safe | l.h.

fifteen

"I've known it from the moment that we met, no doubt in my mind where you belong" - Make You Feel My Love / Adele

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-Violet-

I jumped slightly as I heard Grant's voice yelling from his office, exasperated about some deadline we were on the verge of not meeting. My fingers shot up to my temples, hopelessly trying to rub away some of the pain. I had been having the worst headache all day, and was just generally feeling extremely uncomfortable. I had only had a few bad days like this recently, but anytime I had really bad pregnancy symptoms I felt completely useless at work.

Besides that, it had been a week since Luke and I had gotten back from our little vacation, and I was still unbelievably behind on work. I was grateful we had gotten away for a bit, but I knew I was going to be playing catch-up for at least another week, which already seemed exhausting.

Grant stormed out of his office, making his way to my desk with a sigh, "Violet, I know it's last minute but I'm going to need those shots from the farmer's market story edited by the end of the day. Can you handle that?"

I nodded, keeping my hands pressed to my forehead, "Yeah, I can do that, I'll-"

I winced, not even being able to finish my sentence as another wave of pain hit me. Grant furrowed his eyebrows, "Are you not feeling well? If that's the case I'll have someone else edit the photos, I don't need you over-exerting yourself and doing any harm."

I would've protested, but I knew I wouldn't be able to focus enough to get any of that work done by the end of the day, so I just nodded. I was feeling a wave of relief, until I heard a voice from a few desks over speaking up, "Oh, Grant, I can edit those shots. I'm pretty busy today but I can make some time."

My head spun around to face April, one of the other photographers on the team. She was pretty much the only one in the office I didn't get along well with, mostly because she knew that I was better at the job than her. When the new promotion was brought up, and Grant made it clear he was considering me, she started sending me sideways glances and the occasional passive aggressive comment.

I opened my mouth to speak again and change my mind, but Grant beat me to it, "Really, April? That would actually be great, thank you. That's a real show of work ethic, I appreciate it."

As he turned and headed back to his office, April looked over at me with a knowing smirk. I just shook my head and turned back to my desk, trying not to be bothered by her obvious attempt to get the promotion now that I wasn't performing at my best.

I sat quietly for a while, just trying to focus on my work and not let her get the best of me. After another hour or so, I headed out to grab some lunch, still feeling pretty exasperated with how April had managed to slightly start edging me out of Grant's good graces. I grabbed a sandwich to go from one of the small restaurants down the street, and then found a bench to sit on while I ate.

I tried calling Luke, knowing that he would listen to me vent and ultimately know what to say to make me feel better. To my surprise, he didn't answer, and just sent me a text saying he was busy for the rest of the day and couldn't chat. I was slightly confused, but figured the vet's office was just slammed today and decided not to question it.

Instead, I called Sydney, and let out a relieved sigh when she answered, "Ugh, thank god you picked up. I cannot believe what this girl at work just did."

Sydney was talking quickly, which was unusual for her, "Hey, yeah, we can talk about that in a second, but I'm actually really glad you called because I have to talk to you about something kind of important."