out of the woodwork... part 2

First off, can I just hug you all? I can't believe so many of you responded so quickly! I laughed out loud at some of these comments.

As for the haterzz, I get where you're coming from. It's definitely frustrating to not hear back at all, but I never knew what to say! I started a new (very overwhelming) job in December which coincided with the holidays and a loss in my close family. I spent the winter working my butt off at work while still trying to focus on my personal relationships, and sadly this blog took a back seat to all of that.

I feel like I finally can breathe again and have the time to commit to this fully, but I wanted to see if anyone was even still checking back. Happily, you are! 

I want Dani's story to pick up in present day (LOL at Chris for suggesting a coma, that'd be hilar). I also want to give this blog a little facelift, so can you give me two weeks to get a few posts in the works and handle a blog redesign?

xoxo

out of the woodwork

Hi all!

I know that you probably completely don't trust me after that massive hiatus, but I really do miss blogging and, most of all, you! I wanted to reach out and see if I started up again (1/week to start), would you still be there, dear readers? I wouldn't blame you one bit if you'd abandoned me at this point.

Let me know in the comments if you'd be willing to jump headfirst back into Dani's life with me, or if we should just part ways and remain cordial friends who send Christmas cards and politely nod when we're attending the same wedding.
xoxo

Back to 2013

In the weeks following New Year's Eve, Nick and I became inseparable. It was like a switch had flipped, sending us hurtling us back into 2013. After the New Year's kiss, he had explained to me that his producers had been pushing him and Hadley to get together, but he told me that he didn't have any feelings for her. I was skeptical at first but within a short few days we were spending nearly all of our free time together - and all of my worries had vanished. Ashley and Trevor had been hot and heavy as well, and the four of us had formed our own little gang that spent nearly every evening hanging out.

"Hey you," I said to Ash when I returned home from work exhausted on Thursday evening. I plopped down on the couch without even removing my jacket. 


"How was your day?" I asked, while scrolling absentmindedly through my Instagram feed. 

"Fine, boring. Work is slow this time of year," she replied, scarfing down the last of her dinner. "Are you going to the guys tonight?" 

"I think so," I replied, unzipping my jacket. "You?"

She shook her head, "No, Trev is working late."

I nodded and continued scrolling Instagram. 

"Dani?" Ash asked a few minutes later.


"Hmm?" I replied without looking up from the Cosmo photo of a shirtless man I was ogling.

"Do you think that maybe.. you and Nick are moving a little too fast?" she asked. 

I didn't immediately answer. It wasn't as if this hadn't occurred to me - I had been spending so much time with him any sane person would have questioned it. I was actually surprised it had taken Ashley so long to say something. Ever the outspoken one, keeping things to herself was not one of her stronger traits. 

I sighed. "I mean, I don't know. I'm not rushing to date him or anything, I'm just having fun," I said, repeating the same words I had been telling myself every time I took a pause and assessed the situation. Fun. It was always my excuse when it came to Nick. 

"But.. you don't think that maybe he's like.. a rebound?" she asked. 

I was ready for this one too. Of course it would look like a rebound. Jumping into the arms of my ex a few weeks after breaking up with Dylan. 

"I don't know Ash.. maybe. But there's no black and white answer to that." 

She seemed to accept this. "Okay.. as long as you're aware of it. I just don't want you to regret anything."

"I won't," I said, trying to swallow the more defensive things that I wanted to say. I knew she was just looking out for me, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. 

"I have to go pack," I said, getting up and heading to my room. Once inside I grabbed a pair of white jeans, booties and a gray sweater for work the next day, tossed some makeup in and texted Nick.

Leaving now

I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed out the door. 

"I'll see you after work tomorrow," I said to Ash as I headed out. 

"Wait," she said. I turned to her, one hand on the doorknob. I faced her and waited expectantly.

"I wasn't trying to call you out before, I don't care what you do or who you do," I smirked at this, "so long as you're happy. I'm just lookin' out," she said. 

