We each take our flannels, and the fabric is scratchy beneath my fingers, causing my skin to feel like a bug is crawling beneath it. My heart drops. How will I tell her that I absolutely will not be able to wear this for any length of time?Another time,I think to myself as I watch her celebrate this moment with our friends. I’ll ask Hadley the best way to approach it. For now, I paste a smile to my face and lay the flannel across the back of my chair.
We spend another hour eating and pinning boards on social media for Karoline’s wedding. At least, they do. I sit as an outsider to the conversation as I truly have no opinion regarding colors, decorations, and dresses. Though, I do enjoy that Karoline is doing beige and olive green and white. Those colors are earthy and pretty. Plus, Lucy and I look great in green.Finley will think so, too.
Huh. That’s a thought I’ve never had before. It’s more of something my twin would think and voice. But I find it’s true. I know Finley will think I’m pretty in that color.
And I want to look pretty for him.
“What will the fabric of the dresses be?” I interrupt. Three sets of shocked
eyes look at me while Lucy’s jaw drops. I briefly wonder if I’ve asked the question in the wrong way, but as I recall the conversation around me prior to my interruption, I remember they had moved on from dresses and were talking about flowers. I smile sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m a bit late to the dress discussion.”
“No, that’s totally fine, Lor,” Hadley says. Then her ivory white face turns to Karoline. “Did you have a specific fabric in mind?”
Karoline places a black-painted fingernail to her chin. “No. I want each of you to choose the style and fabric that works best for you. Just as long as our colors match, I’m perfectly fine with different styles and fabrics.”
I smile. “Great.”
Lucy tilts her head, an action that is my own when we are perplexed with one another. “Do you want to see the different styles that I think will look good on you?”
“Sure.”
My twin’s eyes sparkle as she rises from her seat on the reclining chair and moves to sit next to me on Hadley’s worn couch. She pulls up an app on her phone and searches through pictures of dresses. As she shows me different styles and cuts, going into detail as to why each would look good on me, my mind is in awe of this moment. I’m not this girl. I don’t talk about dresses and colors and styles. But they have easily allowed me into the conversation. I send a silent prayer of gratitude for my sister, my best friend, and Karoline. I truly have wonderful women around me who get me. Or at the very least, they don’t complain all the time that they don’t understand me like so many peers that I’ve tried to make friends with have done in the past.
“That’s a strange way to file,” my coworker, Hannah Thompson, says, her arms crossed and eyes squinted.What a lovely Wednesday afternoon you’re providing me with, Hannah.
I want to reply, “Then why are you hovering over me insidemyoffice,” but I don’t. I grin a plastic smile and shrug.
“It makes perfect sense to me. Pictures register in the brain quicker than words. By using pictures to file my reports, I can easily identify them.” I know I shouldn’t explain. She will not understand, but I can’t help but try to help her to understand.
“How do you immediately know that the pictures represent certain words?” She sounds skeptical, but at least she’s considering my method rather than dismissing me offhand.
“I associate the pictures on the top of the file with each of my clients. For example,” I hold up the file I’ve been working on but took a break from to organize my other files, “this image of a Christmas tree tells me I have Ms. Gretta’s file in hand before I even register her last name on the side. I associate her with Christmas because it’s an important part of her story.”
Hannah snorts. “Weird. But okay. You do you.” Then she walks out of my office in her clicking heels, her board-straight brown hair swishing behind her.
I have gained nothing but frustration from this interaction.
“Why are you so concerned with how I choose to organize and label my files? They are mine. You don’t have to touch them,” I grumble under my breath after my glass door clicks shut. Okay, she wasn’t mean. I think? But it still frustrates me when people treat me like a child who isn’t capable simply because I create my own systems instead of being “normal.”
Once I stuff all the files away into the metal cabinet, I take a breather and boil water in my electric kettle for tea time. I send a quick email to Mr. Austen, inviting him to my office. He doesn't always come, but he definitely shows up a few times during the week for my 2:30 p.m. tea time. The clear kettle chimes, letting me know it’s ready, and I pour a cup of steaming water into my oversized light brown mug that reads “BAE” in bold, black letters, and underneath it in a smaller black font, “Best Attorney Ever.” It was a gift courtesy of Hadley when I passed the bar exam a couple of years ago.
I plop in a bag of ginger honey tea, then I reach into my mini fridge under my desk, hunting for my bag of sliced lemons. While I’m bent down and moving around lunch meats, cheeses, and a variety of fruits, my office door opens.
“Do you want lemon with your tea today, Mr. Austen?” I ask as I snag the bag from the back of the fridge. I really need to organize this next.
“Lemon sounds grand,” a smooth and chipper voice that is decidedly not Mr. Austen retorts. As I jolt—because Iknowthat voice—I slam the back of my head against the underside of the metal desk. Pain spreads and radiates down my neck.
A word that I don’t recognize is hissed as footsteps draw near. My chair is lightly rolled away from the desk—with me on it and still hunched over my knees. Knowing I’m in the clear to sit up, I do, slowly, as one large, slender hand wraps around my shoulder, guiding me gently. The other hand rests right above my kneecap as Finley Andersson squats down in front of me, a look of pure worry creasing his blond brows as he asks if I’m all right.
“Uh-huh,” I respond, pressing my hand against the backside of my head just to make sure there are no bumps or blood. “Just give me a second. I think I am more embarrassed than anything. I thought you were my boss.”
He removes his hand from my shoulder, flashing the number “two” before asking, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I laugh, the motion of my shoulders rising and falling sends another little wave of pain coursing through me. “Two,” then I add, “You should choose an odd number next time. They are superior.”
“Yep, you’re all right,” Finley breathes a laugh as the hand resting on my thigh squeezes. My gaze zeroes in on that hand, wondering how so much heat can be packed into one man’s touch. It’s too much. I shift away, and he releases me, letting me bend back down to pick up the bag of lemons I dropped. Though this time, I’m extra careful to swing my body away from the desk as I come back up.
I notice he has placed his hand over the edge of the desk where I would have hit if I hadn’t swung my upper body around. That’s… sweet? Or is he already making fun of me?
