Wishes and Whispers

 I had mastered the art of invisibility. Not in any magical sense, although sometimes I wished I could just disappear at will, but in that particular way women like me learn to shrink themselves, to glide along the periphery of rooms and conversations, picking up slack and crises without anyone quite remembering you did.

In the office, I had become a rumor of efficiency, an institutional ghost. If there was coffee, I would have brewed it. If there was a fire, whether metaphorical or literal, I would have doused it. I was the first to arrive and usually the last to leave. I moved through hallways silent and sure-footed, dodging eye contact and small talk with the precision of a seasoned ninja.

What no one seemed to understand was that staying invisible actually took effort, deliberate, careful effort. I paid close attention to people’s faces, catching those tiny moments of distraction that gave me a chance to slip by unnoticed. I took mental notes of office supplies, birthdays, allergies, and even the secrets people whispered when they thought no one was listening in the elevator. All of this became my way of life, my purpose. I did it all because it felt safer than being in the spotlight.

Except for one man.

Logan Montgomery.

You could say his name in any boardroom in the metropolis, and silence would fall, like the oxygen had been s*ck*d out by the force of his gravity. He was a human singularity: brilliant, cold, and devastatingly good-looking, in a way that had nothing to do with kindness and everything to do with symmetry and skin that glowed like a Calvin Klein billboard. Logan ran Montgomery Industries like a general leading the last great campaign against mediocrity. He was the kind of boss who didn’t raise his voice to intimidate you; he let a single arched eyebrow do the work.

On my first day, three years ago, I walked into my interview wearing a borrowed blazer and a pair of heels that were two sizes too tight. My résumé was printed on cheap paper, and my hands trembled so hard I left sweat marks on the folder. Logan didn’t look up from his phone until I sat. Then he set it down, regarded me for exactly the length of time it takes to decipher a complex password.

“You’re late,” he said.

I wasn’t. But I apologized anyway.

He hired me just two hours later. I like to think it was because of my strong credentials, but maybe it was because I didn’t try to impress him. I answered every question honestly, even the ones meant to unsettle me - no, I hadn’t used SAP before; yes, I could learn quickly; no, my parents weren’t in finance or law; and yes, I put myself through school by waiting tables and doing online classes for children who wanted to learn English. I didn’t laugh at his jokes because he never really made any.

Somewhere in that disparity between what I was and what I became, I learned to love him.

Love is the wrong word. People like me don’t fall, we drift—slowly, imperceptibly, until one day you realize the thing you orbit has become your entire universe, and if you stray too far from its gravity, you lose all sense of direction. I watched Logan for years. Not in a stalker way (though I knew his schedule, dietary quirks, and cologne preferences by heart). I just…watched. Carefully.

He gave nothing away. Even at office parties, when the interns circled him like baby sharks and the men tried to match his bourbon, he kept a measured distance, always polite, never intimate. Rumor had it he had once dated a doctor, but she had chosen career over him. If I were that doctor, I would choose Logan.

The longer I worked for him, the more I realized I was the only person who could finish his sentences, the only one who could read the glance that meant “Rescue me from this conversation” or “Cancel my next call.”

But that’s all it ever was—a job. A role. A safe orbit.

Until Christine Valdez.

Christine belonged in glass towers and on red carpets. She was the kind of woman who wore designer heels on cobblestones and never stumbled. Her laugh, loud, careless, could fill a ballroom or a city block, depending on the weather. Her engagement ring was the size of the mega version of M&M chocolate candy and cost more than my student debt. She swept into Logan’s life like a summer storm. It was sudden, dazzling, obliterating all other weather.

Their relationship went public at the charity gala last spring. There was a photo in The Post: Logan in a black tux, Christine in a red dress cut to the navel, both of them beautiful and terrifying, like the kind of couple who would survive the apocalypse with perfectly tousled hair. I had clipped that photo and taped it to the inside of my desk drawer. Not to torture myself. Just as a reminder that people like me don’t get people like him.

Every time I looked at Christine, I saw everything I wasn’t. And every time Logan looked at her, I disappeared.

