The 58-Point Betrayal

1: 1

The night I lost the promotion, I crouched at the curb with a paper cup of fried calamari.

I fed them into my mouth one by one, and the tears came down with them.

I texted my boyfriend, Justin Gilbert:

A little tired today, but the calamari's good.

He didn't reply.

Half an hour later, I couldn't help sending another:

Are you busy? I just want to talk to you.

At last he wrote back:

What's this supposed to mean? You want me to reimburse you?

I stared at that line for a long time.

Justin's startup had barely gotten off the ground when his mother made off with all the funds, leaving him a hundred million in debt overnight.

Ever since, there was nothing he hated more than gold-diggers.

And I killed myself proving I wasn't one.

In six years I never spent a cent of his money.

We split every bill, I returned every gift, and I laid every project result I ever produced out on the table for anyone to scrutinize.

My feed refreshed. The intern who'd won the promotion was wearing a diamond necklace, with a caption:

Thank you, Mr. Gilbert, for celebrating my promotion. I'll keep working hard.

I'd seen that necklace in a magazine. Only three of them in the world.

In six years, I never once received a gift from Justin worth more than a thousand dollars.

And the necklace around Ada Whitney's neck was worth ten million.

Tears blurred the phone screen, and it suddenly hit me that all those years of proving my innocence,

in his eyes, probably weren't worth so much as one piece of fried calamari.

......

After the last bite, I flagged down a car back to the office.

The results had already been posted.

But I still wanted to ask where I'd fallen short.

Six years of project experience, top performance three years running, the most stable teams in the whole company.

And I'd lost to an intern who'd just come off probation.

The moment I stepped out of the car, I saw Justin ten feet away, bending down to open the car door for Ada.

"There's no rush on this project. Get familiar with the process first."

"In a couple of days I'll take you to London to meet a client. It'll broaden your horizons."

"But I only just came off probation..." Ada's voice held a note of hesitation.

"It's fine."

Justin cut her off, his voice gentle:

"As long as you've got the ability, your position doesn't matter."

"Besides, I'm right here. Anything comes up, I've got you covered."

The hot summer wind blew over me, and yet the soles of my feet went cold.

In six years, Justin had been to thirty-five countries, and not once had he taken me.

He always said, "We don't mix personal matters into work."

I'd asked him once, "Then what if I go as the project lead? Is that not allowed either?"

He'd given me a look. "Jean Fox, are you trading your project results for a business trip? You need to learn to be mindful of your place."

Be mindful of my place.

I'd been mindful. I never dared arrive or leave with him, never dared post about him, never even dared ride the same elevator at work.

And then he turned to someone else and said: your position doesn't matter.

Ada spotted me and raised her hand. "Jean!"

Justin followed her gaze and turned his head.

His eyes didn't linger on me a second longer before dropping back to Ada.

"Come on, I'll drive you home. Get some rest early."

Ada nodded, then smiled at me again. "Jean, are you heading back to the office, or coming with us?"

Only then did Justin look at me.

"Just take a cab home. Ada's place is the opposite direction. It's out of the way."

But in the end he'd still come home to our place, so what exactly was out of the way?

Before I could get a word out, he was in the car, starting the engine.

I stood there in the wind, watching the car disappear.

That figure. Six years.

He used to drive halfway across the city to pick me up when I went to sign a contract.

Now it was out of the way.

At the HR department computer, I saw the judges' scoresheet.

In the row under my name, the score Justin had given me was: 58.

Six judges, and his was the lowest.

I flipped down a page. His score for Ada: 98.

I stared at that 58 and couldn't seem to catch my breath, no matter what.

How could it have been Justin?

He, of all people, knew exactly what these six years had cost me.

Every late night working overtime, every all-nighter before a pitch, every scorecard his gaze had swept past. He'd watched it all with his own eyes.

And the score he gave me was the lowest.

"Why?" I murmured to myself.

The only answer was the sound of a tear striking the keyboard.

And, outside, the sudden patter of rain.

2: 2

By the time I got home, I was soaked through.

Justin was sitting on the couch, laptop on his knees.

He didn't even look up.

"I reminded you this morning to take an umbrella."

No towel, no hot water, not even a proper word of concern.

I stood in the entryway, water dripping off the ends of my hair, pooling in a little puddle on the tile.

"You were a judge. You gave me a fifty-eight, and you gave Ada a ninety-eight."

"Why did you give her the highest score and me the lowest?"

Justin set the laptop on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch.

"Because it was fair."

"Fair?"

"A lot of people at the company have already figured out what we are to each other."

"To spare me the awkwardness, the review panel would naturally lean toward giving you a high score."

"If I gave you a high score too, your competition result would lose all meaning."

"So the lowest score had to come from me."

I looked at him and dragged out a bitter smile.

"Justin, it's been six years. Not once have I ever used my relationship with you to get an opportunity."

