By Thursday, the firm had begun to notice something it could not name neatly.
Ronda was still there.
That was the strange part.
She still signed in on time.
Still completed tasks.
Still answered questions with the same discipline that had always made people take her seriously when they were willing to.
Still carried herself with the same quiet professionalism that gave no one clean permission to call her careless or emotional or distracted.
And yet.
Something had loosened.
Not her standards.
Not her intelligence.
Not even her effort.
Her belonging.
The place could feel it.
She saw it first in herself on the bus ride that morning.
The city moved around her in its usual unromantic violence; conductors yelling, elbows pressing, heat gathering too early, people cursing traffic l
