First Day
567 Words
I didn’t sleep much.
Not because I was panicking — that would have been easier to explain — but because my body refused to relax. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind replayed the same image: Lucas Reed standing in my building like he belonged there.
Like I didn’t.
I got ready slowly the next morning. Shirt. Jacket. Keys. The routine mattered. It kept me grounded. I checked my reflection once, then deliberately didn’t again.
Mara watched me from the kitchen, coffee in hand.
“You don’t have to be dramatic,” she said carefully.
“I’m not.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been tying your shoes for three minutes.”
I stopped. Untied them. Retied them once, properly.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
She didn’t argue. That was how she loved me — by knowing when to let things go.
The office was already tense when I arrived.
Not frantic. Not loud. Just… alert. People whispered more than usual. Managers moved with purpose. Someone mentioned a boardroom reservation being extended indefinitely.
I sat at my desk and opened my laptop.
Ten minutes later, an email came through.
Mandatory departmental briefing. Conference floor.
No sender name needed.
I stood with everyone else when the doors opened.
Lucas entered last.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t smile. He wore confidence the way some people wore skin — naturally, without effort. The room adjusted to him without being asked.
I kept my eyes down.
“Good morning,” he said. Calm. Neutral. Bored.
His voice hadn’t changed.
He spoke about restructuring. Efficiency. Vision. Long-term alignment. All the words that sounded clean while cutting deep.
I wrote notes I didn’t need.
Then his gaze swept the room.
It passed over me.
No flicker. No pause. No recognition.
Something hollowed out in my chest — not sharp enough to hurt, just deep enough to ache.
“Questions?” he asked.
No one spoke.
His eyes landed on me then — not on me, just in my direction.
“You,” he said. “Your name?”
The room went quiet.
I looked up.
“Ethan,” I said. Then, because silence stretched, “Ethan Cole.”
He studied me for a second. Assessing. Not remembering.
“Your report on last quarter,” he said. “You’ll revise it. Cut ten percent. Focus on scalability.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded once, already done with me.
That was it.
No warmth. No hostility. Just dismissal.
And somehow, that was worse.
After the meeting, my manager stopped by my desk.
“You’ll be working directly under Mr. Cross now,” she said. “Temporary assignment.”
My fingers froze above the keyboard.
“Is there a reason?” I asked.
She smiled the kind of smile that meant don’t ask again.
“Opportunity.”
I nodded.
Of course.
The day passed in fragments. Emails. Deadlines. Silence.
Lucas didn’t speak to me again.
At six sharp, I shut down my computer.
Outside, Mara was already waiting.
She took one look at my face and unlocked the doors without a word.
I sat down, exhaled, and stared straight ahead.
“He still doesn’t know, does he?” she asked softly.
I shook my head.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“That’s…” She swallowed. “That’s cruel.”
I didn’t answer.
Cruelty implied intent.
This was worse.
This was nothing.
- Writer
