Chapter 21 | At Rock Bottom

In the morning, everything already had the wrong color.

Not literally.

The sky was gray, yes, but mostly I was the one seeing everything through a layer of dust.

The office, the metro, the faces, even the coffee in my cardboard cup. Everything seemed a little too far away.

As if the world were moving normally and I was following half a day behind.

I arrived at the company on time.

That was already an effort.

In the elevator, my reflection in the stainless steel looked paler than usual. A little blurry too. As if I had been badly printed.

I looked away before I started hating myself over details.

The open space was already awake. Keyboards. Small hellos. The sharp noise of the printer.

Clara was talking with someone near the bay window. Jade was at her desk, farther away, eyes on her screen. Mehdi was crossing the corridor with a coffee and an energy I found, that morning, almost offensive.

No one seemed to be living through the slightest inner tragedy.

I sat down.

My computer turned on with that obscene tranquility of machines that are never ashamed of anything.

I opened my files, my emails, my tables.

My fingers moved.

My brain took time to follow.

I reread each line three times. I checked a formula, then another, then another again. And despite that, I had the impression something was escaping me everywhere.

Like when you try to hold water in your hands and only feel the cold slipping between your fingers.

Around ten, Mister Delmas sent me an email.

“Meeting at 11:00 - Concavenator room. Attendance required.”

I looked at the screen a few seconds too long.

My stomach immediately tightened.

Meeting. Attendance required.

Two simple words that, in my body, always translate into the same thing: heat rising in my neck, then the impression that my organs have started discussing among themselves the best way to ruin my day.

I forced myself to breathe.

It was surely only a progress point. A follow-up. Nothing exceptional.

And yet, an absurd certainty settled almost immediately.

Something was going to go wrong.

I don’t know how else to explain it. It wasn’t intuition, not really. More like an old fatigue that already knows the rest before the scene even begins.

The confidential file had been open on my screen for twenty minutes when everything slipped.

A consolidated table. Statements. Lines to correct.

Nothing extraordinary.

The previous day, I had received an additional document to integrate before the morning meeting. A simple update. Well, simple on paper.

In reality, you had to pay attention to the tabs, the filters, the restricted access, the working version, and the secure version.

I knew.

I knew all that.

It was precisely that kind of vigilance that had made them entrust me with the control.

And yet…

my brain latched onto the wrong file.

Or rather: the right file, in the wrong place.

I copied the data. Pasted the lines. Saved.

Then sent the version to the internal mailing list prepared for the meeting.

The gesture was almost automatic. A click. A breath.

And then that little floating feeling in my chest, half a second later. The kind of sensation you get when you close a door while vaguely knowing you forgot something behind it.

I reopened the email.

Reread the subject.

Opened the attachment.

My blood went cold all at once.

It wasn’t the meeting version.

It was the confidential version.

The one containing the internal comments, annotations, control remarks, elements that should never have left the raw file.

I stayed frozen.

My eyes slid over the screen without really reading.

Then I clicked recall message.

Error.

Too late.

The email had already been read by several recipients.

I could feel my heart hitting everywhere.

In my throat.

In my temples.

In my fingers.

Oh shit.

I sent a correction immediately.

Clean attachment. Brief message. Too brief.

I reread it three times before pressing send, as if careful grammar could make up for the substance.

It changed nothing.

Obviously.

The mistake already existed.

Solid.

Irreversible.

Gone into the world like a small stupid object I could no longer retrieve.

“Eliott?”

I lifted my head.

Jade was standing beside my desk.

This time, she looked worried.

“Tell me you didn’t send the wrong version…”

I think I tried to speak.

No sound came out.

Her gaze slid over the screen.

Then over the correction I had just sent.

Then over me.

“And shit.”

The word fell in a low voice. Even more violent like that.

I half stood.

“I corrected it, I…”

“After.”

Her voice was flat.

“You corrected it after.”

She closed her eyes for one second.

When she opened them again, there was no ambiguity left in her expression. Just cold. Not cruelty. Just that professional sharpness which, with her, hurt much more than her jabs.

“It’s a confidential file.”

“I know.”

I felt shame pass through me like a dry current.

Around us, the open space kept breathing. But I knew very well that two or three people had already looked up. The kind of peripheral attention you feel without even seeing it.

Jade leaned toward me.

