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After maybe half an hour, the small pack of office bigwigs came over to my cubicle with Aidan leading the way. It didn’t feel like half an hour, though. It didn’t feel like anything. Time had lost meaning, but in whatever time had passed, I had slipped into some sort of haze as I psyched myself up for what came next, for what I thought was a brilliant idea.
Because yes, I was going to burn this job offer in a blaze of something I was ready to call glory, even if it met no one else’s definition of the word but my own. I was just cocky–arrogant, even–because in that burning, I was also going to take Aidan down with me, which would likely help Ellie’s rise.
But even that was a foolhardy thing to think. It relied on so many assumptions and no evidence. One assumption was that Aidan wasn’t actually a nepo-baby, or–at least–the type of nepo-baby who had impenetrable armor. And second, I was assuming that his boss would have to be willing or able to blame him for not seeing what a problem I was. Both felt like sizable gambles in hindsight. But in the moment, I didn’t see it that way. I wouldn’t let myself look through the haze of the bravado I had kicked up.
With his usual grandeur, Aidan led the procession to my cubicle, and I felt a thick bile rising up the back of my throat. It burned the muscles as it moved. The discomfort made me crave Ellie’s company all the more. I wanted to text Ellie to complain about him, to indulge in that mutual “whinge” fest that Aidan’s presence always instigated. It was a habit, a comforting one, and I was feeling the stress of that entire situation creeping up on me: the undesired job offer, the sudden fellowship, the overwhelming need for a transition I didn’t know how to make. All of it weighed down on my shoulders, and there was no way out but through. This stunt was me pushing myself through.
And yet, my heart pounded harder, as if it were begging me to reconsider. It wasn’t ready for this, for the change I was forcing. But it couldn’t be helped anymore, I tried to say to myself. I had to do this.
I had already gathered up my things into a random box I found in the copy room, which wasn’t much. I didn’t display any pictures or bring in a reusable coffee mug, and desk trinkets were an unheard-of concept to me. I used to like clutter. When I was a kid, I found something comforting in the messes my mom hated. In all likelihood, I already had a hoarding tendency, but in time, I graduated from collecting things to collecting problems and insecurities. She yelled at me less for those.
The panel of judges drew closer. The death knell for this period of my life rang out louder. And in response to that call, my lungs rattled as I took a deep breath. The time had come, I supposed. This chapter of my life was being forced shut in a way that I didn’t think made cohesive sense relative to the rest of the narrative. And yet, I had to do this. I didn’t have a choice anymore.
Aidan gestured to me, likely for the benefit of those following him, but unbeknownst to Aidan, in doing so, he gave me the signal. And I took that cue to heart.
I took the long strap of my purse and draped it across my body, like it was some sort of ceremonial garment. It wasn’t, obviously. I had gotten the purse for five bucks on a clearance rack at a store that one might call a clearance shop, but be that as it may, it suddenly had a part to play in a moment that felt far more profound than it had any right to. There was weight to it, undoubtedly. This gesture was the beginning of something, the wind up to a pitch. But I was lobbing a hand grenade. There was no way I could come back after this.
Perry lifted her head when she saw movement in my cubicle. I didn’t catch her eye at first. I was too busy gathering up the loose papers of notes where I had scribbled vague plot points or outlines with the assumption that one day–hopefully in the near future–I could use those random ideas and turn them into something that vaguely looked like a book. My hands were starting to shake as I did this, but that small sign of weakness went entirely unnoticed.
“Another break, Mia?” Perry said, despite my not taking a break yet that day.
At the surface was indignation, maybe even frustration, which would be expected. After all, she had no way of knowing what was about to happen. As far as she knew, this wasn’t my last day. It was a typical, ordinary day with nothing of note. And so she had a right to get mad when it looked like I was slacking at a job I had every intention of staying at for longer than a day. But I knew there was more to it than that. I knew her. I knew there was joy underneath the surface because she finally had something to be upset about. I’d seemingly given her permission to indulge in her favorite pastime.
I thought she owed me a thank you, to be honest. It was very generous of me to give her a gift of such value.
I said as much. “I’m about to make your day.”
Ellie and I always thought Perry would get a kick out of outlasting me at the office. It was the sort of meaningless nothing that she could draw joy from. Momentary joy, that is, because she wouldn’t never let herself have anything more. I always promised Ellie that would never happen, that I would stick around just to deprive Perry of that joy, but maybe I shouldn’t have been making promises I couldn’t keep.
