Minefield of Mirrors

-41-

The letter to her younger self was lying on top of Jules' desk and Iris slowly slid her fingers over the words that she had written down earlier this week. She had asked Jules if she could use his office for fifteen minutes because of an important phone call. Of course, her therapist hadn't asked any further questions, knowing that she would tell him later about it and had lent her the space.

Iris was holding her phone in her other hand and had already selected the number of Mister Poken. She only had to press the green button and the moment would be there that she had to tell her big boss that she was quitting. She took a deep sigh, cleared her throat and just went for it. As the dial tone sounded from her phone, Iris looked at the letter in front of her. If this was the thing that would make her chase the happiness of her inner child again, then it didn't matter whether Mister Poken was going to like her decision or not. It was a decision for herself. Something which she had to do more often according to Jules.

Her boss didn't even say hello when he picked up the phone. 'Iris, amazing timing. Are you already back to work? I need some help with another project and I think it would be easy to combine it with the one at Red Bull. It's-'

'Mister Poken, I-'

He simply kept on going, ignoring everything. 'It's a case at a company that is comparable to Vivid and they need a completely new design in their hierarchy of management. Altogether with their redesign of the working space. I thought of-'

'Mister Poken, I-'

'Or maybe we should tackle it by-'

All her patience was gone in an instant. 'Mister Poken, I quit.' She blurted out bluntly.

Those four words were all that was necessary to make him silent on the other side of the line. Iris held her breath, waiting for his reply.

'No, you're not.' His tone was stern, like a teacher who was telling you to shut up right away after interrupting with something so silly, that it didn't deserve to be said out loud.

Iris stayed put and kept at her decision. 'I reconsidered everything and yes, I want to quit.'

Her heart was beating heavily inside her chest. She thought back about her time within the company and she couldn't think of one employee who had ever quit. It was more likely people would get fired by the boss himself than that they would get the opportunity to quit themselves.

Iris could hear how he breathed deeply in and out, probably trying to hold his anger. 'Iris, you can't quit. Not after we gave you all these opportunities to climb the ranking ladder within our company. We made you the professional you are today, do not forget that.'

'I definitely don't, but-'

'Exactly. You can't leave us. I'm about to give you another-'

But Iris didn't listen to the rest of the sentence as the door of the office suddenly flew open. 'Jules, I'm freaking out. You need to hel-'

Right away, Iris's eyes found the eyes of Max and held them for a couple of seconds. She noticed how he lowered his shoulders as soon as he saw her and took her presence in.

'Iris..?' Her name left his lips softly. Almost like a whisper.

Mister Poken was still talking on the other side of the phone and Iris broke the eye contact with Max by turning to the side, showing Max the phone that she was holding against her ear.

'No, Mister Poken. You can't convince me anymore. I'm resigning. I have enough overtime left to cover my months' notice. Monday first thing in the morning, I'll clean my desk. You'll receive my resignation letter by the end of the day.' Then she simply hung up the phone.