She thought no one noticed her. The people she works with disagreed.

Lunch, the usual place, and the person across the table tells the kitchen: no chili for her. She pauses — not moved, just puzzled. Three years in that office and she'd settled into being the one nobody remembers anything about.

Three years, no title, a desk in the far corner, whole meetings where her name never comes up. So when someone remembers a small thing on her behalf, her first instinct is to look for the catch. Then it comes back to her: she mentioned it once, offhand, two years ago. She'd forgotten. They hadn't.

Another time she has to sit in on a meeting with the team next door. On the way over she's already bracing for the familiar feeling — their room, nobody there knows who she is. She walks in and they use her name, and they know which part of the work is hers. She spends the rest of the hour on one question: who wrote the line "nobody notices me," if not her.

Then she takes a day off. Nobody messages, and she reads that silence the way she's read it for three years — she could be there or not, same difference. The next morning three people ask where she'd been. Nothing dramatic about it. They ask, then go back to their own work.

Silence, and I read it as being forgotten. Three years of reading it wrong.

She doesn't come away feeling important. Just a little less small. When was the last time someone remembered a small thing for you — and did you notice?