I laughed. "I know, and I love you for that. I'll see you tomorrow."


A few minutes later, I was knocking on Nick's door. Even though it had been more than a month since we had started seeing each other again, it still shocked me each time I returned to his place that I was here again. Both literally and figuratively.

"Hey gorgeous," he said, swinging open the door in nothing but a pair of gym shorts. He leaned in and gave me a long kiss, removing the bag from my shoulder and ushering me in. I held on an extra moment, absorbing his warmth. God damn these New York winters.

"Hungry?" he asked, dropping my bag on the couch.

"That depends," I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. "For food or for you?"

He laughed, but kissed me anyway. I felt heat shoot down from my lips to my toes, and I leaned in further to him. 

"I made fajitas," he said between kisses, giving my ass a squeeze as he pulled away. 

I shrugged off my coat and headed toward the delicious smell. 

"Steak?" I asked. 

He smiled, draping his arm around my waist and pulling me close as he stirred a pot of peppers and onions. It still amazed me how much his body had changed since starting the show. They had hired him a personal trainer and it was definitely showing. Not that he hadn't been something to write home about before, but now he looked more like a Calvin Klein model than a regular guy.

"Of course," he said. "Grab it out of the oven?"

I grabbed an oven mit and pulled the filet out, setting it on the stove.

"Anything else I can do for you sir?" I asked.

"That'll be all, sous chef," he replied and started fixing us some plates. 


After the delicious dinner, we were laying in his bed watching the last few weeks' worth of New Girl episodes. 

"It amazes me that Nick and Jess are so normal after breaking up," I said, nuzzled into the nook between his arm and his chest. 

"Yeah, but that's TV for you," he replied, absentmindedly stroking my hair.

"Speaking of," I said, hoisting myself up so that we were facing each other. "Are you guys doing a second season?" 

When I was still with Dylan, it had been easy to think of Nick as the same person he had always been - humble, goofy and, all in all, mine. He was always my Nick. But now after doing that show he seemed to be everyone's Nick. It was rare that we could go out and not have someone recognize him, throwing a comment I didn't understand his way since I hadn't watched the show. At bars and restaurants I always kept my distance, not wanting a picture to surface on the internet that would cause speculation. It was fun at first, seeing Nick in this new way. But after a while I just wanted to stay home and think of him as the same person he had been before this all began. 

"We haven't heard yet if it's been picked up," he said, not tearing his eyes away from the screen. 

I settled back into his chest and tried not to think about it. Even though I wasn't anywhere near ready to date him, I also had no desire to share him with all of America.

The slam of the front door pulled me out of my thoughts. I heard Trevor's voice, muffled through the walls of the apartment. I started to get back into the scene Jess was causing with an airport employee on the TV when I heard a second voice coming from the living room, this one definitely not Trevor's. 

"Who is that?" I asked, turning to Nick. 

"Trevor.." he said.

I rolled my eyes, "The girl."

Just then, a distinctive girl's giggle drifted through the walls. 

"Ashley?" he shrugged, seemingly completely ignorant. 

"She would have texted me, and I would recognize her voice," I said, climbing out of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Nick asked, a trace of humor in his voice. 

"Finding out who that is," I said, grabbing a pair of his sweats and throwing them on.

"Dani, don't make it weird," he said.

"How would I make it weird?" I said. 

He looked pointedly at my outfit. "You're going to run out there in my clothes and accuse him of cheating on your friend?" 

I turned on my heel and headed down the hall without answering. I could hear Trevor and the mysterious girl talking in the living room. Ever the genius, I decided to pretend I was grabbing a glass of water and that I hadn't even heard them walk in.

As I sauntered into the kitchen, I cast a side-eyed glance into the living room where I could see them sitting on the couch. 

"Oh! Hey Trev," I said, reaching into the cabinet for the glass. 