"Every project we worked on, I did the work myself. This competition too, I signed up on my own project numbers. You know that."

He picked up his cup, took a sip of water, set it down, the base tapping lightly against the table.

"Because you still haven't learned one thing. In the workplace, if people think you got there through connections, then you got there through connections."

"I gave Ada the highest score because on the day of her competition presentation, she spoke the whole time without notes, full of energy, poised and gracious. She earned that score."

"So you admit it. You gave her a ninety-eight not for ability, but for the way she carried herself?"

Justin stood up and looked down at me.

"Jean, can you not do this every single time you fail? Always looking for someone else to blame?"

"You lost. That's all there is to it."

I tilted my head up, fighting to hold the tears back, but my eyes burned until they ached.

"If I'd lost because I'm less capable than her, I could wish her well and mean it. But the reason I failed is you!"

"The boyfriend I've been with for six years! The one who saw my effort more clearly than anyone! And it was your fifty-eight that dropped me from first to fifth, that cost me the promotion!"

Justin turned his head aside and clicked his tongue, impatience in his voice.

"That's exactly the difference between you and her. If she'd been the one to lose today, she'd smile and wish you well. Always positive. Never blaming anyone else."

"And you? All you ever do is sit here feeling sorry for yourself."

I let out a laugh, and the tears fell.

"Justin, I have been feeling sorry for myself. For six years."

"But what I've swallowed is never once having a normal relationship! Six years of splitting every bill, of returning the gifts you gave me, of never riding to work in your car, of laying every project result out in the open for anyone to check"

"I lived like that just to prove I wasn't the kind of person you hate most!"

Justin said nothing.

He just stood there, hands in his pockets, watching me.

I slowly sank down, one hand braced against the floor, the water in my hair mixing with my tears as it dripped.

"Six years..."

"I tried so hard... why do I have nothing in the end... why did it have to be you..."

I wrapped my arms around my knees and cried out loud, my whole body shaking.

Justin's phone rang.

He answered, and his voice turned gentle at once, patient.

"Ada? Mm."

"That project analysis... I'll send you a template to work from... it's no trouble."

"Mr. Gilbert... am I just too slow?"

Ada's voice leaked through the receiver from the other end.

"You're not slow. I'll teach you, take it step by step."

A pack of tissues landed by my feet with a soft slap.

"If you're going to cry, keep it down. She's still over there rushing to finish a proposal."

"You can wallow in self-pity over one small failure if you want, but at least leave a quiet space for the people who actually want to better themselves."

3: 3

The break room was a low hum of voices when I got in the next morning.

The second I walked in with my cup, the noise dropped.

Someone cleared their throat. Someone else bent over their phone, pretending to read.

"Hey, did you hear? The special-approval pick crashed and burned."

"I always said she acted so high and mighty. Who knows how long she'd been buttering someone up behind everyone's back."

"Turns out Ada didn't pull any strings at all. She won fair and square, on her own merit."

"Maybe she's just getting old. Losing her touch in bed!"

I stood where I was, nails digging into my palms.

Ada came over holding a cup of coffee.

"Jean. You're here."

"About yesterday, I really do feel terrible. You're senior to me, and beating you like that makes me so uncomfortable..."

"This coffee's my apology. From now on, please, teach me anything I need to know about the work."

She held the cup out to me. Held it there for a good five seconds.

I reached to take it.

The instant my fingertips touched the side of the cup, her fingers went slack.

Scalding liquid poured down from my chest all the way to my waist.

I sucked in a sharp breath and, without thinking, stepped back.

Ada froze for a second, then looked down at her own hand.

"Jean... did youdid you not get a grip on it?"

"I know you're angry with me... but you didn't have to refuse it on purpose..."

Her eyes went red, her voice trembling.

"That coffee was just made, it was so hot I could barely hold it myself..."

Every pair of eyes around us swung toward me.

"Ada brings her coffee, nice as can be, and she won't take it, and lets the whole cup splash all over herself..."

"Loses the competition and pulls a stunt like this. So petty."

"What's going on here?"

Justin walked in.

His gaze skimmed over Ada's reddened eyes and landed on my coffee-soaked blouse.

His brow creased.

"I was bringing Jean a coffee, and she didn't get a grip on it..."

Ada's voice shook. "It was all an accident..."

"I didn't"

"Did your hand get burned?"

Justin cut me off, glancing at Ada.

Ada looked down at her sleeve. There was a small coffee stain on the cuff.

"No, it just got a little on it..."

He looked at me again.

"You made this mess, you clean it up. Go buy her a clean shirt."

I looked down at the patch of scalded skin on my chest.

"I"

"Don't stand around here disrupting people's work."

His voice was so flat there wasn't a trace of anything in it.

I looked into his eyes. Nothing there at all, like looking at a stranger.

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

Never mind.

Nothing I said would make him believe me anyway, right?

I nodded, didn't say another word, turned and walked out.

