Chapter 2: The Thing She Thought Would Settle Her
731 Words
Ama had learned to recognize the sound of expectation.
It was the quiet hum beneath her thoughts as she walked back to her desk. Not loud enough to panic her, not sharp enough to stop her functioning, just steady. Persistent. Like background music you don’t notice until it suddenly stops.
“We’ll talk,” Kojo had said.
Those two words followed her.
She opened her laptop and stared at the screen, blinking once, then twice. Her inbox refreshed automatically. Nothing new. She checked anyway, as if the act itself might summon something into existence.
“You were solid in there,” Mensah said, leaning against the partition beside her desk. He spoke with the casual confidence of someone who had never doubted his place in a room. “Clean delivery. Straight to the point.”
“Thank you,” Ama replied.
“You should expect good feedback.”
She smiled politely. “I don’t expect anything.”
Another lie, lighter than the first, but still a lie.
Mensah nodded, already half-turned away. “Well, you deserve it.”
Deserve was a dangerous word. Ama watched him leave and wondered when she had started believing that deserving and receiving were distant relatives, not siblings.
She tried to focus on her work, but her mind kept rearranging the same scene. Kojo’s eyes lifting. His smile. The way he had said her name. She replayed it, searching for weight, for intention, for proof that this time would be different.
She wasn’t waiting for praise, she told herself. Not exactly.
She was waiting for recognition that felt personal, like someone had seen not just what she did, but what it cost her to do it so well without being asked.
Her phone buzzed.
Her breath caught before she could stop it.
Unknown number.
She unlocked the screen anyway.
“Hi Ama, this is HR. Please can you stop by my office before the close of the day?”
Her chest tightened, disappointment and curiosity tangling into something sharp.
Before the close of the day?
Later again.
She typed a quick reply and set the phone down, more carefully this time.
Esi rolled her chair closer. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re spiraling.”
Ama laughed softly. “I don’t spiral.”
“You overthink in straight lines,” Esi corrected. “It looks calm, but it’s still spinning.”
Ama looked away. “Kojo said we’d talk.”
Esi raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“And nothing yet.”
Esi sighed, not unkindly. “Ama, can I say something without you pretending it doesn’t matter?”
Ama hesitated, then nodded.
“You keep waiting for people to hand you moments you should already be standing in.”
The words landed heavier than Ama expected.
“I’m not waiting,” she said quickly. “I’m just… observing.”
“Observing what?”
“When it will finally feel settled,” Ama replied, before she could stop herself.
Esi’s expression softened. “Settled how?”
Ama didn’t answer. She didn’t have a language for it yet. Just a picture in her head. A version of herself who didn’t rehearse conversations alone, who didn’t brace for silence, who didn’t feel the need to earn space.
Later that afternoon, Kojo walked past her desk.
“Hey,” he said, slowing. “About earlier.”
Her body responded before her mind did. She straightened slightly. Met his eyes.
“Yes?”
“We’ll circle back, okay? There’s just a lot going on.”
“Of course,” she said, too easily.
He smiled in relief and walked on.
Ama stared at her screen long after he was gone.
A lot was going on.
She wondered when her own need had become something that had to wait for free time.
As the office emptied and the sky outside darkened, Ama gathered her things. She paused by the elevator, phone in hand, thumb hovering.
She didn’t know exactly what she was waiting for anymore. A conversation. A sentence. A moment that would finally click something into place.
Something that would make all this effort feel justified.
The elevator doors opened.
Ama stepped inside, carrying with her the quiet belief that once the right words were spoken, once the right person finally chose her properly, the ache would stop.
She didn’t yet know how fragile that belief was.
- Writer
