But no crew came.
Just receipts.
Just relief.
On Monday she started.
The first week was hard.
Harder than she admitted to Denise.
Harder than Ethan probably guessed.
She felt slow.
Embarrassingly slow.
New tools.
Updated systems.
A codebase full of strangers’ choices.
Her hands remembered the rhythm before her confidence did.
Priya was demanding but fair.
The rest of the team treated her like she belonged after day one, which almost made it worse because she kept waiting for the catch.
There was no catch.
Only work.
Good, brain-burning work.
The kind that leaves you tired in a way sleep can fix.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ethan stopped by her desk.
“Maddie made something,” he said.
He handed her a folded sheet of construction paper covered in stickers and blunt crayon handwriting.
THANK YOU FOR THE CHICKEN AND FOR NOT BEING MEAN TO ME
There was a drawing too.
A stick figure with yellow hair and a box of food.
