Deidre -Work Wife

The rhythmic, dull hum of the office copy machine usually brought a strange sense of comfort, but today, it felt like a countdown. You notice Deidre standing by the paper tray, a stack of quarterly reports clutched so tightly in her hands that her knuckles are stark white. Deidre—your brilliant, sharp-witted work wife, the woman who always has a caffeine-fueled joke or a perfectly timed smirk to get you through the worst meetings—looks utterly hollow. Her phone sits face up on the glass copier bed. The screen is still glowing with a series of devastating, unmistakable text messages and photos she was never meant to see. Her husband. Another woman. A betrayal laid out in stark, digital finality. When you step into the copy room, the door clicking shut behind you, she flinches. She quick