The Quiet Anchor

If someone had told me back then that Aliza would become the person I trusted most, I'd have laughed in their face.

When I first met her—in my old company, before any of this started—I thought she was exactly the kind of HR I'd always hated.

Polite but distant. Always with that tight, professional smile. Always on the side of the rules.

The type of woman who would side with management even if the employees were on fire.

I still remember my first impression of her so clearly.

I remember that afternoon too well—my phone screen glaring in my face as I reread the message about my salary deduction.

Three days deducted.

Three.

I stomped across the floor toward Aliza's desk—the one right in front of the entrance door, where she sat like the quiet gatekeeper of the whole office. She looked up calmly, her white tumbler beside her laptop. "This is wrong," I announced. "Look."

She looked up calmly, her white tumbler next to her keyboard. "Hi, Noor. Nice to see you, too."

"Hi," I snapped automatically. "Now look."

I spun the screen toward her, jabbing a finger at the number. "Three leaves deducted. I only took two."

Her eyebrows rose a fraction. "Did you check the Google Sheet?"

"Yes," I said, lying.

She didn't even bother arguing. She clicked around on her laptop, pulled up the Google Sheet, and tilted the screen toward me.

"One leave, second leave, and one in your joining month," she recited. "In the joining month, there are no paid leaves. They all count as unpaid."

"That's not fair," I blurted. "Nobody told me that."

Her mouth twitched, like she was suppressing a sigh. "I did tell you. During induction."

"Why would I lie about this?" I demanded. "I'm telling you—nobody told me."

She looked me dead in the eye, completely unruffled. "I'm not saying you're lying. I'm just saying I know I covered this in induction."

It felt like the politest way possible to call me a liar.

"Great," I muttered, folding my arms. "So basically, I'm being penalized for something I didn't even know."

"I understand you're upset," she said, her voice soft but steady. "But this is company policy. If you check your offer letter, it's mentioned."

I hated that she was probably right.

And I hated even more that she was so damn calm while I was ready to launch into orbit.

"Fine," I said, even though it wasn't. "Whatever."

I stormed out, absolutely sure she was the coldest HR in the history of corporate life.

Little did I know…

Here, she had her own cabin on the third floor—a small space with a narrow desk and her white tumbler with the black lid. From the hallway, you could see her sitting with her head bent, scribbling notes in her precise handwriting.

I told myself I wouldn't bother her. That I'd be professional, and she'd be the same.

But the first week, I found myself knocking on her door anyway.

"Are you busy?" I asked, even though I didn't wait for an answer.

She looked up, that same calm expression on her face.

"Come in," she said. "What's going on?"

After that, it became a habit. Any time the floor felt too loud or too cruel, I'd drift upstairs. Sometimes I didn't even have a reason. Sometimes I just needed to sit somewhere I wasn't on display.

"Any new gossip?" I'd tease, trying to lighten my own mood.

She'd smirk and shake her head.

"Nothing worth repeating," she'd say—but I knew she was lying. She always knew everything.

If anyone else asked, she was the model of discretion. No opinions. No complaints. But when it was just me and her, she'd lean back in her chair, drop her voice low, and say exactly what she thought.

"You know," she said one afternoon, "you make things harder for yourself by expecting people to be decent."

"I know," I sighed. "But I don't know how to expect anything else."

She tapped her pen against the tumbler, studying me with that little half-smile.

"You remind me of how I was when I started," she admitted. "It takes time to figure out where to draw the line."

"I don't want to draw lines," I mumbled. "I want to feel like I belong."

Her expression softened, and for the first time since I'd met her, I realized she wasn't unbothered. She'd just learned how to carry herself like nothing could touch her.

And I envied that.

It didn't matter how different we were—her calm and my chaos, her composure and my unfiltered emotions. Somehow, sitting across from her desk with the afternoon light spilling across her Laptop keyboard, it felt like we'd made our own little corner.

Some days, it was the only place I felt safe.

Some days, I wished the rest of the office never existed.

And I never forgot that first conversation—how sure I'd been she was heartless, when all she'd really been was honest.

I think that's why I kept coming back. Because no matter how messy everything else became, she never pretended. She never made me feel like I was too much.

And maybe that was the beginning of the only friendship I didn't see coming.