The room went silent. Surprised faces turned to stare at me.
I wasn’t finished. Something was unraveling inside me, spilling out without permission. “People like you used to get lumps of coal, you know. And frankly, that was being generous.”
My voice didn’t even sound like mine; it carried a strange, hollow resonance that seemed to echo even with the conference room’s acoustic panels. Had the lights dimmed? Was that frost forming on the windows?
Mrs. Weston’s mouth opened and closed like a disoriented fish.
Mr. Weston’s face had gone an alarming shade of purple. “Who exactly do you think?—”
“Ms. North.” Bartlett’s eyebrows arched so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline as he stood and nodded to the door. “A word.”
I blinked, the spell suddenly broken. Holy shit. Holy actual shit. Had I just said that out loud? To clients?
I forced out a laugh that sounded like I was being strangled. “Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Following Bartlett out of the room felt like following the executioner to the guillotine. The door shut behind us with an ominous click.
“Ms. North.” His voice was the carefully neutral tone of someone deciding whether to fire me on the spot or wait until after the holiday bonus payouts. “While I appreciate your... passionate advocacy, perhaps save it for your own future clients once you pass the bar.”
Ouch. Did he really need to throw my inability to pass that damned test right in my face?
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Bartlett. I don’t know what came over me. Sleep deprivation and...” I flailed my hands uselessly in the air, searching for any explanation that wouldn’t sound completely unhinged. “Maybe low blood sugar? Or a temporary psychotic break? I’ve never… I would never…” My voice cracked embarrassingly as I watched his face remain perfectly impassive, like he was examining a disappointing legal brief. “I can go apologize right now. Or draft a formal letter? Or do you want me to clean out my desk immediately?”
“Take the rest of the day. You look unwell.” He didn’t wait for my response before striding back into the conference room.
I closed my door behind me and pressed my back to it, keys slipping from my fingers. My chest heaved like I’d outrun something, but the only thing chasing me was my own damn reaction.
Smart move, heart. I’d run from me too right now.
Every memory from the conference room replayed in my mind with excruciating, high-definition clarity. The look of shock on Mrs. Weston’s face. How my voice had shifted into something that didn’t even sound like me. The way thewindows had frosted over in eighty-degree Palm Springs weather.
I peeled myself off the door and stumbled into my bedroom, ripping off my pencil skirt and blouse like they were burning my skin. After rummaging through my drawers, I pulled on black shorts and an oversized T-shirt.
My house felt wrong somehow. The walls seemed to pulse inward, like they were slowly constricting around me. The air felt thick and unbreathable.
I needed to get out. Now.
Grabbing my phone from my purse and my keys from the floor where I’d dropped them, I bolted outside.
The sun hit my face, a physical sensation I could latch onto. The sun was real. The sun was hot. The sun made sense. Unlike whatever the hell was happening to me.
My feet carried me down the sidewalk, past the manicured desert landscaping of my neighborhood. Each step on solid ground should have helped, but the buzzing under my skin only intensified as I moved. The sun that had initially felt grounding now seemed to press down, heavy and oppressive.
The entrance to Rosewood Park appeared ahead. It was a small oasis of shade trees in the desert landscape. I veered inside, grateful for my neighborhood’s astronomical HOA fees and absurd rules. They kept families away, which meant the park was usually empty during working hours. No families. No children’s laughter. No happiness cluttering up the carefully designed paths.
The familiar thought made me feel uncomfortable. How many times had I been relieved at the absence of families? At the lack of children? Why did that suddenly feel like such a strange thing to appreciate?
I sank onto a bench beneath a sprawling mesquite tree, its shade offering minor relief from the heat. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on my breathing, but each exhale felt like it carried frost. What was happening to me? First the date last night, then the meltdown at work.
The silence of the park pressed against my eardrums. Therewas no distant traffic noise, no birds chirping, and no leaves rustling despite the perpetual desert breeze. Just a thick silence that felt almost watchful.
I bent forward, elbows on my knees and face in my hands, trying to snap myself out of the spiral. This was ridiculous. I was tired. Stressed. Maybe having some kind of quarter-life crisis that manifested as temporary hallucinations and bizarre weather phenomena.
A deep breath steadied me enough to sit up straight again. The solid bench beneath me was real. The warm air was real. This weird thing happening with my body temperature was probably a hormone imbalance or something equally mundane. I needed to get a grip, call my doctor, maybe actually use some of those vacation days I’d been stockpiling.
A soft scraping sound, like something large shifting its weight, broke through the unnatural silence.
I looked up.
