Saying no for the first time — three nervous minutes, then nothing happened

Five in the afternoon, and the phone buzzes again. He doesn't need to open it to know what it says: another favour. In that office he's the easy one to ask — he says yes to everything, and only afterwards remembers he still has three unfinished files of his own.

His fingers type "sure, let me…" before his head catches up. Then he stops. He looks at the two stacks on the desk: other people's work piled high, his own thin and pushed to the very edge. Nobody is forcing him — nobody ever was. That yes is just a habit he's kept so long he forgot it could be put down. He deletes the line and writes a different one.

After he hits send, his heart pounds for a few minutes. He sits still, afraid of being thought selfish, afraid someone will be angry. Then the reply comes: two words, they'll ask someone else, that's it. No anger, nothing. The anger he sat there waiting for was never on the other end — it was built right where he was sitting.

At six he walks out of the building. He turns around and the whole floor has been dark for hours — so no one has been keeping him there these past months. He was keeping himself. The road home still has light on it, the kind of light he hasn't seen in a long time.

How long since I saw the sky still light. Tonight I got home in time to look.

Back in his room, the laptop bag leans against the wall and stays there. No announcement. When was the last time you said no?