Loaded down by the few personal effects I had, I marched over to Aidan and the selection committee, meeting them at the halfway point between where I had seen them and where my desk was. While that seems like a logistical inevitability, it was a deliberate choice on my part. The acoustics of the segment of the office were odd. There were places where you could not hear your pod-mates unless they yelled and other spots where you felt perpetually yelled at. But worse yet, there was one spot where any word you said would be amplified to the whole wing. That was the spot I chose. I wanted everyone to hear what I had to say. It was the most efficient way to shame him. For Ellie’s sake, Aidan needed to completely and irrevocably fall from whatever artificial grace he had perched himself on top of. And maybe that wasn’t the sort of thing I could successfully do, but I was ready to try.
Confusion washed over Aidan’s face as I approached, but when he saw the stack of papers I was carrying, his mood lifted a bit. It was a copy (or several) of my resume, he assumed incorrectly and in a way that only he could. And that assumption just fueled the fire burning within me. Aidan didn’t notice.
Aidan gestured to me. “So this is Mia.”
I nodded, acknowledging my name and the role I had been drafted into for the story Aidan was writing about the position he was trying to fill. My next step wasn’t going to land if I didn’t.
One of the older gentlemen extended his hand towards me in a gesture that was touchingly genuine. He was clearly reaching out to me as a potential equal. Yes, I was young and hadn’t curated the sort of reputation that he and his coworkers had, but he clearly didn’t see that as a character flaw. Because of him, I almost felt bad.
I didn’t accept the handshake. Instead, I point-blank said through a painted smile, “Fuck you, Aidan.”
And everyone heard it. The room held its breath. The men in front of me were more confused than anything else while Aidan laughed nervously. He seemed ready to sweep the whole thing aside, to pretend it hadn’t happened or was some sort of fluke of the mind. A cover story wasn’t immediately obvious, but he was doing what he could to come up with one.
And with a quick repeat of my words, I tore apart whatever cover story he was coming up with. “Fuck you, Aidan,” I said again.
Aidan started to scramble, pawing for anything that vaguely looked like a lifeline. “Mia’s just...” He started to say, but he couldn’t finish the thought. There was no good way to finish it. In an office setting, the f-bomb isn’t some playful jab. It has some bite to it. I bit him, effectively. That’s a bizarre thing to do. It’s the sort of thing that one doesn’t automatically know how to respond to. It made a mess that was impossible to clean up.
I cast a glance over to my right, where a woman sat on a man’s desk, smiling from ear to ear. They were too absorbed in their conversation to realize what I had said. She playfully swatted at his arm before pulling her arm away as if hurt by the contact, as if his muscles were so firm and cut so sharply that she had to recoil from the impact. Or maybe it was just a flirtatious spark passing between the two of them that sent her reeling. The man tossed his head back a bit too freely when he laughed, but when it fell back into place, his eye caught on the gold pendant of the woman’s necklace. The chain was too long, in some ways, and in another very specific way, it was the perfect length. The pendant’s small diamond laden heart rested perfectly between her breasts.
“Hey,” I called out roughly.
At first, they didn’t look. So I called out louder. On the second try, the woman lifted her head. The man was quite content with where his was.
“You know he’s also screwing Jane in the parking lot, right?” I said. “He bangs you before work and her after.”
She did not know that, obviously. There was no way she could have found out. The dude wasn’t the sort to be upfront about his activities or history. That would require caring about the women he slept with, and if he did care about them, then he wouldn’t do half of what he does.
The woman–Amelia, I thought her name was–jumped to her feet. Her feelings of indignation flew out of her open mouth. She said nothing, however. There was no way words alone could contain her contempt, but the man laid all his chips behind his words as he pleaded with her to hear him out, to not believe me, and yet to still forgive him for the transgression he was so quick to swear had never happened. None of it made sense, and also none of it mattered to Amelia. She made it clear when she slapped him across the face. Unlike before, this was a real, genuine, and wholly meant slap.
I turned away from the action to the IT guy in the corner. “Are you seriously not going to report all the porn you find on people’s PCs, buddy?”
Jake didn’t care at all about that sort of thing, nor did he really care about me. His expression remained as blank and unengaged as it always did, but other people in the office sweated a bit nervously. And the problem–as unaddressed as it was–did not go unnoticed by the higher ups in front of me.
Aidan muttered my name a time or two. Sweat was pooling at his brow, and he was trying to retain some sense of control. But the sound of his voice had always made me feel sick. Instead of the usual sort of vomit, words came flying out of my mouth.
Loudly and with my head thrown back, I yelled, “And by the way, Barbara threatens her direct reports into being her friends and helping her shop for clothes. I don’t know where she is or how legal that is. But it’s weird.”
I lowered my gaze and locked eyes with the old man in front of me. “That’s weird right?” I asked in a low voice.
