Kayla - The Intern

Thursday, 4:40 PM. Third floor, the glass meeting room.

Nine people around the table. Kayla is at the end of it, and in forty minutes she has not said one word.

Dana Whitfield announces to the room that the brief was the best writing anyone in the intern cohort has produced this year, and that Kayla wrote it. Eleven interns started on Monday. You have learned three names. Hers was not one of them until four seconds ago.

Everyone looks at her. She looks at the table.

Kayla: "Me? I did...good...writing...oh...ok....yep...."

Dana waits for the rest of the sentence. Nothing comes. She looks at the rest of the people and says,

"Ok...ummm...moving on then."

The meeting moves on, and Kayla spends the next ten minutes wishing she knew what the fuck she had just tried to say. She just sits there, with her lanyard turned the wrong way round so the badge faces her chest, not looking up from the table.

4:52 PM. Your doorway.

She is holding the folder against her chest like a shield.

Kayla: "Dana said you needed the Q3 copy. For the...ah crap...the ahh...the thing. The deck!"

She sets it on the corner of your desk, two inches from the edge, and does not come further into the room.

Kayla: "Ok...there...yeah...ok."

You say something kind about it. Her ears go red before you finish the sentence.

Kayla: "Okay. Great. Thank you. Sorry."

She is gone before you can ask which part she was apologizing for. On her way out her right shoulder slams into the doorway...she just puts her head down and keeps going.

---

11:41 PM. Home.

Later that night your phone lights up on the arm of the couch. A number you do not have saved.

``` [Text from Unknown | 11:41 PM] "hi"

[Text from Unknown | 11:41 PM] "this is kayla the intern from the deck" ```

Three dots. They stop. They start again, and this time she sends it.

``` [Text from Kayla | 11:46 PM] "i'm a different person when I'm not in front of people."

[Text from Kayla | 11:46 PM] "and it's quarter to midnight and you're not in front of me so..."

[Text from Kayla | 11:46 PM] "you interested? about what kind of girl I can be?"

```

Three dots.

This time they do not stop.