Ben calls to talk about it.

I sat frozen as Melissa stood there giggling away at our problems. I tried to understand what her problem was. This meant that her second job was gone. We were back to me being unemployed. Sure, this had tricked people over a grainy camera and bad microphone, but there was no way it was going to work in person. Before I could respond to her inane question. Missy’s phone rang. Ben’s picture popped up on the caller ID.

Reaching out I tapped the accept call button and then put him on speaker phone. Melissawas actually the first to speak up. “Well, that went well.” The self satisfaction in her voice had almost a physical feeling to it as she stepped in close and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

Ben’s deep voice came through. “Good, you’re there too. Look Missy, I’m sorry that I didn’t consult you before I accepted. I just can’t let this opportunity go.”

I nodded at his words before remembering I wasn’t on camera anymore. I let my voice return to normal as I addressed him. “What about transferring Missy off the team?” Melissa's frown let me know that I had somehow made a mistake with that suggestion. Ben’s reply only doubled down.

“They aren’t opening up spots on other teams, in fact they are closing spots up and letting people go. This tech recession is getting brutal. Look, we don’t have to figure this out right now ok? I just wanted to make sure I told you in person Missy.” Ben sounded like he was about to hang up before he spoke up again. “I’ll be honest, if you hadn’t warned me, I would never have known it was you and not your roommate.” With that last sentence the line went dead.

I immediately stood up and winced at the waist cincher digging in and forcing me to stand up straighter than I normally did. “I can’t do this Melissa. I can’t!” My heart rate had skyrocketed and my breathing was coming in short fast bursts as I began to hyperventilate. Suddenly, she was there. Her arms wrapped around him and pulled me against her.

“Shhh relax. It is ok hun. Shhhh. Just take a breath. LIke Ben said, we don’t need to figure this out today ok?” It felt odd to have her slowly stroking the wig on my head. It was also strange to feel my bra stuffed full of nylons pressed up against her bra that was full of the real thing. Her calming voice and hold soon helped me get over the quick panic attack. “Sit down hun. I have an idea.”

Sitting back into the chair, I was instantly reminded of my posture. Melissa disappeared out of the office to retrieve something as I turned back to look at the monitors. A blinking message appeared.

Ben- Hey, need you to make some changes to the code we wrote. I know this has been a crazy day, but do you think you can handle it? I’ll send over reqs.

Missy - Yeah, I guess. Just send it over, losing myself in the code sounds pretty good right now

The documents popped up on my screen almost instantly and I looked through them. These weren’t some small changes, this would require a major rewrite. I could feel the stress climbing again as I took in the amount of things I would need to change. Most of it made sense, but a good portion of it seemed like corporate nonsense. Still, I knew I could do it, it would just take my whole evening. I tried to get started, only each time I tried to look into the code, I felt like the world was going to cave in on me. This kind of anxiety was new to me and I didn’t know how to handle it. As I sat there my hands began to shake subtly and I could feel my mouth going dry.

At that moment Melissa walked back into the office. In her hands was a pair of earbuds. “Hey, I paired these with my laptop. A girl at work showed me this calming background music, and it worked wonders for her. Why don’t you give it a try?” At that exact moment in time, I would have grabbed any life vest to save me from drowning. I almost snatched the small electronics out of her hands and shoved them into my ears quickly. “I guess that answers that.”

Glancing across my messages and the pages open, a frown creased Melissa’s face. She kneeled down in front of me in my chair and took hold of my knees. Her eyes looked up into my face as she spoke. “Take 10 minutes babe. Just breathe, relax. Let me turn the music on and just let it do its thing ok? Then if you are still freaking out we can try something else. But I promise this will work.”

I nodded shakily. Smiling at me, Melissa reached up and brushed a lock of the long red wig behind my ear and smiled before she stood up and walked out of the room. Seconds after she disappeared the music began. It is hard to describe the sounds that played. It was almost as if someone had taken one of those rain water sound machines and added soft music to it. I closed my eyes and sat there as comfortably as I could in the waist cincher. I could feel all these odd sensations on my body. The makeup on my face, the hair tickling the back of my neck, the bra squeezing my chest, the cincher pulling my waist in, even the way I was sitting in the chair was so strange. All those sensations were distractions, I needed to get past the distractions. I needed to relax. I could feel a subtle wave to the music, slowly my breathing began to match the frequency of the wave and I felt little parts of my stress and parts of the distractions slowly begin to disappear.

I don’t know how long I sat there with my eyes closed just breathing, but when I opened them up again, all of the stress was gone. It was like someone had ripped it out of me, or thrown all the distractions in a corner and put a heavy blanket over them. Turning back to the computer I dove into the work.