume had nothing on it but a coffee shop job and a college GPA. My boss had taught me how to write proposals, how to talk to clients, and how to hold my own in a room full of men wearing nicer suits than mine.
Telling her felt like handing her a grenade.
What if she thought I’d flirted with him? What if she chose him and I lost everything? What if I blew up a marriage over messages I could’ve just deleted?
Telling her felt like handing her a grenade.
***
I drafted a resignation email one night at 11 p.m.
“Lisa, thank you for the opportunity, but I’ve decided to pursue other avenues.”
I deleted it.
I drafted it again the following morning.
“Lisa, effective two weeks from today…”
I deleted that one too.
I drafted a resignation email.
***
Rachel called on a Sunday. She could hear it in my voice before I said a word.
“Cin, you’re shrinking. I can hear you shrinking through the phone.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You document, and you tell her. In that order.”
I said I would. I meant it, in the way you mean things at 8 p.m. on a Sunday and then don’t mean them at 8 a.m. on a Monday.
She could hear it in my voice.
***
That Monday, I stayed late to finish a report.
The document on my screen blurred as the sun dropped behind the parking lot trees. I’d promised Lisa I’d have the client summary ready by morning, and I was almost there. Almost.
Above the filing cabinet, the small black dome of a camera blinked with its steady red light, the way it had every day since Lisa walked me through the office on my first morning and mentioned, offhand, that insurance required it. I barely noticed it anymore.
I was almost there.
Then the office door opened.
Mark walked in with that same easy smile, the one that used to seem friendly and now made my skin crawl.
“You’ve been ignoring me for weeks.”
I didn’t look up from the monitor. “I really need to work, Mark. This is due tomorrow.”
He didn’t leave. Instead, he smiled and drifted closer, his hands in his pockets, as casual as if we were old friends catching up.
“Come on. You used to laugh at my jokes.”
