Page 91 of Caught A Vibe

“You’re not even going to talk about it?” Emmie asks, incredulous.

“I just said I wanted to talk about it.” I’m truly confused.

“I told you she was clueless.” Nicola leans back in her chair, her lips pursed as if around something sour. Emmie is just staring at me, waiting for me to catch up.

“Well, by all means clue me in. What do we need to talk about? And when did you two decide to gang up on me?” I cross my arms and lean back in my own chair.

“Don’t worry,” Nic reassures me. “It’s not just us. Jen and Zarah are on their way.”

“We’ve been texting during the panel,” Emmie says. “We didn’t want to distract you, but I can’t believe you’re truly that oblivious.”

“What did we miss?” Zarah asks as she appears in a new window, sitting side by side with Jen at her kitchen table.

“That’s what I’m wondering,” I mutter, my happy high quickly evaporating. I want to cling to it, the first fleeting bright spot in a shitty week, but my team has other plans.

Nicola leans forward, sarcasm dripping from her words as she asks, “Remember Jessica? The woman you counseled to try open and honest communication with her partnerbeforethings got heated?”

“Yes… What’s wrong with that advice?”

“Nothing, except that is one hundred percent not what you did with Dash.”

Ambush!I didn’t expect my recent breakup to be a topic of discussion today.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“I just find it hypocritical for you to tell this woman how to fix her marriage with a strategy you yourself refused to use.”

“What happened between me and Dash isn’t at issue here.”

“I disagree.” Emmie cuts in. “It is an issue. It’s impacting you and your ability to lead. It’s a pattern. A boundary only works if it’s communicated in advance. When he ran up against one of yours, did you talk about it?”

“Kind of.”

“Body language does not count.”

“We used our mouths…”

“Doesn’t. Count. How about afterward, when things were calm? Did you circle back and clarify what you needed? With clothes on?” Emmie adds with a smirk.

I sit back in my chair and refuse to answer that. We had talked about chores before. Did I say it was a hard line for me? No, but it was pretty clear that I was frustrated.

Except Dash told me from the beginning that he needed words over actions. And what did I do? I avoided words and opted to mask my frustrations with positive actions like sex. These realizations hit hard. I fucked up, but I still don’t see what it has to do with work.

Luckily, Zarah doesn’t require a response from me to jump in, trying a different tack.

“Ever since he left, you’ve been on a tear, running yourself in circles, trying to be everything for everybody. Nobody can get anything done, because you keep changing course midstream and we’re afraid to get in your way.”

“What the hell does me trying to save my company have to do with Dash?” I have no idea where she’s going with this.

“When you were together, you were calmer. Happier,” Jen says gently.

“Distracted,” I retort. “And where did that get us? Almost out of funding and thrown under the bus.”

“Was that really his fault? True, the article was damning, but we’ve been struggling to cope with challenges created by the pandemic for months now. One person writes one article and the whole company is in jeopardy?” Zarah points out.

“It was just the final straw.” I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin, being called to account like this by my team. I hate feeling defensive. My patience for this intervention is growing thin.

“My point precisely.”

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