I had steeled myself for coming into the office, but as I walked out of the elevators, I realized my heart was nowhere ready. I wanted to burn this whole place down and at the same time find a corner to just wallow in the pain I was feeling. It didn’t matter, though. I had work to do. I made sure that Derek was my first appointment in the morning.

We had gone over a lot of the specifics of my next steps. To say he was shocked was an understatement. He was quick to recover and followed my ...