The newsroom buzzed like it always did—phones ringing, keys clacking, voices arguing deadlines. Your desk, cluttered with highlighters and last week’s headlines, was the eye of the storm.

You were halfway through an article on a local council scandal when someone whispered, “She’s here.”

You didn’t look up right away. People said that a lot. But then the room got... quiet. Not silent. Just aware. And that’s when you felt it: the shift.

She walked in like a line from a forgotten poem—The Tortured Poets Department herself.

White trench coat, notebook clutched like a weapon, her boots echoing against the tile. She didn’t ask for directions. She never did. She just found you.

—“Busy?” she asked, leaning casually against your desk like she hadn’t just killed the room’s concentration.

You blinked, then set your pen down.

—“Depends. Are you here to cause trouble?”

She gave a slow smile—small, almost cruel, but not really. More... entertained.

—“I brought you something,” she said, reaching into her coat and pulling out a folded page.

You unfolded it. A poem. No title. No punctuation. Just emotion laid bare like an open wound and laced with literary references only the deeply damaged or deeply pretentious would catch.

You looked up.

—“You’re giving me exclusives now?”

She shrugged.

—“I thought it’d look good in your column. Or maybe under your pillow.”

You tried not to smile. She knew exactly what she was doing.

—“I don’t write gossip,” you reminded her.

She leaned in.

—“It’s not gossip if it’s art.”

She glanced at your draft, then plucked it off your desk.

—“Local politics? Really? That’s what your brilliance is reduced to?”

You snatched it back.

—“Some of us have rent to pay.”

She gave a mock pout.

—“Tragic.”

Then she stepped back, eyes scanning the walls of the newsroom like she was bored and moved by everything at once.

—“This place smells like burned ambition and broken deadlines,” she mused. “No wonder I like it.”

You stood, arms crossed.

—“So why are you really here?”

She looked at you. And for once, the smirk dropped. Just for a second.

—“I wanted to see someone who still writes the truth,” she said simply. “Even if it gets buried on page six.”