Table for two

After Rohit left the meeting room, Aliza stayed with me.

She didn't try to make excuses for anyone. She didn't tell me to let it go. She just sat there and let me feel it—let me be angry, and humiliated, and tired of all of it.

"You are not alone," she said finally, her voice soft but steady.

I nodded, my throat too tight to answer.

But the truth was, I didn't believe it. Because the second I stepped back into that open office, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.

After that day, the note stayed folded in the bottom of my bag.

Sometimes I'd touch it by accident—just a corner of the paper brushing my fingers—and my stomach would drop all over again.

YOU ARE A SHITTY PERSON.

People were still pretending to be busy, but I could feel them watching. I could feel every whisper that died as I walked past. Every sideways glance. Every silent verdict.

It would have been easier if I didn't care. If I was really as untouchable as I liked to pretend.

But I did care. More than I wanted to admit.

I kept telling myself it didn't matter. That I wasn't here to be liked.

But I was lying to myself.

It didn't matter how many times I told myself I was done caring.

That I was over it.

That I wouldn't let them decide who I was.

Because when you walk into a place where everyone already has an opinion about you, you feel it in the way they look at you—or don't look at you at all.

You feel it in the way their voices drop when you pass.

The way they choose a different conference room to eat in.

Like even sitting near you might make them part of the drama.

So they left me alone.

All of them.

And I kept thinking about that rule I'd carried my whole life—like a superstition I was too scared to break.

Never eat alone.

I'd never broken it.

Some people would think it's silly.

But for me, it felt like the biggest humiliation.

I never went to college, but even in school, I had a rule. If my friends—Muskan or Sakshi—were absent, I'd spend the whole day hungry rather than open my lunchbox alone. I'd watch other kids sitting together, laughing, trading bites of paratha or chips, and I'd pretend I wasn't hungry. Pretend I was fine.

Muskan would always scold me later.

"Noor, you're literally going to pass out one day," she'd say, rolling her eyes.

Sakshi would chime in: "Just come eat with us, idiot."

But if they weren't there, it was like the cafeteria turned into a stage, and I was the only one under the spotlight.

I never forgot that feeling.

And here I was, years later, in a grown-up office with grown-up politics—and still terrified of the same thing.

After the notepad incident, things only got worse.

Nobody said it outright, but they didn't have to. The message was clear.

Stay away from her. She's a problem.

In this office, there was no cafeteria.

Just conference rooms and the studio where everyone gathered in clusters—laughing, eating together, their voices echoing down the hallway.

If you didn't have a group, you stood out.

If you didn't have someone to save you a chair, you were that person.

The one who had no one.

That afternoon, I stood in the hallway, trying to breathe through the panic rising in my throat.

Every door I passed was the same—filled with people who pretended not to see me.

Or maybe they really didn't.

Maybe they'd already decided I wasn't worth noticing.

I felt it in my chest, a tight, sinking shame that made me want to walk right out of the building.

But I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't eat alone at my desk.

I couldn't.

So I kept walking.

Past the rows of glass partitions.

So I did what I always do when the walls started closing in: I looked for Aliza.

She had her own little cabin on the third floor—just a small glass room with a desk that was always too neat, a white tumbler with a black cap sitting next to her Laptop.

She never left her hair open. It was always pulled back into a perfect ponytail, not a strand out of place.

She was the only person who didn't look at me like I was an inconvenience.

I never told her outright, but she must have guessed.

Because most days, around lunchtime, I'd appear at her door like it was some coincidence.

She'd look up, smile—soft, understanding—and say, "You haven't eaten yet, have you?"

I'd shrug. "I wasn't hungry."

She'd tilt her head a little, her eyebrows lifting just enough to call me out without a word.

"Come sit," she'd say.

And that was it. My permission slip to belong somewhere.

One afternoon, I climbed the stairs with a pit in my stomach, clutching my phone and trying to act like I was checking emails.

Her door was ajar. She was sitting with two guys I used to like as a friend, back when I still believed people were mostly good.

I hovered outside for a second, telling myself I could just go back downstairs. Pretend I had calls.

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't face the conference room alone.

So I knocked lightly.

Aliza looked up, and her face softened in that way it always did when she saw me.

"Come in," she said. "You can sit here."

She didn't even ask. She knew.

She always knew.

I pulled up a chair, my heart thumping in my chest like I was twelve years old again.

One of the guys nodded at me. The other barely looked up.

Aliza gave them a look that made something in my chest unclench.

And then she did the kindest thing anyone could have done in that moment—she saved me a seat at her table.

Literally and metaphorically.

"You haven't ordered yet?" she asked, her brows lifting.

"I was waiting," I admitted.

"For what?"

"Company."

Her mouth quirked, but she didn't tease me. She just said, "Then order something. You're going to eat today."

So, I did.

By the time my sad little Burger and Fries arrived, Aliza had unpacked her tiffin—chapatis folded in a square napkin, aloo and peas in one compartment. She ate slowly, methodically, as if the rest of the world didn't exist.

Sitting across from her, I felt my shoulders finally unclench.

At some point, one of the guys cracked a joke. I didn't laugh, but Aliza did—a soft sound, like water moving over stones.

She didn't act like she was saving me. She didn't act like she was babysitting.

She just made space. And maybe that was the kindest thing anyone could have done.