Chapter 2

I got the message loud and clear.

They wanted me to quit on my own.

When I got back to my desk to pack up, Andrew called.

He didn't ask if I was okay or how I was feeling. He just said, "Did you have a fight with Mr. Turner at work?"

I gripped the mug I'd had for five years, noticing a thin crack at the bottom.

"Emily's taking over the project," I said.

There was a pause on the other end.

Andrew said, "I heard. Don't get too hung up on it. Emily's young, she's got connections, and the company probably wants her to be the face of the project.

"You've been running yourself ragged these past few years. Maybe a break is just what you need."

I stood at my workspace, staring at the proposal file still open on my computer screen.

The cover read: [Southside Factory Revitalization Exhibition Project, Lead Curator: Joanna Shaw.]

I asked, "So, what about the wedding?"

Andrew replied, "Let's put the wedding on hold."

His voice was calm, like he was pushing back a meeting that had already been set.

He added, "You're not in the right state for marriage right now."

I didn't cry.

When I got to the lobby, the receptionist, a young woman, handed me a bouquet of flowers. She said a client had dropped it off that morning for my birthday.

On the card, it read: [Happy 30th birthday, Ms. Shaw. Can't wait for the Southside Factory to open.]

I walked out of the office with the bouquet in my arms.

Just as I walked out the door, Emily hurried after me from the lobby.

She had an external hard drive in her hand, her smile barely there. It was polite, but a little apologetic.

She said, "Jo, Mr. Turner wanted me to ask if you could send over the source files tonight? The client needs to see the new version tomorrow morning, and I'm afraid we might not make the deadline."

I looked at her, the bouquet in my hands trembling a little in the wind.

"Tonight?" I asked.

"Thanks, really," Emily said, holding out the hard drive. "I'm just getting started, and honestly, I'm not up to speed yet.

"If you could send me everything, it'd help a ton. The project's on a tight deadline, and we can't afford to get stuck just because of our handover."

She said it all so smoothly.

It was so smooth that I almost reached out and took the hard drive without thinking.

But then I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and gave a small, tight smile.

"It's my birthday today," I said.

Emily paused for a second, then quickly replied, "Happy birthday. Go home and have some dinner. If you send me the files before midnight, that'll work too."

Standing there in the cold wind outside the office, bouquet in hand, it finally hit me that after all these years, I'd been trained way too well to just go along with everything.

The moment someone said 'thanks for your effort,' I'd practically rip myself to shreds just to hand over whatever they wanted.

The MP3 player in the box was still playing.

My eighteen-year-old self must've been fired up when she recorded this, because her voice kept fading in and out.

She said, "Rule number two: if you're still working overtime on your thirtieth birthday, ask yourself: does this job give you money, or is it costing you your life? If it gives you neither, just ditch it."

I suddenly laughed out loud.

And right after, tears dropped onto the back of my hand.

I picked up my phone and opened the message Emily had sent me earlier that afternoon.

It read: [Jo, could you send over the source files as soon as you can? Mr. Turner said you're the one who knows this best. Let's not keep the client waiting.]

I sat there typing for ages in the chat window.

I deleted it.

And I typed again.

I deleted it again.

In the end, all I sent was: [I'm not handing it over today.]

Emily replied almost instantly: [The client meeting's tomorrow morning. If you don't send them over, it'll mess up the project.]

I stared at her message, my palms sweating, but my heart just kept sinking.

My eighteen-year-old self let out a laugh in my headphones.

She said, "Rule number three: don't be so eager to play the nice guy. Every time you rush to be the good one, someone will climb right on top of you and say your neck's strong enough to carry them."

I powered off my phone, picked up the box, and carried it into the living room.

I unwrapped the birthday bouquet and put it in a glass vase. The card got a little damp from the condensation, and the words "Ms. Shaw" started to blur.

I wiped down the table and started taking things out of the box, one by one.

There were eighteen letters, each marked with an age.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one—Right up to thirty.

The top letter was sealed with a little star sticker, childish and bright.

I opened it up, and inside was just one line:

[Dear thirty-year-old Joanna, happy birthday. You must be a total badass by now, right?]

At that moment, clutching that thin sheet of paper, I finally couldn't hold it in and cried out loud.

I cried myself to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, my face was so swollen it looked like I'd been soaking in tears all night.

My phone had died and shut off, and the living room was so quiet it was almost eerie.

The letters from my eighteen-year-old self were scattered across the coffee table, with the pink MP3 player right in the center, its screen still frozen on the name of the first recording.

It read: [Wake-Up Plan 1st: Dare to be a loser.]

My eighteen-year-old self always gave her files names that were straight-up savage.

I plugged my phone in, and as soon as it powered on, messages started pouring in like a blizzard.

Emily had sent twelve messages.

Philip had sent three.

Andrew had sent five.

And there were dozens of unread messages in the project group chat.

I opened Andrew's messages first.

[Why did you turn off your phone last night?

[Emily said you wouldn't transfer the files. What's going on with you?

[Jo, no one at work is going to tiptoe around your emotions.

[Putting the wedding on hold has already made both our families look bad. Don't make the company look bad too.]