Thinking back on it

Dearest Overthinker…

You know that feeling when something doesn’t sit right — but you can’t quite prove why?

I think I’ve found the beginning.

Before B and her elaborate stories, there was S.

At the time, I didn’t connect them. Now, looking back, I can’t unsee it.

S came to her interview trembling — like a chihuahua staring up at a Great Dane. A and I softened the room for her. We told her funny stories, reassured her that we were a team, that we looked after our own. We made it feel safe.

She relaxed. She impressed us. She got the job.

We thought we’d found someone grateful. Someone gentle.

Instead, we found chaos — wrapped in vulnerability.

From her very first shift, there was always a reason.

Not excuses. Reasons.

“I was late because my aunties made me scrub the house before I left.”

“I can’t come in. I think I’ve got what A had.”

That one stopped me.

Only I knew A was pregnant.

For S to “have what A had” would have required immaculate conception — especially considering she’d told me, just days earlier, that she was a lesbian who had sworn off men because of trauma involving her adoptive father.

But her stories never stayed still long enough to question.

There had been a baby once, she said. Given up to the baby daddy. No contact allowed.

There had been abuse.

There had been a midnight escape.

There had been bathrooms she was locked inside until they were spotless — not a hair out of place.

Then the aunties turned unsafe too.

Then she needed rescuing again.

Then she had her own house.

Every week, a new chapter.

Every shift, a new crisis.

And we believed her.

Or at least… we didn’t challenge her.

Then came C.

She had been adamant she only liked women. Until she met him. Suddenly she was bisexual. Suddenly she would only work shifts if C or I were there. Suddenly there were “accidental” date suggestions.

C and I are both in relationships. We declined.

That’s when the pattern shifted.

The later arrivals.

The sudden illnesses.

The dramatic early exits.

The invisible people she feared being reprimanded by — people she no longer even lived with.

It escalated quietly. Like fog creeping under a door.

Eventually, the business couldn’t justify keeping her. She was let go.

But the drama didn’t leave with her.

She accused B of bullying. Of being unprofessional. Of targeting her. She stirred fear from the outside — whispers, allegations, tension that lingered long after her final shift.

And here’s the part that unsettles me most:

We never uncovered the truth.

Not fully.

Now I look at B — at the wild stories that followed months later — and I can’t help but ask:

Did S set the blueprint?

Did B watch how chaos commands attention?

Did she learn that trauma — real or fabricated — can control a room?

Or am I stitching together patterns that were never connected?

That’s the curse of being an overthinker.

You don’t just see the red flags.

You catalogue them.