"Hey D," he said, standing up. He was still in his work clothes and next to him sat a skinny blonde girl who looked barely legal. "This is my coworker, Lauren," he said, gesturing to the teenager.

"Hello," I said, giving her an overly-nice smile. "I'm Dani." 

"Hi," she said in a high-pitched voice, unmoving from her perch on the couch. 

"What are you two up to?" I asked, sipping on the water. I hadn't bothered to look when I turned on the faucet and it was scalding hot. 

"We grabbed some drinks after work with a few people in our department," Trevor said, looking uncomfortable. 

"Fun," I replied flatly. I was debating how to interject Ashley into the conversation without being obvious when I heard Nick coming down the hall.

"Dani?" he said, coming into the kitchen. "Hey man," he added, doing the standard boy-nod to Trevor. "Coming to bed?" he asked, returning his attention to me. 

"Mmmhm," I replied, casting one last meaningful smile at Trevor, I followed Nick back into his room like a puppy who had just been caught eating the furniture. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, falling back into bed. 

"He's cheating on Ashley with a middle schooler!" I said. "And you didn't introduce yourself to her, which means you know her, so start talking mister."

"Yes, she's his coworker," he said. 

"Is he hooking up with her?" I accused. 

"No! He's with Ashley," Nick said, sounding exasperated. 

"Then how do you know her, and why is she here at 11:00 on a Thursday?" 

"She lives nearby and probably has a crush on him, I don't know," Nick said. "All I know is you're ridiculous, but you sure can pull off those sweatpants." He reached for me, pulling down the sweats and dragging me back to his side. 

I returned his kiss and sunk down into the bed, all thoughts of Trevor evaporating from my mind.

Cause You're The Only Thing I Know

On New Year's Eve, our offices closed at noon and I found myself heading home by 2 p.m. I lingered for a while, not wanting to skip out right at the strike of 12 since everyone was proving themselves at work these days. Instead, I mapped out our Instagram calendar through March and submitted a few project briefs to the photo department for things they wouldn't even need to look at for another few months. Elena was coming over at 7:00, so I had five empty hours stretching in front of me. I decided to use them to primp, since what else is a gal to do when she's alone before a night out? I headed to Duane Reade and picked up a face mask, hair mask, new nail polish and wine. 

Once home, I spent the next few hours primping, napping and watching TV. There was a marathon on of Nick's show (all six episodes of it), which I avoided. I had never gotten around to watching the season past the pilot, and I had no intentions of it. I knew it would somehow shift my relationship with him which was already complicated enough. Instead I settled for mindless hours of the Kardashians. By the time 7:00 rolled around I was shaved, lotioned, plucked and polished to perfection. 

"Hey you!" I said as I swung open the door for Elena. She looked killer in a sequin mini dress that hung loose and ended abrubtly less than halfway down her model-worthy thighs. Her hair was piled in a messy top knot and she had added a bold red lip. "You look fantastic!"

"Thanks!" she said, pulling me in for a hug. "So do you."

I had settled on a black lace dress which was conservative in the front, but had an entirely open back. I left my hair down and wavy, adding only delicate gold earrings and a smoky eye. 

We made our way to the kitchen to sip on wine before leaving.

"So are you going to kiss Nick at midnight?" she asked, as I was swigging my Pinot.

I gave her a wide-eyed look in response. "No way!" 

"Oh come on," she berated me, giving me a firm stare. "You're single now."

"Ah that's right, I had forgotten," I replied with an accompanying finger snap.

"Speaking of, have you talked to Dylan at all lately?" 

I nodded slowly, almost ashamed at the memory. In a moment of weakness two nights ago, I had broken down and called him under the guise of asking if i had left one of my necklaces there (I hadn't, the one I described to him was safely in a dish on my dresser), when in reality I had just wanted to hear his voice. We had ended up talking for almost 15 minutes and by the time we hung up I was alarmed at the giddy sensation I felt. As I rehashed the story to Elena, I felt the same butterflies in my stomach at the memory of the way he had made me laugh.