Her voice lowered even more.

“You’re going to have to handle this with your boss.”

She straightened.

Then added, without taking her eyes off me:

“And this time, don’t mess it up.”

She left.

I stayed standing for one more second.

Then I sat down again.

My hands were trembling slightly. Not enough for it to be spectacular. Just enough to make every click more difficult than it should be.

I spent the next twenty minutes trying to repair the irreparable.

Checking who had opened the document.

Preparing the right version.

Rereading everything. Again.

My brain was spinning too fast and not well enough at the same time. A performance I unfortunately master very well.

I would have liked to disappear into the file.

Or slip between two cells before clicking “hide column.”

Or be anything other than a human being forced to sit in a glass meeting room in a few minutes.

At 10:59, I closed my computer.

I stood up.

My legs felt a little foreign.

The corridor to the room was not long. Still, I crossed it like one walks down a hospital hallway. With that artificial calm you adopt when you know panicking now would no longer serve any purpose.

Passing in front of the legal department, I caught sight of Lyralda behind the partition.

She was reading something, bent over a file.

She looked up at the moment I passed.

Our eyes met.

One second.

I don’t know what she saw on my face.

But her expression changed, barely.

A tiny variation.

As if she already understood something was wrong.

I did not slow down.

I said nothing.

I entered the meeting room.

And I knew, seeing the faces already seated, that the day had truly tipped.

The door of the room closed with that small discreet sound that resembles a polite sentence.

The meeting lasted less than expected. The corrected document had been integrated. Two people had made a sharp remark. Mister Delmas had answered for them with the firm calm of people who handle an error without dramatizing it publicly.

Then the others left.

Only the two of us remained.

Mister Delmas was still sitting at the end of the table, hands clasped in front of him. The screen behind us still displayed the internal control table, frozen like evidence.

I didn’t know where to look.

So I stared at the table.

The light wood.

The fingerprints near the edge.

Useless details.

Anything except the moment about to arrive.

Mister Delmas finally spoke.

“Right.”

His voice was neither cold nor soft.

Just very composed.

“Let’s be clear.”

I nodded.

“What you sent this morning…”

He made a small gesture toward the screen.

“That is a serious mistake.”

The word serious seemed to fill the entire room.

“Yes.”

My voice came out lower than expected.

He continued.

“Not catastrophic. Not irreparable. But serious.”

Silence.

“It is a confidential document.”

“I know.”

“And this is not a game.”

I nodded again.

I could feel shame holding me by the back of the neck.

“I understand.”

He observed me for a few seconds.

Then sighed lightly.

“The problem, Eliott…”

He paused.

“Is not the mistake.”

I looked up.

“Everyone makes mistakes. Me too.”

He placed a hand on the file.

“The problem is your state.”

I frowned slightly.

“My state?”

“Yes.”

He was looking straight into my eyes now.

“You’re elsewhere.”

I stayed silent.

“Tired. Tense. For several weeks.”

He lifted his shoulders slightly.

“And it shows.”

The word passed through me like a cold current.

“I’m working.”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“A lot. But not properly.”

Silence.

“Do you know why?”

I shook my head slightly.

“Because you’re drowning in your personal stories.”

The sentence fell heavily.

I lowered my eyes.

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe.”

His voice became a little firmer.

“You can’t screw everything up because of your personal issues.”

I felt something tighten in my chest.

Not anger.

Just that immense fatigue that had been following me for weeks.

“I don’t want to screw everything up.”

“I know.”

His answer was immediate.

And it almost surprised me.

Mister Delmas straightened slightly.

“Listen to me carefully.”

I looked up.

“You’re good.”

The sentence felt unreal.

“You’re even very good. Too good for a work-study student. That’s why you’re on this control.”

He tapped the file.

“I don’t entrust this kind of work to just anyone.”

I stayed still.

“But if you continue like this…”

He let the sentence float.

“You’re going to sabotage yourself.”

The silence in the room was almost heavy.

“And that, I can’t let pass.”

He paused.

“That’s also my job.”

I nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll be careful.”

He sighed.

“It’s not a question of attention.”

He gently tapped the table with his fingertips.

“It’s a question of presence.”

He fixed his eyes on me.

“You need to come back here.”

Small pause.

“Not stay stuck in your head.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“I’m trying.”

