I opened my laptop, told myself I’d just skim and flag the urgent ones.
Forty-five minutes later, I was still there.
Buried in briefs. Highlighting jargon. Making comments in tracked changes and rewriting lines that should’ve been caught by people who’d claimed to have passed the bar ten years ago.
The longer I stared at the screen, the easier it was to forget the soft look in Fifi’s eyes when she’d told me about wanting children, about building a home where barefoot kids collected eggs and named the chickens after pop stars.
That now felt like a world away.
Untouchable.
The digital kind of chaos I was used to made more sense. You could fix it. Check it off. Reply all and move on.
But feelings?
Honest conversations about futures and what kind of life you want to build with someone you’ve known for all of a week?
That was messier.
I clicked out of the window and let the laptop fall shut with a hollow thunk. The soft clack of the keys was almost too loud in the room’s sudden silence.
My phone buzzed again.
Another text from Dustin.
Told you not to overthink it. Just enjoy the ride.
I stared at the words.
Then locked the screen.
The thing was, I didn’twantto just enjoy the ride. I didn’t want Fifi to be just a summer distraction that I forgot about by October. I wanted to be better than that and more present than that. I wanted to be stronger than the fear chewing through my gut like acid.
But the truth was, I didn’t know how to be that person yet.
Not with this past.
Not with this career.
Not with a family legacy I’d never really unpacked.
I leaned back on the bed, closed my eyes, and let the questions stack up around me like another inbox full of emotional blind spots.
Because if I didn’t figure it out soon?
I was going to lose something real.
I should’ve just turned it off.
Unplugged. Powered down. Thrown it in the lake and blamed it on a rogue otter.
But no. I opened my laptop again and immediately regretted every single life choice that led me to this moment.
The screen flickered awake like a smug little gremlin, and Outlook greeted me with its usual overzealous flair—blaring banners, subject lines in all caps, and three chat pop-ups from junior associates asking for clarification on things I had already explained twice before I left.
I took a deep breath, braced myself, and began scrolling.
The first email was titled:
