The First Morning Back
Maeve stood outside the glass doors of the studio, her keycard hovering just shy of the reader. The building looked the same as it always had — the mural in the lobby, the soft buzz of early lights, the faint smell of coffee drifting from the break room — but she didn’t feel the same walking into it.
Seven years of her life had unravelled in the space of a single conversation.
Seven years of routines, habits, compromises, and quiet hopes.
Gone.
And now she was supposed to walk back into work like she hadn’t spent months trying to remember how to breathe.
She exhaled, pressed the card to the reader, and stepped inside.
The creative floor was half‑lit, cubicles dotted with mood boards, sketches, colour swatches, and half‑finished ideas. It should have felt familiar. Comforting. But today, it felt like walking into a life she no longer fit inside.
She set her bag down at her desk, smoothing her skirt with hands that still trembled sometimes when she wasn’t paying attention. She’d put on makeup this morning — properly, for the first time in weeks — but she felt like she was wearing someone else’s face.
She was adjusting her monitor when she heard footsteps behind her.
New footsteps.
Light, unhurried, unfamiliar.
She turned.
A man she didn’t recognise stood a few feet away, holding a takeaway coffee and wearing the kind of soft, open expression she hadn’t seen directed at her in a long time.
He looked young — but not boyish.
Fresh‑faced, but grounded.
Warm in a way that made her chest tighten unexpectedly.
He was tall with dark hair and blue eyes, that almost looked silver.
He smiled.
“Morning,” he said gently. “You must be Maeve.”
Her breath caught — not dramatically, not visibly, but enough that she felt it.
Because for the first time in months, someone wasn’t looking through her.
He was looking at her.
“Yes,” she managed. “I’m Maeve.”
“I’m Daniel,” he said, shifting his coffee to his other hand so he could offer hers a shake. “It’s my first day. I’m in the content team.”
She shook his hand — briefly, politely — but the warmth of his palm lingered longer than it should have.
“Welcome,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “If you need anything, just shout.”
His smile deepened, soft but sincere.
“I might take you up on that.”
He walked past her toward the onboarding desk, and Maeve sat down slowly, her pulse unreasonably quick.
It was nothing.
Just a greeting.
Just a new colleague being friendly.
But for a moment — a fleeting, fragile moment — she had felt seen.
And she didn’t know what to do with that.
