Turn 2 of 11

Tell him you quit the firm over a month ago — you'd been planning the pivot for ages

Your phone buzzes — Sasha again. *PRIYA. I can see you from the kitchen. Your HAIR is growing. I am not making this up.* You angle the screen slightly away from the doorway and choose to deal with that later, or never.

"Oh, months ago," you say, and the words come out honeyed, easy, as if you've been rehearsing them for weeks and not for exactly one second. "I'd been planning the pivot for ages, honestly. Nelson & Crane was — you know. It was fine, but it wasn't—" You gesture loosely, a movement that belongs to someone who gives interviews, someone who moves through rooms like she's been photographed in them. The gesture feels natural in your wrist. That's the worst part.

"I wasn't going to stay somewhere that didn't fit just because it was comfortable. You know?"

The last sentence lands with a weight you didn't plan. *You know?* As if he doesn't. As if Theo, who left six weeks ago with a text that said *I think we've run our course*, would know anything about choosing the uncomfortable thing. His expression doesn't shift. He nods, thoughtful, patient. Behind you on the wall, the poster has changed again — the typography is sharper, the campaign name clearer, a season you haven't shot for yet.

"So you had this lined up before we —" He pauses, delicately, the way someone steps over a crack. "Before things ended?"

Your reflection in the dark corner of the screen is taller than you remember being this morning. The cheekbones sharper, the jawline cleaner, the sort of face that belongs on a comp card propped against a stranger's lamp. Your phone buzzes twice in quick succession. *you looked different BEFORE but now you look like a completely different person* and then *please just hang up i'm begging you*.

"I'd been scouted, actually," you hear yourself say, and the word *scouted* arrives with its own history — a casting director at a coffee shop, a business card you still have somewhere, a conversation that happened in a version of your life that is now, apparently, the real one. The room behind you has shifted again. The desk is different, newer, the laptop thinner. There is a garment bag on the back of your door that wasn't there before. Theo leans forward, interested.

"Scouted. That's a good story. Where was this?"

Your phone buzzes. Sasha, from the kitchen, has stopped texting words and is now just sending the same emoji repeatedly — 🛑, 🛑, 🛑 — the digital equivalent of someone pounding on a wall.