May woke before her alarm, eyes opening to a ceiling she no longer startled at. The quiet was thinner this morning, stretched tight instead of soft. She lay there for a moment, listening to it, then told herself, Just get through today.
She told herself again while sitting up.
Her reflection in the bathroom mirror looked older than it had a week ago. Not by much. Just enough to notice. She rinsed her face, tied her hair back more carefully than yesterday, then changed her mind and loosened it again. Armor, she decided, did not always look like effort. Sometimes it looked like restraint.
The building rose the same way it had the day before. Glass catching the morning light. RCG etched into the side like it had always been there. The initials no longer impressed her. They weighed.
The security desk recognized her this time. A nod. Her name checked off without comment. The temporary badge slid across the counter again, still temporary, still reminding her that she was passing through someone else's space.
Upstairs, the office moved around her as if she were furniture. Present. Unaddressed.
She took her seat quietly, placed her bag under the desk, aligned her notebook. The women from yesterday were already there. Laughter floated between them, light enough to pass as harmless. It dimmed when she arrived, not stopping, just changing shape.
"Morning," someone said, not looking at her.
May answered anyway.
Her first task came with half an explanation. A file dropped onto her desk, instructions phrased vaguely enough to fail her if she misunderstood. She read it twice. Then a third time. The system interface was unfamiliar, but patterns repeated if you watched closely. She opened old reports, traced dates, followed the logic backward.
An hour passed.
When she finally completed the task, she realized she had corrected a discrepancy no one had mentioned. A small one. Easy to miss. She hesitated, then submitted the corrected version without comment.
No one acknowledged it.
She told herself that was fine.
Later, when she went to retrieve printed documents, the stack she needed had been moved. Not far. Just enough to force her to ask.
"Oh," someone said, glancing at her. "I thought you were done with those."
"I wasn't," May replied.
A shrug. A smile that did not reach the eyes. "Sorry."
She went back to her desk with the papers held too tightly. Her fingers tingled.
Near midday, she felt it before it happened. A presence behind her. Her chair was bumped into. Coffee sloshed over the rim of her cup, splattering onto her sleeve and notes. The heat made her hiss quietly.
"Oh, wow," a voice said. "Did I do that?"
May looked up. The apology hovered, unfinished, then drifted away when no one reacted.
She dabbed at the spill with a tissue, careful not to draw attention. The stain spread anyway.
Someone slid a fresh tissue toward her. A woman she had not spoken to before. The gesture was quick, almost furtive.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly.
May nodded. "Yeah. Thank you."
The woman hesitated, then returned to her screen.
The afternoon dragged. Instructions came late or not at all. A question she asked was answered in a way that assumed ignorance instead of curiosity.
"You probably haven't seen systems like this before," one of them said, smiling. "It can be a lot."
May swallowed the reply that rose instinctively. She focused on the screen. On the work. On not scratching the back of her neck even though the urge burned.
During a short break, she opened her phone. Typed William's name. Wrote, [ It's fine, just busy], Deleted it. Typed to kai. And deleted that too.
She did not want to explain something she could not yet name.
She worked through the rest of the day quietly, absorbing what she could. Watching how people deferred to certain voices. How credit moved upward and blame slid sideways. How silence protected those who understood when to use it.
When it was time to leave, no one noticed.
Outside, the city pressed closer than it had in days. Traffic, voices, movement layered too thickly. She walked slower than usual, grounding herself in the feel of the pavement.
At home, she set her bag down and leaned against the door. Just for a second. Her sleeve still smelled faintly of coffee. She peeled it off and dropped it into the laundry without turning on the machine.
She sat at the kitchen counter and ate something small, barely tasting it. Her phone buzzed once. It was a delivery notification she had forgotten to turn off. Nothing else.
Later, lying on the bed, she stared at the ceiling again. This one was familiar now. Not comforting. Just known.
She thought about the woman who had offered the tissue. About the way kindness had to hide here. About how easily she had decided to stay silent.
She was learning things. About RCG. About herself. About how professionalism could be sharpened into something else entirely.
Tomorrow would come.
She did not know yet whether she was bracing for it, or simply refusing to step back.
Either way, she closed her eyes and let the quiet hold, thin as it was.