Part 3Dying Was My Best Career Move

"Norah, Highpoint Media pulled out."

Howard didn't even wait for me to sit down on Wednesday morning. He snatched the project folder off my desk.

"Pulled out? Why?"

"Their Director called yesterday. Said your communication style was 'abrasive' and requested a change in lead. Since they’re already halfway out the door, I’m giving the account to Mindy to see if she can save it."

"He called Mindy? Not me? Not you?"

"He called Mindy. She brought it to me. It's done, Norah."

He walked away.

I pulled up my phone. I had the Highpoint Director’s personal number. Our last text was from three days ago. He had sent a data sheet and added, Great work on the proposal, Norah. Very solid.

I typed: Hi, regarding the lead change, do you have a moment for a quick call?

I hit send.

A second later, a red exclamation point appeared.

Message not delivered.

It wasn't a network error.

He had blocked me.

Three days ago, I was his favorite strategist. Today, I was a ghost. I didn't know what had happened in those seventy-two hours, but I knew who had orchestrated it.

At lunch, I walked into the breakroom. Chris and two other associates were huddled around the microwave. The second I entered, their voices dropped to a muffled hum.

"...I heard the audit thing is getting serious..."

"Shhh, she’s right there."

Chris grabbed his Tupperware and walked past me without a word. The others followed like ducklings.

The microwave hummed, spinning someone's abandoned leftovers. I stood there in the silence, feeling the oxygen being sucked out of the room.

When I got back to my desk, I realized my drawer was slightly ajar.

Everything had been moved. Not tossed—carefully searched and replaced. But my pens were facing the wrong way. My notepad had shifted an inch to the left.

The pink Post-it was gone. Mindy had reclaimed her trail.

And the thumb drive.

The grey drive where I’d saved the ERP screenshots was gone. It had been sitting right next to my keyboard. Now, the space was empty.

I logged into my computer.

The screenshots on my desktop were gone. The trash bin had been emptied.

The security cameras in our zone had been "out for repair" for three months. Mindy had joked about it in the group chat back then: "We’re all family here, who needs big brother watching?"

Family.

At 5:00 PM, Mindy returned from "off-site." She was carrying a large bakery box.

"Babes! I took a baking class! Who wants homemade sea-salt cookies?"

She distributed them one by one. When she got to me, she set a large, crumbling cookie directly on my desk.

"This one’s the biggest. Just for you, Norah. Don't say I never give you anything."

Her voice was so sweet it felt like it was calcifying into sugar.

She hadn't said a single negative word about me in public all afternoon. But every person who walked past my desk looked away.

You don't need a broken bottle to kill someone. You just need to trap them in a world where everyone listens to you, and then slowly stop the air.

At the bus stop after work, Diane appeared next to me.

We both looked straight ahead.

"Howard’s wife is Mindy’s cousin," she said, her lips barely moving.

I cut my eyes toward her. "How did you find out?"

"Last year’s Christmas party. Howard’s wife came to pick him up. Mindy ran up and called her 'Cuz.' There were two hundred people in that hall, but I was the only one standing at the right angle to hear it."

The bus pulled up. Diane stepped on. Just as the doors were closing, she looked back.

"You can't win, Norah. Don't kill yourself trying."