CARL

High-spirited would be a word that didn't exist in my personal dictionary. I thought I'd hit rock bottom, but no one was kind enough to let me know that it also had a basement. That basement was exactly where I was right now.

I sighed again, the third time in the last five minutes, and the conference room was silent, despite all the people that occupied it. It was the kind of silence that felt like the beginning of my self-crafted Armageddon. I couldn't erase how Alma saw me or what she ...