“Don’t try. Do it.”

The sentence could have been harsh.

But his voice wasn’t aggressive.

Then he added, a little more softly:

“But I’m not letting you go.”

I lifted my head.

“Sorry?”

“I’m not letting you go.”

He lifted one shoulder.

“If I wanted to get rid of you, it would already be done.”

The calm with which he said that was almost reassuring.

“So here’s what we’re going to do.”

He slid the file toward me.

“You finish this control. Properly. And you stop believing your inner world is more important than the rest of your life.”

I took the file.

My hands were still trembling a little.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Good.”

Then he stood.

The gesture clearly signaled that the conversation was over.

“And Eliott?”

I looked up.

“Yes?”

He looked at me for one second.

“People who think too much often end up hating themselves for things that don’t even exist.”

I didn’t answer.

Because the sentence had just touched something very precise.

“Don’t do that.”

Then he opened the door.

“Go on. Get back to work.”

I stepped out into the corridor.

The air seemed less heavy than before.

But not lighter either. Just… different.

Like after a fall, when you know you haven’t broken anything, but you’re still ashamed of having fallen.

The open space was still there.

Keyboards.

Screens.

The normal life of the office.

But I was walking as if my legs belonged to someone else.

When I passed the legal department again, I felt a gaze.

I looked up.

Lyralda was standing near her desk.

She said nothing.

Not a word.

But her gaze stayed on me one second too long.

As if she wanted to check something.

As if she was maybe waiting for me to stop.

I looked away.

And I went back to my desk.

The control file in front of me. The numbers on the screen. The work.

The only thing that, in theory, did not reject me completely.

But this time…

even that seemed heavier than usual.

The end of the day stretched like a bad fever.

I stayed at my desk.

The numbers continued existing on the screen. The columns. The filters. The reconciliations.

Everything was there, perfectly logical, perfectly functional.

Except me.

I corrected.

I checked.

I went back over the lines one by one with almost unhealthy attention.

As if precision could make up for what had cracked somewhere else.

No one really came to speak to me.

Clara passed once behind my desk, placed a quick hand on my shoulder without saying anything, then left. Mehdi threw a joke from far away, but it got lost in the noise of the keyboards.

Around five, the open space began to empty.

Bags closed.

Chairs moved back.

Evening light entered through the large windows.

I stayed in front of my screen a little longer.

I had been rereading the same page for several minutes without really understanding it.

Finally, I closed the file.

Save.

Close.

Simple gestures.

I slowly gathered my things.

When I stood, I saw Lyralda at the back of the room.

She was still at her desk.

Her computer lit her face.

She looked up as I passed.

Our eyes met.

Just one second.

“Have a good day, Eliott.”

“Have a good day.”

I continued toward the exit.

The street was calm.

The air cold.

I walked without really looking where I was going.

Shop windows passed by.

People passed.

Some were laughing.

Some were on the phone.

Normal life.

Again.

And I had the impression of moving through all of it like a ghost a little too solid to disappear completely.

When I got back to my studio, the room seemed smaller than usual.

The white walls.

The desk lamp.

The tiny kitchen.

Everything was exactly in its place.

And yet, something in me gave way.

I put down my bag.

Took off my shoes.

Then sat on the edge of the bed.

The silence of the apartment fell on me all at once.

I stayed like that for a long time.

Back slightly hunched.

Hands still.

Gaze lost somewhere between the floor and the opposite wall.

At one point, I lay down on the bed without taking off my jacket.

The blurry ceiling above me.

Time passed.

I couldn’t say how much.

At some point, my phone vibrated on the bedside table.

I didn’t move right away.

Then I reached out.

The screen lit up.

A message.

Lyralda.

I stayed frozen for one second.

Then I opened it.

The message was short. Very short.

“I’m here if you need me, Eliott.”

That was all.

No question.

No reproach.

No pressure.

Just that.

I looked at the screen for a long time.

A very long time.

My fingers stayed still.

I could answer.

One word. Two. Anything.

thank you I’m not okay can you come? sorry

Anything.

But I didn’t.

I put the phone back beside me.

And I stayed there, in the darkness slowly beginning to enter the room, with that very simple and very sad feeling:

maybe I had arrived exactly at the moment when I should have reached out.

And I didn’t even have the strength anymore.