When I finished, she sighed loudly. "To be honest, you've done a pretty solid job of breaking up until that call. I don't know if it is because you're in different cities, but one little phone call doesn't mean that you want him back," she said.

"I know," I replied, refilling my glass and topping off hers as well. "It just felt dumb. He texted me today, asking about my plans for tonight."

"What did you tell him?" 

"Just that I was going to a friend's apartment," I replied. "He didn't push further."

"Did you ask what he's doing?" she pressed.

"Nope," I said. "I didn't want to hear anything that rhymes with Schmara." 

Elena looked puzzled.

"Kara," I clarified with a small smile at how slow she could be for such a smart gal.

"Ohhh!" she replied with a laugh. "True."

After a few more minutes, we touched up our makeup and headed out the door, slightly tipsy. Emboldened by the wine and fancy clothes, for a fleeting moment I felt like the night could really be a fresh beginning. I linked Elena's arm as we hailed a cab fairly easily and gave the driver Nick's address. 

Walking into the apartment was as familiar as always, although it was packed to the brim with people; everyone looking totally vogue-worthy. Suddenly, I felt out of place in my Top Shop dress and DSW heels. 

"What is this, all of Nick's famous friends and their model girlfriends?" Elena whispered sharply into my ear, speaking aloud the exact thing I was thinking. I gave her a shrug and made a beeline for where I knew they usually set up the makeshift bar. I scanned the room for Nick, but only found Trevor.

"Dani!" he called, spotting me at the exact same time. I grabbed Elena's hand and weaved through the crowd towards him. 

"Happy New Year!" he bellowed, clearly feeling the buzz already. He enveloped me in a huge hug before pulling away. "Who's your friend?" he asked, looking pointedly at Elena.

"This is Elena, I think you two have met before," I said, knowing that they had definitely met on more than one occasion. Classic Trevor. 

"Hi Trevor," Elena said, clearly not amused. 

He grinned, "Sorry, I'm not great with names. I promise to remember you now," he gave her a wink. 

"Bummer that Ash couldn't come," I interjected, uncomfortable with the way he was looking at Elena. 

"I know," he said, "Can't wait until she gets back. So have you seen Nick yet?" 

"Nope," I said, "We just got here."

"Well then, you need a drink!" he announced, and before he had even finished the sentence he was herding us towards the bar. I gave Elena an apologetic look. 

"He's had a few too many already," I joked. I felt guilty for dragging Elena out tonight and was desperate to show her a good time. 

Once we both had dirty martinis in hand (they had hired an entire bartending service to host the event), we did a slow rotation of the room. After years of dating Nick, I knew a couple of people there and before I knew it two hours had passed, still with no sign of Nick. 

"Bathroom?" Elena asked, and I nodded, excusing us from a conversation with two friends from college. We headed down the narrow hallway only to find a line five girls deep waiting to use it. 

"Shit," Elena said, looking at me pathetically. "I've had to pee for like an hour now." 

I grabbed her arm and steered her through the line. Nick had a bathroom attached to his bedroom, which I assumed none of the others knew about. I pushed open the door and stopped suddenly. It hadn't occurred to me that Nick would be in his room. But there he was, sitting side by side on the bed with the girl I presumed to be Hadley. Their faces were close and his arm was draped lazily across her waist, so naturally that it couldn't be the first time it had found its way there. Her shiny brown hair cascaded down her back and even sitting I could tell she had a solid five inches on me. My heart sank, and I wasn't entirely sure why. 

"Sorry!" I yelped, trying to navigate my way backwards in four-inch heels. 

"Dani..." Nick said, jumping up as if he had been caught.

"Sorry, really, we were just going to use the bathroom," I muttered. I could feel the hot rush of blood to my cheeks as I started to close the door. 

"Oh my god," I said breathlessly once Elena and I were safely outside the room.