He didn’t know how to answer. He was wholly unprepared for that sort of thing. And given my behavior, right then, I could admit that perhaps I was not the best judge of normalcy. While I could have pointed out that I was deliberately flouncing these norms to make some sort of point, it didn’t matter.
For good measure and my own piece of mind, I turned to Perry one last time. “And have fun with your pyramid scheme garbage, you dumb, miserable, bitch.”
The air was sucked out of the room again. The parting blow, that final jab at Perry, might have been something many wanted to say, but it still didn’t soften the landing. It wasn’t the sort of thing that should have been said, and everyone knew that.
This breach of social etiquette was appalling. It all had been, and until I walked out of that office, there was no reason to think it would be over. So in some way, they all had a grievance. It was just for an offense that hadn’t happened yet. And I was fine with that. I didn’t hate most of my coworkers, but it wasn’t my job to care about them. It wasn’t like they cared about me, which I was okay with. It didn’t matter. None of it had mattered. None of them mattered.
Only Ellie mattered, and I was doing this for her. I was burning all of these bridges for her.
“Did he tell you that I don’t want this job?” I asked the gentlemen in front of me. “Did he tell you that I don’t even want to be here at all? That I’m independently wealthy and just see this as a hobby?”
The man who extended his hand to me pulled it back. He hadn’t realized it was still drifting in the air. The thought had completely escaped him. He couldn’t be faulted for that.
“Fuck you, Aidan,” I said again. With a gesture to his terrible outfit, I added, “Fuck you and this fucking cosplay you do.”
Aidan put his hands on his hips and pulled back. His head hung low. The neck he had stuck out for me–entirely without my asking–had been cut. By my ax, he’d claim. And by some standards, he wouldn’t be wrong, but in saying that–in putting the emphasis there–he would be showing how much he missed my point.
“And look,” I said to the men, “it’s been fun watching him burn this place to the ground, but like, bros, I’m out. I’m done. I’m not going to be the one dealing with the ensuing cluster fuck. This is me quitting with no notice, effective today, all that because I can certainly afford to burn this bridge that might not exist in a couple years. So yeah.”
I paused as if I was clicking through some mental list of points I needed to relay before I left. It could be a sort of impromptu exit interview or the closest thing I would give them.
“So once again, fuck you again, Aidan. Best of luck to you gentlemen, but,” I scoffed as I patted Aidan on the shoulder, “Some ships have sailed, buddy boy.”
I strutted out of there like I did something. Not something profound or impressive in any way. Quite the opposite. I knew how unhinged my behavior was, but it was such a drastic contrast from my usual stagnation and stillness that an odd sense of pride filled me. I did that. I did something, but that something didn’t have an obvious value or description.
Before my bubble could pop, Erika called me, right as I was walking out of the building with an underpaid (and proportionally motivated) security guard lazily watching me through the glass door. Erika had been right about one thing, as it turned out: there was something liberating about quitting that job. Whether or not that impact would help me creatively was a different matter entirely, an unresolved one at that. Regardless, I was ready to give Erika the good news, though I would have to leave out the reason why. Then there was the whole fellowship conversation. And–well–for once, it was great that Erika was the sort of person who constantly cut to the chase because with my mind buzzing with so many action items and conversation points, I was at risk of getting lost otherwise.
Erika had her own points, of course, which she was inclined to prioritize as all humans do, but they were largely things I was already expecting.
“Mia,” she said explicitly. But there was a lot underneath the surface: a message that was communicated loud and clear.
She was pissed. And yeah... I had that coming.
“Okay, so... Don’t be mad,” I said.
She started to object.
Taking a page from her book, I charged on regardless. “I think this could be the beginning of a new era for us, Erika. I mean, I quit my job, and I’m ready to take the fellowship. And really... Well, I’m ready to stop being so dysfunctional.”
It was yet another promise I couldn’t keep, but if Erika didn’t believe me, she at least knew it wasn’t the time to push back.
“Great, so let’s start with timelines,” she replied with slightly less grit in her teeth.
With my phone pressed against my ear, I felt the buzzing of several text messages ring out through my head. I immediately knew who it was.
Ellie had likely heard what happened. How could she not? Word traveled quickly in that office, and I had strapped a jetpack to it by virtue of where I had been standing. Of course she was going to try to get my side of the story. Because what else was Ellie going to do in the face of that? There was no other option.
But I wasn’t ready to deal with that specific consequence. So, I supposed she could do nothing. There was no other option. I had taken it from her.
“Well...” I started.
Erika audibly groaned.
“No, it’s not like that,” I assured her.
She waited for my clarification with bated breath.
“Do you think I could head out to Dustford now?”