Page 95 of Accidentally Amy

Pam came into the conference room and started talking about the acquisition, which I’d expected. I felt cool, that I had this knowledge ahead of time (although, to be fair, it appeared as if half of the department had been involved in the paperwork side of the merger).

Pam started talking about benefits for the Boston employees who were coming on board, so I had to take a lot of notes; this was going to give me quite the workload, but I was still in love with my new job, so I was excited. But when it was clear the woman was wrapping up the meeting, I couldn’t help but notice that she’d yet to mention the org chart.

I wassotempted to ask, but I didn’t want to accidentally say something that hadn’t been announced yet. The last thing I wanted was to sabotage myself. After the meeting, I was spared from having to ask, when Heather, the HR assistant, asked Pam, “Do I need to merge the two org charts?”

Pam shook her head and said, “Blake already did it this morning. It’s on the shared drive.”

I stood there, waiting for Pam to say he was no longer our boss, but she didn’t.

Weird, right?

I went back to my office and opened the Excel spreadsheet of all the new employees that I’d need to reach out to, ready to diginto the work. But I couldn’t stop myself from checking the shared drive. I opened the org chart document, and it only took about five seconds for me to see that Blake was still on top, with Pam underneath him, and me underneath Pam.

“What?” I muttered out loud, to myself. Maybe it wasn’t updated—no, it appeared to have been updated by Blake at seven that morning.

Oh, no.

I dropped my hands to the desk. What did that mean? He was my boss again? If he was, did that mean we were done? Finished after two days?

Why had it changed? Why hadn’t he told me?

I pulled out my phone—no messages, which wasn’t a surprise, since we didn’t really talk during business hours. But…what did it mean?

What was going through Blake’s mind?

I wished I could just text him and ask, but I didn’t want to interrupt his stressful day with self-centered questions about how it affected me.

Surely it was fine.

Surely he was on top of it.

I inhaled through my nose, forcing myself to relax. I trusted Blake, and that everything would work out.

I got lost in the reports after that, forgetting everything but work. Pam was in meetings somewhere else in the building, so it was easy to just fall into the work without interruptions. But when my stomach growled and I looked at the clock, my mind went right back to Blake. Because it was Monday—Caniglia’s food truck day.

I stood, grabbed my coat, and reached for my bag. He probably wouldn’t be there today, but if I happened upon him and we shared a lunch, perhaps he’d feel like enlightening me.

If not, I’d just stress eat until I puked.

•••

Six o’clock.

I stared at the clock above my TV, still stuffed from the Blake-free stress eating. It was probably late enough to text him, right? He was most likely still at the office, but it was technically after the workday.

I texted,Are you still at work, Chest?

Blake:Yup

I didn’t like one-word answers with zero punctuation; that made me very nervous. I replied,Was the day as stressful as you thought it’d be?

Blake:Worse

I really, really,reallyneeded an emoji or a superfluous exclamation point to reassure me that everything was fine. I texted,Well I’ll stop bugging you so you can leave.

Blake:Tks

I hated being that girl because Ihatedthat girl, but staccato brevity wasn’t our normal mode of conversation. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that he was distancing himself from me.

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