"Whoops," Elena said while clearly trying to stifle a laugh. "That was awkward. You looked like a baby gazelle trying to wobble out of there backwards."

I softly punched her in the shoulder. "Oh go get in line with the commoners," I said, steering us back towards the bathroom line.

After the bathroom, I immediately found my way back to the bar. Giving the bartender my most charming smile, I sweetly asked for a Patron shot. 

"Patron?" Elena asked. "Bold."

"You're doing it with me," I demanded, handing her one of the plastic shot glasses filled with clear liquid. 

She shook her head, but conceded. "What are we cheersing to?" 

"Well, we're twenty-somethings in New York, living the dream, aren't we?" I said, feeling the booze. 

"You've been watching too many episodes of Girls," Elena said, clinking her glass to mine. After she downed her shot, she gave me a wide-eyed look, while glancing over my shoulder.

"What?" I asked, signaling the bartender for another martini. 

She continued to gesture wildly with her face and neck and before I could call her out on her insanity, I felt an arm snake slowly around my waist. 

"Hey there," Nick said, his breath hot on my neck. 

I turned towards him, "Hey". 

"Sorry about that," he said, pulling back. "Hadley had me cooped up in there discussing show stuff."

"Hadley?" I asked, feigning ignorance. 

"Um yeah, that girl I was with in my room, she's a co-star," he said. 

"Oh," I replied, keeping up the facade that I had never ever googled him (I always, always googled him). 

"Are you guys having fun?" he asked. 

"Yeah," I replied, looking to Elena. "Great party." 

Nick looked uncomfortable at my short replies, and I couldn't explain why but I enjoyed watching him squirm. I looped my arm in Elena's and started to walk back into the crowd. 

Once we had been swallowed by the crowd once again, I released the breath I had been holding. 

"Okay, I'm no expert but you two have more sexual chemistry than Anastasia and Christian," Elena said.

"First off, stop re-reading 50 shades, secondly, he has a girlfriend - clearly." 

"He said co-star," she said. 

"Co-star, bang buddy, whatever," I said, downing half of my martini. "What time is it?"

"11:40," Elena said. 

"This is depressing," I replied. 

She nodded. "I'll kiss you at midnight?" 

I laughed, "Thank you." 

A few people had started dancing to Take Me Home by Cash Cash, and I drug Elena into the middle. I was officially drunk. 

After a few more songs, Elena was dancing close to a strange man and I was drunkely giving her the thumbs up. Midnight was quickly approaching and at least one of us would get a midnight kiss. I was half-heartedly dancing with a guy I knew from college, Ben, when I heard everyone begin to chant. 

"10....9.....8!" 

I guess kissing Ben wouldn't be worse than kissing no one, I reasoned, draping my arms around his shoulders. 

"7...6....5!" 

I smiled at Ben, fully prepared to kiss him when I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist and pull me back. Ben's confused and angry expression was soon replaced by Nick's face, close to mine. 

"What are you..?" I didn't finish my sentence. I heard the echos of "Happy New Year!" bellowing around me and Nick's lips were on mine. His arms wrapped tightly around my waist and I arched my back to fall into him. It was so familiar and so electric all at the same time.  

One Month Later...

I sat on the couch, flipping between one bad reality TV show and the next. Glancing at my ever-silent phone, I saw that it was barely 9 p.m. With Ash gone for two weeks on vacation with her fam, (#Eurotrip), the lull between Christmas and NYE was painfully lonely. The bursting Christmas cheer that practically spilled out of every edge of NYC for the past month was slowly tapering off, and the city had never felt lonelier.

I reached for my phone again and scrolled mindlessly through Instagram, reaching for the glass of wine that had sat half-drank next to me for the past hour. I was bored. Since Dylan and I had broken up I’d felt restless, and that combined with the chaos at work had left me feeling unsettled for weeks.

