The sky had been threatening melodrama all day.
By 4:30 PM, it delivered.
In Nat’s office, somewhere deep in a city that didn’t believe in subtlety, the rain slammed against the glass like it had unresolved issues. The kind of downpour that made traffic lights look like crying eyes and turned everyone’s socks into existential metaphors. Inside, it smelled faintly of printer ink, rain-damped concrete, and too much ambition. The AC was confused. The room was trying to be both winter and wet monsoon.
Nat, hunched slightly over a scaled site plan for a new exhibition center, was chewing the end of her pen like it owed her answers. Her heels were kicked off under the table. A cold oat latte stood untouched to her left, and a very sassy notification on Slack had just made her rethink the company’s entire hiring policy.
Across some unknown-but-not-so-distant part of town, or was it a different city altogether? Who knew anymore, Miles was in a meeting room that looked like a design magazine and smelled like new leather and impending mutiny.
The rain was equally rude outside his window. But in here, it was silent. Almost too silent. He was currently in Month-End Review Hell, where the only thing worse than the numbers were the metaphors people used to describe them.
Someone had just said, “We need to lubricate the funnel.”
Miles blinked.
Once.
Twice.
He adjusted his collar, mentally filed that phrase under “Things I’ll Never Unhear,” and leaned back. The storm tapped against the window, asking gently, “Do you remember her?”
And just like that, click.
That psychic thread pulled taut again, zipping across thunderclouds, overdue budgets, and two emotionally constipated professionals with highly curated chaos in their lives.
Nat (mentally, like someone just sighed straight into her brain):
“Please tell me the clouds are threatening to unionize where you are too.”
Miles (grinning mid-spreadsheet like he just got a text from his favorite book):
“They’re in talks with the thunder. I’ve offered them dental and PTO. No response yet.”
Nat:
“I’m convinced every intern in this country is a failed AI bot with a PowerPoint addiction. I just got a deck titled ‘Moodboard of Manifestation.’”
Miles:
“Oh, one of mine just told me my leadership style reminds them of a ‘kind tyrant who reads Murakami.’ I’m unsure whether to fire them or adopt them.”
Nat (snorts):
“Anyone who references Murakami and emotional monarchy in the same sentence is either your soulmate or planning your slow assassination via post-it notes. Either way, iconic.”
Miles:
“Should I be involving HR?”
There’s a pause.
The kind where you know the thunder’s about to roll but it hasn’t yet.
The kind where your skin hums because the air remembered something your mind hasn’t caught up to.
Nat:
“You ever feel like everyone wants something from you? Time. Thoughts. Your sixth espresso shot. Your peace.
I mean, is it just me, or does it feel like everyone around us wants a piece lately? Like… everything is a transaction, and we’re the vending machines.”
Miles:
“My playlist. My calendar. My top shelf gin. Today someone said they needed ‘access to my optimism.’ I told them it was a gated community.”
Nat (sighs):
“I swear, it’s like I walk into the office and people line up with emotional shopping carts.”
Miles:
“I feel like I’ve been emotionally shoplifted. Someone today said they ‘wanted my essence.’ What am I, patchouli oil?”
Nat (quietly):
“You’re more like the high-end espresso nobody appreciates until it’s gone and they’re stuck with vending machine sludge.”
Miles:
“I accept this title with grace and a side of existential dread.”
Nat:
“That’s grace, but make it with a smacking jawline.”
Miles:
“Compliment me again and I might float off like a weather balloon.”
Nat (smirks):
“I’ve missed this. Not the codependency, just the humor that saves me ten hours of therapy.”
A Pause.
Rain tap-dancing on rooftops. Both just… listening to it.
It’s been months. But here they are. Again.Miles:
“You know, maybe that’s the secret. We’re not emptying when people ask. We’re echoing. Multiplying.”
Nat (soft):
“You give away light and suddenly you’ve got stars spilling out your sleeves. And you know what’s strange? No matter how much they take; time, energy, sanity, I’m still here. Like the more they grab, the more I become.”
Miles (smiling faintly):
“Like stars. You steal from us, and we burn brighter. But you’ll never take the source. Expansion through attempted extraction. Very Aquarian of you.”
Nat:
“Ohh puhhlease, you're a Libra, if at all anyone's mastered the art of charming people into stealing your peace and thanking them for the experience, it’s you. I just put it in prettier words.”
Miles:
“Prettier words? Darling, you weaponize prose like it’s a public service, and I fall for it every damn time.”
The rain hasn’t stopped. The city is soaked. But in two office chairs across possibly the same grid, something clears. Something exhales. A long, unspoken breath neither realized they were holding.
Nat:
“Okay, back to pretending I know what ‘retractable façade system’ means.”
Miles:
“And I’m off to fire someone politely while quoting Oscar Wilde.”
Nat:
“See you when I see you, Miles.”
Miles (softly):
“And hear you when I need to, Nat.”
Thunder rolls like a private joke shared only between clouds. And in the quiet that follows, two hearts beat louder, not smaller. More, not less.
Because when people try to take from them,
They don’t lose.
They become. They become more.
Until next time
Love, only
S
Comments
Post a Comment