Betrayed by My Best Friend and My Man

1: 1

Three years of research data I'd bled over showed up in my best friend Veronica Henson's award-winning paper.

My boyfriend Leslie Dickerson brushed it off. She needed this chance more than you did.

Then I caught the two of them kissing in the lab. Veronica pouted, Aren't you scared Margery Fox will find out?

Leslie held her close and laughed. "She's too stupid. What could she ever figure out?"

Ten years together, and that was what it came to. Stupid.

I wiped my eyes and called my advisor. "Professor, I want to report Veronica for academic misconduct."

After I hung up, I posted to my feed: "Congratulations to Veronica on her award. Thank you for 'safekeeping' my data all this time."

Leslie came rushing to my place. He thought I was going to fall apart.

I handed him a card. "The rent and utilities you covered for me over the years, it's all here. We're even now."

He froze. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I smiled. "It means, Leslie, I'm done with you."

...

Leslie gripped the card, and his hand trembled.

"Margery, are you finished with this?"

There was irritation in his voice, like I was just making a scene again.

"I'm not making a scene."

I dragged the suitcase by the door a little farther out. He'd given it to me. I had no use for it now.

"Ten years together, and you're just throwing it away like that?"

He stepped forward, reaching for my hand.

I moved out of the way.

"Ten years?"

I looked at him and asked, slow and clear.

"Ten years that came down to 'she's too stupid'?"

Leslie's face changed.

He looked rattled, but the anger swallowed it fast.

"You heard that?"

"Loud and clear."

He went quiet. Then his phone rang, at the worst possible moment.

The screen lit up. The caller ID read "Vera."

He instinctively went to reject it, but his finger slipped and picked up instead.

Veronica's sweet, coy voice came through the speaker.

"Les, are you home yet? That idiot Margery didn't give you any trouble, did she?"

Leslie hung up, his face ashen.

I laughed.

"See? She thinks I'm stupid too."

"Margie, let me explain, she and I"

"No need to explain."

I pulled the door open. "Explain it to yourself."

He blocked the doorway, his tall frame cutting off my path.

"Margery, don't push me."

"Am I pushing you, or are you pushing me?"

I lifted my head and looked at him.

"You helped her steal my data, helped her win the award, and told me she needed it more than I did. Leslie, what exactly have I ever been to you?"

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"Move."

My voice was cold.

He didn't move. Instead he reached out and grabbed my wrist.

"Let's talk."

"There's nothing to talk about."

I wrenched my arm free.

"Touch me again and I'm calling the police."

He started to laugh, like it was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard.

"The police? Margery, who do you think you are?"

I didn't bother with him anymore and turned to go.

He came after me from behind, his voice frantic.

"If you dare walk out that door today, then the two of us are really over!"

My steps paused for a moment.

Then I walked into the elevator without looking back.

The doors slid shut, closing off his stunned, furious face.

I leaned against the elevator wall, took out my phone, and saw the message Veronica had sent a minute ago.

"Why aren't you picking up? Scared? Margery, you can't beat me."

I blocked her, just like that.

The phone buzzed. It was Leslie's mother.

I slid to answer.

The other end launched straight into shouting.

"Margery! What was that thing you posted? Have you lost your mind? Vera is such a good girl, how could you slander her like that? You delete it right now!"

I said nothing.

"Let me tell you, our family will never accept a daughter-in-law with a heart as vicious as yours! And your marriage to Les, as far as I'm concerned it's"

"Ma'am."

I cut her off. "Leslie and I have already broken up. That wedding was never going to happen anyway."

Then I hung up.

2: 2

I moved into a newly rented apartment and changed my number.

The only call that got through was from my mentor, Professor Finch.

"Margery, the university has already formed an investigation panel. You need to be ready. This is going to be a hard fight."

"I understand, Professor."

"Your original data and lab records get everything in order. Not a single one missing."

"I've already got it ready."

I hung up and opened my laptop.

Every file was three years of my work.

On social media, everyone was taking Veronica's side.

Veronica had posted a long piece, painted as tragic as it could be.

She named no names, only said she'd been stabbed in the back by the person she trusted most, that the other woman, jealous of her talent and her achievements, had fabricated facts to smear her.

The photo showed her on an IV drip in a hospital, wrists thin, face pale, the perfect picture of a victim.

Below it, comment after comment, all the same.

"My heart aches for Vera. Some people just can't stand to see anyone else do well."

"Don't be afraid, Vera, we all believe you!"

Lowell James, one of the juniors in our lab, had commented too: "Hang in there, Vera. The truth speaks for itself."

I'd taught him to run experiments with my own hands. I was the one who'd helped him work out the framework of his own paper.

Leslie had liked the post too.

I shut off my phone, my face blank.

A few days later, the panel called the first interview.

Three professors sat in the conference room, the mood grave.

Veronica sat across from me, eyes red and swollen, looking utterly worn out.

The moment she saw me, the tears came.

"Margery, I know you've always had a problem with me, but you can't destroy me like this... this paper, we did it together."