Being home for Christmas hadn’t been the welcome distraction that I’d been hoping for. The whole four days I was in Philly I was painfully aware of how easily I could hop in my car and see Dylan. Even though the breakup had been mostly mutual, I knew that seeing him would be a bad idea.

I pulled up our string of texts in my phone to re-read them, something that I had done all too frequently these days. Our last exchange was Christmas morning, a simple “Merry Christmas” that he had instigated. Before I'd boarded my train down to Philly on the 24th, he'd asked to see me while I was home. I had made up excuses about a schedule jammed with family dinners and reunions with old friends, trying to keep my distance. I had felt it in my bones after Thanksgiving that as much as I liked Dylan, we just weren't meant to be. The relationship had become defined by more troubles than triumphs. So after a long afternoon, we'd ended it and I hadn't seen him since. Which hadn't stopped him from trying to win me back, albeit fairly pathetically, but his attempts had tapered off as the weeks wore on. So now here I was, single again, temporarily roommate-less, possibly soon-to-be jobless and currently, a little bit drunk. #winning.

Luckily since the holidays were upon us, things had settled down a bit at work. We hadn't heard much talk about the possible layoffs, but everyone had been working their asses off to prove that they were worth keeping. A few people even cancelled long-awaited vacations, not wanting anything to happen while their backs were turned.

As for Gathr, they had thanked me for the interview but hadn't asked me back in. When I asked Jeff about it, he informed me that they had stopped the interviewing process all together, apparently wanting a firm job description in place to properly assess candidates. He told me to sit tight until the new year, but with everything else going on I wasn't as consumed by the rejection as I would have normally been.

As I got up from the couch to fetch a vino refill, my phone pinged with a text. Glancing over, I saw that it was Nick. Ever since Dylan and I had broken up, Nick and I had been texting more frequently. Although I hadn't actually told him I was single, I had a feeling he knew. And even though he hadn't mentioned it, I had seen plenty of photos online of him and one of his "costars", Hadley, all alluding to the fact that they were a bonafide couple.

Hey you - any plans for NYE?

I pondered how to respond. A while back, Dylan and I had purchased tickets to a NYE party in Philly. Since that clearly wasn't happening, I hadn't made any efforts to plan something else. And without Ash to force me out of the house, I had fully planned on staying in and wallowing in my loneliness. I know, I'm becoming more like Bridget Jones, pre-Mark Darcy, every minute.

Actually was planning a low-key night, you?

I replied, keeping an eye on his text bubbles as I refilled my wine.

Low key huh? Well we're having a party at my place, and I'd love it if you could come.

I chewed on my lip, tempted. It would be better than sitting here alone watching sadly as the ball dropped on TV, envisioning my inevitable cat-lady life that laid before me. However then he would definitely know that Dylan and I had broken up.

As I was still debating the pros and cons, another text popped up.

Please?

I sighed.

Okay, I guess I could swing by. I may bring Elena, if that is okay?

I remembered Elena saying that she had no plans for New Years either, and had planned to hang in with her roommate who had recently been dumped. I figured it couldn't be too hard to wrangle her into my plans.

Awesome, starts at 8.

I padded back over to the couch, sending a screen-grab of the conversation to Ash's email. Stupid texting wasn't working while she was traipsing over Europe. I knew she'd want me to be on Trevor duty on NYE, to make sure he wasn't kissing anyone else at midnight.

I sighed, sinking back into the couch. It seemed like I was starting 2015 off the same way I had began 2014... single, unsure, and still in a gray area with Nick. I really needed to branch out.

**I won't be posting Friday, but I'm definitely going to try to get back to at least once a week as the New Year starts! However it won't be my normal Weds/Fri schedule, but I'll be tweeting out the day before a post goes up so make sure to follow me there! (@Trag20Something). With this new job a lot has changed, so writing time isn't as abundant. But I haven't forgotten you and I still have so much planned for Dani in 2015. Have an INCREDIBLE and safe New Year's everyone! Make sure to lay one on someone special at midnight. xoxo**

NEWS!

