#Chapter 59: A Gift

Agnes The afternoon sun slanted through the office window, casting long shadows across the wood as I sat at my desk with my pencil in hand. For the first time in the past few days, the sketchbook in front of me wasn’t empty. I’d managed to scrawl a few decent designs across the pages; they were rough, that was for certain, but it was better than nothing. I leaned back in my chair, stretching until my spine cracked, and glanced over at the clock. Five minutes until the design department meeting at the end of the day. My stomach twisted slightly at the thought, even though I was the one who had called the meeting. We were going to do an anonymous vote to pick the top sketches for the week, and I knew mine would likely come in dead last. Not that it should have mattered to me, of course. I was the manager of the department, which meant I didn’t even really have to submit sketches if I didn’t want to. But the thing was, I did want to. My mother would have do