I was nothing but the girl who sorted his calendar.

But I did the job. I booked their dinners, their flights, their spa appointments, and couples’ facials. I fielded calls from Christine’s agent and her mother, usually in that order. I handled all the logistics of Logan’s life, except the part that would make him see me as anything other than a line item on his payroll. On the rare occasions he thanked me, it was with a brisk nod, a faint upturn at the corner of his mouth, before he vanished into the next meeting or conference call.

Today was no different. I was sorting expense receipts at my desk when I caught sight of my reflection in the window glass. My hair, a mass of curls I had given up trying to flatten, had declared mutiny in the humidity. My blouse, last season’s sale, clung tight at the bust and threatened to gap at every button. I tugged it down, frowning at the way my hips insisted on existing. If Christine were a Bond Girl, I would be the bespectacled scientist who got blown up before the opening credits.

My phone buzzed: a text from Dad.

“Don’t forget Amalia’s birthday next week. We’re all expecting you.”

“Argh!” I rolled my eyes. “Expecting. Huh!”

That one word made my stomach roll. Family gatherings meant side-eye comparisons and gentle reminders of all the ways I had measured short. If my sister and I didn’t grow up almost identical, I would have thought I was adopted, or snatched from someone, somewhere. While she grew up beautiful, I turned out to be the scrap of her development. Just look at my hair.

My sister, Amalia, was a force of nature. She was slim, brilliant, freshly engaged to a literal millionaire with perfect teeth and a vacation home in Europe. The last time I visited, our aunt had clapped Amalia on the back and called her “the perfect daughter.” Then she’d turned to me and said, “And Amanda, you’re the kitchen diva.” I think she meant it as a compliment, but it stung like a paper cut.

Yet, here I was, typing.

Me: Got it

After sending my reply, I shoved the phone in my bag, as if burying it would bury the dread.

A shadow fell across my desk.

Logan, in a navy suit so sharp it should have come with a warning label, stood there scrolling his phone.

“Christine’s in Paris. I’ll be working remotely next week,” he said, not looking up.

Of course. Christine belonged in Paris. I pictured her on some gilded balcony, sipping espresso and throwing her head back in laughter, while I was stuck here, logging someone else’s vacation photos and prepping for a family dinner I couldn’t escape.

Logan’s gaze flicked up, locking with mine for the briefest moment. “Amanda, do you have plans next week?”

My mouth went dry. My heart went on a Mambo Jambo, dancing and singing inside my chest. 

“Just my sister’s birthday on Sunday. Family stuff.” I tried to say it like it was nothing, like it didn’t matter, but my voice betrayed a tremor of something else.

He nodded once. “Take the week. You’ve earned it.”

I tried to smile. “Thank you, sir.”

His expression didn’t change. “It’s Logan,” he corrected, as if I had forgotten.

He returned to his office, door clicking shut with the soft finality of a judgment. I stared at the computer screen, the words blurring behind a sudden wash of heat in my eyes.

I hadn’t earned him.

Not that I ever would.

Instead, what I earned was a week off, a round-trip ticket to my parents’ house in the suburbs, and a front-row seat to the annual Reyes Family Showdown starring Amalia, her perfect fiancé, and me, the kitchen diva.

As if Mom and Dad didn’t live together, I received a chat from her reminding me about Amalia’s birthday. On my way home, Amalia called, asking me the same thing. I should have done a text blast.

As soon as I got home, without even bothering to change, I cleaned the apartment.

I could always tell when my anxiety had gotten out of control by the state of my apartment. The more spotless it was, the more thoroughly dismantled I felt inside. Tonight, the place gleamed so hard that I could almost see my own reflection in every surface—countertops shone with a glare, books dusted and rearranged by color, then again by author; the kitchen table was wiped down so obsessively that I had worn away a patch of the finish. I had even cleaned out the fridge, tossing out the withered lettuce and a jar of salsa that predated my last birthday. I should have stopped, but the momentum took over, the way some people drink or run marathons.

I had vacuumed the bas