My name is Clara Evans, and I like quiet places. Not the kind that feel empty—the kind that hum softly, alive beneath the silence. Offices, for example. Especially before the lights turn white.
They shift every morning at eight forty-five, from cool blue to the sterile brightness of work. I arrive before that. Always before. It gives me time to think, to align small things: the pens, the reports, the chipped mug that I turn toward the wall.
At eight fifty-one, the elevator chimes.
That's when my boss arrives.
I rise without thinking. "Good morning."
He nods once. "Morning."
That single word is enough to start the day.
I hand him his coffee—medium roast, two sugars. "Thank you," he says. His fingers brush mine for a fraction of a second. I tell myself it doesn't matter, but my pulse insists otherwise.
When he closes his office door, the air settles again. The room remembers who it belongs to.
I've worked for him for a year now. Long enough to learn his silences, short enough to still fear them.
He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. His calm is a kind of architecture—everyone moves quietly inside it.
Emails arrive like clockwork. Send it. Revise this. Cancel tomorrow's meeting. Each command clipped clean, like a note struck on piano keys.
There's comfort in that rhythm. When he gives direction, the noise inside my head stops. The world narrows to something manageable: a list, a rule, a target.
At nine twelve, his message arrives. Can you step in for a moment.
I smooth the hem of my jacket before entering.
He's standing near the wall display, blue light tracing the edge of his face.
"The Lakeview proposal," he says. "You adjusted the review date."
"Yes," I answer. "Legal requested more time with the procurement clause."
"That pushes the launch back five days."
"It avoids penalties."
He looks at the numbers again. "Fair."
That's all.
I wait a moment longer, in case there's more, but there isn't. When I leave, I hear the soft click of his pen before the door closes behind me.
Sometimes I wish I could see what he thinks when he pauses like that—if he approves, if he notices me at all.
Then I remind myself that wanting to be noticed is dangerous.
At noon, the office hums with the sound of contained effort. Someone laughs near the copier and immediately quiets, as though laughter might disturb the gravity he leaves behind.
He's still at his desk. I stay at mine.
At twelve fifteen, I ask, "Are you taking a break today?"
He glances up. "Later."
I nod, already knowing that "later" means no.
He adds, without looking away from the screen, "You should eat."
"I will."
It feels strangely intimate, that small concern wrapped in command.
The rest of the day slides by in quiet coordination. I know the pace of his movements: when he'll stand, when he'll reach for the blinds, when he'll stop typing to think.
Precision becomes its own intimacy when you spend enough time observing it.
He doesn't praise. He simply expects, and meeting expectation feels almost like being seen.
He leaves at seven twenty-three. When the elevator doors close, the air releases the breath it was holding.
I shut down my computer, stack the folders, straighten the pens again. In the reflection of the dark window, for a moment, I can still see him—sharp posture, calm certainty—before the glass remembers only me.
At home, I make tea and open the small chat app I use when words feel too heavy to say out loud.
@DearStranger: another day. no mistakes.
A few minutes later, the reply arrives.
@ListeningEar: sounds like a good day.
@DearStranger: maybe. it's quiet.
@ListeningEar: quiet can mean peace.
@DearStranger: or distance.
@ListeningEar: sometimes they're the same thing.
I read the message twice, then set the phone face-down. Maybe that's true. Maybe peace is just distance I've learned to live with.
Tomorrow I'll come early again.
Just in case my boss does too.