First off I want to thank you all for being so sweet and supportive lately. No one has posted, tweeted or emailed a negative thing about my lack of posting.

That said, I started writing again (finally!) and will have a post up tomorrow !

xoxo

Layoffs

**Hello my loves. Finally a long awaited post - and i'm so sorry that it's so short. I can't make any promises for Friday but I'll do my best to post. The family member I mentioned passed away, and my new job starts Monday. For now I'm going to promise to post as often as I can but I need to deviate from my Weds/Fri schedule. After the holidays and everything has settled down again, I hope to return to normal posting. Between now and then I'll post as much as I can, and just follow me on twitter for any updates. **

A few minutes after leaving Noah, I entered Platform's offices a complete bundle of nerves. Elena's texts had left me on edge and I had no idea what I was about to walk into. 

I dumped my bag and coat on my desk, scanning the space for my intern before heading into the meeting. No sign of Alice. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a notebook and headed into the conference room that Elena had instructed. 

As I grew closer, I saw more than 30 people crowded in the glass-walled room. My heart sped up - this had to have something to do with what I heard Colleen discussing on the phone last week. During the last few strides between myself and the heavy glass door to my fate, all I could hear was Colleen's voice repeating in my head "that's a huge cutback Scott."

I pulled the door open slowly, in an attempt to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I spotted Elena seated in the corner nearest the door and, relieved, I slunk into a chair she had saved next to her. We exchanged a few of those knowing facial expressions that you can only master when you really know someone before I turned my attention to Colleen, who was addressing the group.

"--we expected the third quarter sales to jump, especially with the talent we had on our covers. But that just wasn't the case. We've all known that print sales have been down for years, but it's really starting to hit Platform hard now."

She made a dramatic pause and even though I had been in the meeting all of 30 seconds, I felt my stomach drop. 

Finally, Colleen spoke. "I'm not saying that layoffs are imminent, but I just wanted you all to prepare yourselves."

"Oh my god," Becca, a previous intern, said. "That is what you say when someone is about to die."

I bit my lip, trying to stifle a laugh. 

"Becca," Colleen addressed her, clearly frustrated. "I'm just giving a warning, which anyone who pays any attention to our sales figures wouldn't be surprised by."

I glanced at Elena, who was simultaneously side-eyeing me. I knew, realistically, I was in one of the safer departments. If anything digital would get more of the budget in the long run. But Elena was in Editorial, she did a lot of the copy writing and editing for pieces that went in print.  

Colleen ended the meeting and people began filtering out, gossiping loudly as they did so. Having missed the first half of the meeting, I kept my mouth shut until we reached our desks. 

"Fill me in," I said, following Elena to her desk and perching on the side of it.

She took a deep breath. "Basically, Colleen called an emergency meeting for all senior staff and editorial. She told us a bunch of numbers and said that our parent company wasn't happy, then that is about when you walked in."

I could tell she was worried about her job, and I didn't blame her. 

"Why would she even tell everyone? Now the whole staff is going to start looking for other jobs," Elena continued, and I felt a warmth creep up my neck remembering where I had been just 30 minutes before.

"Yeah," I said, before slinking off to my desk. 

Update

My lovely, amazing readers - 

I know you're wondering where Friday's post was. Truth be told, with the bustle of the holiday and then traveling between Philly-NYC, I completely lost track of the time. On top of that, I'm going through a career change (for an incredible new job! but lots to wrap up at my current one), and I have a family member in the hospital. All that said, I don't want to try and push out below-par posts for you guys. I'm going to take a week off, and will be back at it on December 10th. 

I know this is upsetting and annoying (trust me, I've been super bummed in the past when bloggers either go MIA or take a hiatus), but just keep in mind I do this for free in my spare time, and I also don't want to give you guys a post just to give you one - I want them to be well thought out and written. I know I've missed a few posts the last couple of months, but bear with me! 

See you December 10th! 

xoxo