Walking into the office the next morning felt like stepping into an alternate universe. Usually, I could count on a handful of curt nods, a few distracted greetings, and maybe one or two people who outright ignored me. But today? Today, it was like I was walking a red carpet.
“Good morning!” chirped Sandra from HR, who had never spoken to me before unless it was about mandatory training sessions.
“Morning,” I muttered, blinking at her like she had grown a second head.
“Wow, didn’t realize you were the girl,” one of the interns whispered as I passed.
The girl? What was that supposed to mean?
By the time I made it to my desk, I had already been stopped three times by people gushing over my shoes—apparently, they were the office hit of the day. Two others had hit me with the standar
