Just long enough to figure out what comes next.
Today hits like a brick—the kind where summer is technically still alive, but you can feel it slipping. The light’s already different when I pull into the garage. Sharper. Less forgiving. Like the season knows it’s on borrowed time.
I haven’t even set my bag down that Monday before Jim starts pacing.
The conference room door is open, his voice carrying down the hall. Too loud. Too tight.
“—numbers don’t lie,” he snaps. “And right now they’re telling me marketing missed the mark.”
My collar gets hot.
I slide into my chair, open my laptop, pull up the deck like muscle memory. Around me, the team is quiet—no side jokes, no casual coffee sipping. Everyone knows when Jim’s like this, shit rolls downhill fast.
“The quarter projections were aggressive,” Jim continues, hands braced on the table. “But sales didn’t come in. Which means someone sold a vision we couldn’t back up.”
He looks directly at me.
Not accusing.
But notnotaccusing either.
“We need answers,” he says. “And we need them now.”
I nod. “We’re digging into the data. There were some regional pullbacks we didn’t anticipate?—”
“Anticipate better,” he cuts in. “Because right now, the board’s asking if marketing got distracted.”
That lands.
I don’t miss the implication. Neither does anyone else.
The meeting drags. Action items. Emergency reviews. Late nights implied without being said. When it finally breaks, my BlackBerry is vibrating like it’s trying to crawl off the desk.
I don’t look yet.
I know who it is.
I make it halfway back to my office before I check.
Missed call.
Missed call.
Voicemail.
Another missed call.
All from Sage.
My chest tightens.
I don’t call her back.
I tell myself I’ll do it in ten minutes. After I send this email. After I calm down. After I figure out how to explain a day that already feels like it’s unraveling.
The truth is—I don’t have the bandwidth.
Work is on fire. My boss is hunting for a scapegoat. And the thing with Sage… it’s been escalating in ways I don’t quite have words for yet.
