The words hang in the air like an actual belch.
A strangled whimper escapes me.
I slam the stop button so savagely I nearly put my thumb through the screen.
The room falls into the kind of silence reserved for funerals. Twenty pairs of eyes ping-pong between me, the traitorous phone, and me again. Like they’re trying to reconcile this aggressively cheerful audio version with the sweaty, shell-shocked disaster standing before them.
Like they’re waiting to see if I’ll burp, just to complete the prophecy.
“I didn’t quite get that,” Siri chimes sweetly into the carnage. “Would you like me to search foranti-flatulence medication?”
“Excuse me,” I croak, my voice scraping over the enormous lump of shame in my throat.
I don’t look at Craig’s purple face.
And Idefinitelydon’t look at Patrick, because if I catch even a flicker of whatever’s brewing in his eyes, I’ll never recover.
I bolt for the door as fast as my stupid heels will allow, my shoulder slamming into the CEO’s solid chest on the way out. For one horrifying second, his hand rises as if he might catch my arm—steadying me or stopping me, I can’t tell—before it drops back to his side.
Behind me, Craig’s voice booms. “Right then! Sorry about that, everyone. Probably just... women’s problems, you know how it is. Roy, mate, why don’t you take over?”
Women’s problems.
As if I fled because my ovaries suddenly malfunctioned.
I wobble-sprint down the corridor, vision blurring, chest locked up too tight to breathe.
The second I reach the bathroom, I shove open the door, stumble into the last stall, and collapse onto the toilet seat.
Then I break.
Ugly, body-shaking, snot-producing sobs that come from somewhere deep. The kind that makes you wonder if you’ll ever stop feeling this mortified.
TWO
A fort of old keyboards
Georgie
The toilet seat isfreezing through my dress, but I can’t move. My legs are numb from curling up, knees hugged to my chest, but walking out there and facing humans feels impossible.
My phone buzzes.
Roy:
Georgie, love, where’ve you gone? It’s fine, honestly.
No, Roy. It’s so far from fine that fine is a distant dot on the horizon.
Another buzz.
Riri:
From boardroom presentations to BBC News at Ten!
I tuck my knees tighter and press my forehead against them. Maybe if I make myself small enough, I’ll dissolve into the plumbing and disappear into London’s sewage system forever.
“By Monday, they’ll be talking about something else,” I whisper to my kneecaps.
