Page 9 of True Colors

Ispend the first twenty minutes after the meeting in the accessibility bathroom on the second floor.

It’s not because I’m a crybaby, and it’s certainly not because I’m weak. At least, that’s what I tell myself because I do feel like crying while I lie down in a fetal position.

But I’m not going to fall apart. I’m only going to regroup.

I tell myself that, too, loudly in my head, without stuttering.

My nervous system is screaming.

Thirty eyeballs dissecting me, and a man yelling at me, dressing me down, humiliating me, was enough to fry me for the day.

I need silence, and the restroom is the closest thing to invisibility this office allows.

My speech isn’t the same as that of most people who stutter. For them, it’s always there, woven into the way their brains time words. For me, it lives closer to fear—flaring when anxiety presses too close.

It takes me a good ten minutes to stop shaking and another to get my bearings, so I can rinse my face with cold water, all the while practicing the slow, mindful breathing my therapist taught me.

It takes me another ten minutes to step out and just two more to walk up to my office.

The pharma data analyst team is spread across the second floor of HelixSphere, and, like all other offices in San Francisco high-rises, ours is a maze of open cubicles, whiteboards with data, almost-dead succulents, half-finished coffees, and a constant buzz of conversation that I tune out.

It’s harder to do today because I’m worried people are talking about me. As much as I tell myself I don’t care what people think about me, the truth is that I’m human, and I care about the impression I make on others.

Today, I made a terrible one on the new CEO.

As I walk past the cubicles, the atmosphere changes—voices lower, glances linger a fraction too long. That’s the thing about being quiet: I pick up on everything. My attention sharpens, my skin prickles, especially when judgment is in the air.

Some people look up. Nod.

Some don’t, pretending I don’t exist.

Some smirk.

I know what they’re thinking, and I can well imagine what they’ve been saying to one another in scandalized whispers.

“Did you see that…?”

“I thought she was gonna faint.”

“Erin practically ate her alive.”

“Luther’s going to fire her.”

“Dot’s gonna lose it if Luther fires her.”

“She’s too sensitive for this place.”

“She’s actually brilliant, though.”

“Yeah, but she can’t talk.”

“Stop gossiping about a colleague and get to work.”

I know exactly which group each person belongs to.

There’s a group of people who dislike me, and it’s because they think Dot favors me and resent what they perceive as special treatment. They are George Liu and Kathleen Reyes, who sit three pods down.

He’s brilliant but lazy. She’s competitive but incompetent.