By Monday morning, the silence around Liam was different.
It wasn't cold.
It wasn't suspicious.
It was waiting.
People had stopped trying to guess his exit timeline.
Stopped speculating about the family business.
Stopped asking altogether.
The machine had moved on.
At 9:13 a.m., Emilia sent a follow-up:
Hi Liam,
Just checking in on the final confirmation regarding your departure. We'd like to finalize the date and ensure smooth knowledge transfer to Ravi.
Let us know by EOD today. Thanks.
He stared at it.
This time, there was no room for a vague reply.
No more clever delay.
No more buying time with charisma.
The bluff had expired.
He stepped into the hallway, pacing past the wide window bays. Outside, Amsterdam was bright, crisp — trams buzzing, cyclists in coats, the world moving on without him.
He thought of all the things he'd done to avoid a single assignment.
All the little lies.
All the wasted hours spent curating an image.
All the moments he might've just... asked for help.
Instead, he'd built a house of excuses. And now, he was locked inside it, holding the keys.
At noon, he opened the offboarding form again. Typed in a date.
Three weeks from today.
Paused.
Deleted it.
Typed in another:
Friday.
Then stopped.
Stared.
Closed the tab.
At 2:04 p.m., Anika dropped a file on his desk — one of the backlog reports they both used to review together.
She didn't say anything, but she left a sticky note on top.
"Whichever door you choose — just walk through it."
At 3:15, Emilia came to his desk.
He stood before she could speak.
"I'd like to withdraw the exit process."
She blinked, surprised.
"I lied," Liam said. "About the family business. About everything. I was trying to dodge a task I didn't want. And then I couldn't stop lying."
The words came slowly, like draining a wound.
"I'd rather stay — and do the work honestly — than leave just to protect a version of myself that doesn't exist."
A long silence.
Then Emilia nodded once.
"I'll escalate it. You'll need to speak with senior HR. There may be consequences."
"I understand."
She studied him for a moment. "It takes some people years to admit what you just said."
He nodded. "Took me months."
That night, Liam left the office without his usual exit ritual.
No headphones.
No stretched smirk.
No glances over his shoulder.
Just a steady walk to the tram.
He didn't know if they'd let him stay.
Didn't know what the team would say.
Didn't know what was next.
But for the first time... he wasn't hiding from it.