Fractures You Can’t See
The elevator ride felt like a test.
Calla stood silently at the back of the elevator, surrounded by the low hum of hushed conversation and the soft ding of each passing floor. Two junior analysts, likely fresh out of grad school, whispered near the buttons. Their eyes flicked up toward the mirrored panel in front of them, then toward her reflection. Not obvious. Just enough to be felt.
She shifted her weight and looked away.
"Don’t overthink it," she told herself.
But that gnawing, too-familiar feeling—like being the joke everyone was in on but you—had been creeping back all week. First, the strange stares. Then the missing file. Then the silence from Jules, who’d once laughed with her over vending machine coffee and bad boss impressions.
The elevator dinged