At the mall downstairs, I grabbed something off a rack and took it to the counter.

The cashier took the shirt, looked at it, then looked at me.

"Miss, this size won't fit you very well. Do you want to go up a size?"

"And that burn on you looks pretty bad. Do you want to take care of it first?"

I glanced down.

The dark-brown coffee stain ran from my collarbone to my belly, clinging to my skin.

The burned area was one raw red patch, already blistering in a few spots.

Even a cashier could see it clearly.

And Justin could only see that one little stain on Ada.

"No need."

I scanned to pay, picked up the bag, and walked back to the office.

Standing in the lobby of the building, the tears just fell.

No one would notice me.

And there would be no Justin crossing half the city to comfort me.

I brought Ada's shirt to her desk.

Justin was talking to her. "You've had a scare today. Take the day off and get some rest."

"Thank you, Mr. Gilbert."

Justin didn't look at me.

"Jean, her work for today, you finish it."

I kept my face blank and gave a small "mm."

Turned and walked back to my desk.

There was a tube of burn ointment sitting on it, still sealed, a sticky note pressed underneath.

Remember to use it.

I picked it up, glanced at it, and dropped it into the trash can by my feet.

I opened my laptop. A task list popped up on the screen, the schedule packed to the edges.

I stared at the items.

The back of my hand still had that red burn mark, and it pulled painfully every time I hit the keys.

At six that evening, I finished the last line.

I opened a blank document and typed four words as the title:

Letter of Resignation.

4: 4

Before the end of the day, Ada came back to the office, all bright smiles.

"Jean, about the London project. I want to draft the contract myself, hands-on, you know?"

"You don't mind, do you?"

"No."

The next morning, the moment I reached my desk, I heard the whispering.

"The amount on the contract is way off..."

"The company must've lost a few million..."

"Who did this?"

Ada stood at the door of Justin's office, her eyes rimmed red.

"Jean, this is the contract you handled yesterday?"

I walked over and glanced down at it.

The amount field had been changed.

"I didn't write that."

"Ada said she handed it off for you to review."

"She insisted on doing it herself and only asked me to look it over at the end. I flagged the formatting problems, but I'm sure the amount was correct."

Ada's tears fell, her voice trembling.

"Jean, I know you resent me for taking your spot in the competition... but you really didn't have to do this..."

"No matter how much you hate me, you can't gamble with the company's interests. You know exactly how much Mr. Gilbert has poured into this place."

Justin came out of his office, his eyes settling on me.

"You reviewed the contract?"

"Yes, but I checked it carefully. I only changed the formatting."

"She says you changed the amount."

"She says it and you believe her? Justin, I've fought for this company for six years. Have I ever made a mistake this basic?"

Everything went quiet.

Justin looked at me, his eyes without warmth.

"Jean, you're suspended."

He paused. His voice wasn't loud, but the whole corridor heard it.

"From today, the company takes a neutral stance on your entire record here."

"Every result you've submitted, every project you contributed to, wiped to zero."

"Because in this position, you're not professional enough."

Not professional enough.

He compressed six years into one phrase and threw it in my face.

Those emails sent in the small hours, those nights I stayed late nursing the new hires through their work, those moments after a project closed when he nodded in a meeting and said, "Good work."

None of it counted anymore.

He said zero, and it was zero.

"And you should count yourself lucky you didn't win the promotion. The company would never let someone who lets emotion rule them run things."

I stared at him, my throat working.

I wanted to speak, but the words jammed there, and no sound would come out.

The murmuring rose around me from every direction.

"Who does she think she is to Mr. Gilbert, changing a contract like that..."

"She doesn't actually think he'd cover for her, does she? Thinks sleeping with the boss means she can do whatever she wants?"

"One more thing. I'll make this clear." He added another line.

"There is nothing between me and Jean Fox."

He turned and looked at the crowd.

"All the gossip in this company stops here."

Everyone fell silent.

Justin took Ada's hand and led her out.

He held her by the wrist, and she leaned in against his side.

"Don't be scared. I've got you. Don't let something this small ruin your mood for London."

I watched his back as he walked slowly away, and suddenly this man felt impossibly far from me.

So far it was as though we'd never known each other at all.

That evening, I packed up the things at my desk.

When I reached the company's front entrance, I saw Ada's post on her feed.

In the photo, she was in the airport departure lounge, Justin's back visible in the distance.

The caption: Setting off with Mr. Gilbert. The future looks bright.

Right after that, a message from Justin popped up.

Going to London on business. Back Wednesday. There are some things we need to talk through.

I stared at that message.

Talk through what?

The 58 he gave me?

The million-dollar necklace he gave Ada?

Or how he told the whole company there was nothing between us?

I blocked him on my phone and closed the chat.

The night wind blew over me as I carried the cardboard box toward the subway station.

By the day he came back, there was no Jean Fox left in this city.