All it said was, “I never meant to send that email.”
I almost laughed out loud. It was only one concise sentence, and yet I could sense how mortified she was.
“Really?” I replied. “What happened?”
“Um… I was venting, and I wrote the letter, and I accidentally pressed send instead of delete when you walked out here an hour ago.”
“I see. You were venting…by email?”
“It’s a cathartic tool that any good therapist will recommend.”
“You see a therapist?” I replied back.
“No, I don’t see a therapist. I can’t afford a therapist… My point is that it’s a legitimate practice—venting by writing down your feelings. You don’t actually have to send it; it just makes you feel better.”
“And did it?” I wrote. “Make you feel better?”
“It did, until I realized I had sent it and then I started freaking out because I actually like this job.”
“You assumed I would fire you?”
“Umm, yes.”
“Would you mind stepping into my office please?” I wrote finally, tired of the constant emailing back and forth. “I’d like to have a face-to-face chat with you.”
I didn’t get a reply back, so I assumed she was making her way into the office. Except one minute turned into two and then two minutes turned into five, and I wondered what was keeping her. I stood up and walked to the door. When I looked outside, I saw that Kristen was sitting by her desk, staring at her screen as though she didn’t know what to do. When she saw me standing there, she did a double take and clutched her heart.
“Jesus, I didn’t even see you standing there.”
“You were busy staring off into nothing.”
“I wasn’t staring off at nothing,” she replied. “I was staring at your last email.”
I smiled. “And, what about my last email was so confusing?”
“I… I…”
“I’m not going to bite, Kristen,” I said, at last. “I just thought it would be easier to talk in here, rather than out there. But if you prefer…”
I made as if to move towards her desk, but she stood up immediately. “No, you’re right,” she said in a panicked voice. “We’ll talk inside. It’ll be…better.”
I could tell she was nervous, and for a moment, that perplexed me. Was I really so scary that the thought of talking directly to me had her so unraveled? She was fiddling with her fingers as she walked into my office, she bumped into the chair, and she seemed to be biting her lip a lot.
“You seem nervous,” I said bluntly, sitting down in front of her.
“Uh… I suppose I am.”
“Why?”
“Because of the letter,” she replied.
“I told you that you were right, Kristen,” I said. “And,
I meant it. I shouldn’t have apologized over email, though. I should have done it face to face, so I’ll do it now. I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you these last few weeks.”
Kristen stared at me for a moment as though she wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not. “You’re serious?” she said at last.
“Of course, I’m serious.”