Talking about yourself

You take a breath. The biscotti is warm and almond-scented, and you break off a piece to buy yourself a moment.

"Okay, so—I just graduated. Psychology degree, actually." You gesture vaguely with the biscotti. "And my aunt owns this big estate outside town. She's traveling, so I'm house-sitting for a few months."

Janelle nods. "The Ellison place? That's your aunt?"

"Yeah. Vanessa. She's my mom's sister."

Priya tilts her head. "So you came here to, what, take a gap year before grad school?"

You shake your head slowly, turning the water glass between your fingers. The condensation makes your fingertips slippery.

"No. I came here and I... realized something." You pause, and the words come out more steadily than you expected. "My life was going in completely the wrong direction. Not just career-wise—I mean everything. Who I was, how I was living, the whole... trajectory." You look up. "And I needed to make a big change."

The booth goes quiet for a beat. Not uncomfortable—just the particular silence of people deciding how to respond to something real.

Janelle speaks first. "That's brave." She says it simply, without decoration. "Like, genuinely. Most people just stay on the track they're on because it's easier."

Priya leans back, studying you with those sharp dark eyes. "So you came to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere to reinvent yourself." A slow smile spreads across her face. "That's kind of incredible, actually. You're like a protagonist."

"I'm like a person who didn't know what else to do," you say, and it comes out with a laugh that surprises you.

"Same thing," Priya insists. "Every good protagonist is just someone who got thrown off a cliff and figured out how to fly." She taps the table. "Okay, so—psychology degree, big life change, now working retail. What's the plan? Like, the actual plan?"

"Honestly? I don't have one past Monday." You spread your hands. "I got hired at Petal & Thread. I'm figuring out the rest as I go."

Janelle reaches across and steals a biscotti. "That's the best kind of plan, honestly. The kind where you don't overthink it." She crunches into the cookie. "I overthink everything. My mom says I'm going to give myself an ulcer by twenty."

"You are going to give yourself an ulcer by twenty," Priya says without looking up from her phone, where she's apparently already texting someone about something.

"See?" Janelle throws a crumb at her.

The ease of it washes over you—the way they bicker, the way they've folded you into their orbit without ceremony. You haven't lied. You haven't told the whole truth, either, but what you've said is real. The wrong direction. The big change. The reinvention.

It's not even a lie. It's just... the version that doesn't require a PowerPoint.

Priya sets her phone down. "Okay, new subject. Janelle's closet situation." She turns to you with the intensity of a general briefing troops. "Her mom donated, like, eight garbage bags of clothes to Goodwill last month without asking. Including things Janelle was actively wearing. So now she needs a complete wardrobe rebuild, and I need someone with actual retail experience to help me not let her buy only mustard-colored things."

"Mustard is a power color," Janelle says firmly, tugging at her sweater.

"Mustard is a condiment."

Janelle looks at you with wide, earnest eyes. "Riley. Tell her mustard is valid."