She started turning black into white, saying we'd been collaborators, that the data was shared.

"I just organized it and published it a step ahead of you, that's all. I actually wanted to put your name on it too, but..."

She choked up and couldn't go on.

One of the professors on the panel looked at me. "Ms. Fox, is what Ms. Henson says true?"

"No."

I took a thick stack of lab notebooks out of my bag and laid them on the table in chronological order.

"These are all my original records, from the first day of the project through last month. Every experiment's date, procedure, raw data, and my analysis are in here. May I ask, Ms. Henson, where are your notebooks?"

The color drained from Veronica's face.

"I keep my records in electronic form..."

"Then please show us your electronic records, with a timestamp for every edit."

She bit her lip and said nothing.

Another professor spoke. "Ms. Henson, there's an electrophoresis image in your paper, very clean. But according to Ms. Fox's records, the result for that batch showed obvious tailing, and she marked it as needing to be repeated. Can you explain that?"

Veronica's body began to tremble.

"I might have gotten the batch wrong..."

"There's no getting the batch wrong."

I took out another document. "This is the weekly report I sent Leslie. The email went out on October seventeenth last year, and it contains this original image, the one marked for repeat. The image in your paper has been doctored."

I pushed the printed screenshot of the email across to her.

Veronica stared at that screenshot, and everything in her gave way. She slumped down in her chair.

No one in the room said a word.

3: 3

The findings came back fast.

Veronica's academic misconduct was confirmed.

Her award revoked, her paper retracted, a formal reprimand entered on her record.

She'd come close to being expelled.

The day the notice went up, the whole department blew up.

The same people who had cheered Veronica on in their feeds quietly deleted their comments, pretending nothing had happened.

Lowell ran into me in the stairwell, his face flushed red, head down, trying to slip past.

I stopped him. "Lowell."

He froze, unable to look at me.

"Margie."

"From now on, do your own work. Someone else's results are never going to be yours."

His head dropped even lower. "I'm sorry, Margie."

I said nothing more and walked on.

That night, Leslie called from a number I didn't recognize.

His voice was hoarse.

"Margie, are you satisfied now?"

"I only took back what was mine."

"You destroyed her! Do you have any idea what this means to her? She's completely fallen apart!"

Every word carried his ache for Veronica and his blame for me.

Suddenly the whole thing struck me as absurd.

"Leslie, did you call just to stand up for her?"

The line went quiet.

"I thought you'd at least ask how I'm doing."

He lowered his voice. "The company suspended me. This looks too bad."

"Oh."

Flat. Nothing more.

"That's it? Just 'oh'?"

His voice rose.

"Margery, I'm a victim too! Veronica tricked me! I thought she was really in trouble. I only wanted to help her!"

"So you helped her by stealing from me?"

"I didn't steal anything! I just let her look at your weekly reports. I never thought she'd use them outright!"

"Leslie, you're stupid, but don't treat me like an idiot too."

I hung up.

A few days later, Leslie's mother showed up again, marching straight into my lab.

She grabbed my arm, her eyes bloodshot.

"Margery, you jinx! You ruined Vera, and now you're out to ruin my son too! What are you really after?"

Everyone in the lab turned to look.

I tried to pull free of her grip.

"Please let go of me, Mrs. Dickerson."

"I won't! Today you're coming with me to apologize to Vera! Or I'm not finished with you!"

She was strong, her nails digging in until it hurt.

Professor Finch heard the noise and came over, frowning.

"Ma'am, please calm down. This is a laboratory."

"I can't calm down! My son lost his job because of her! Is this how your school teaches its students? Turning out a woman with a heart like a viper!"

She launched into a full scene, her voice climbing higher and higher.

I looked at her face, twisted with rage, and spoke.

"Do you know something, Mrs. Dickerson? Leslie said I was stupid."

She stopped short.

"He said, 'She's too stupid to catch anything.' Those were his exact words, with his arm around Veronica."

The color rushed in and out of her face.

"You're lying!"

"Whether I'm lying, you can go home and ask that fine son of yours."

I pried her fingers off my arm one by one.

"And don't come looking for me again. Next time, I go straight to the police."

She stared at me, opened her mouth, and in the end said nothing, slinking away.

4: 4

Life seemed to be back on track.

Professor Finch handed me a new project and gave me full independence to run it.

I threw myself into the lab, running experiments day and night, watching the data build up bit by bit, and that pure kind of joy left me satisfied.

It felt like I hadn't thought about Leslie in a long time.

Until the night I stayed in the lab past midnight to finish a data run.

I walked out of the building and only then realized it was pouring outside.

I stood under the eaves, debating whether to just make a run for it.

An umbrella appeared over my head out of nowhere.

I turned and saw Leslie.

He'd lost a lot of weight.

He held the umbrella up, the rain soaking through one shoulder of his shirt.

"Let me drive you home."

His voice was low.

I took a step back, putting space between us.

"No need."

"Margie, the rain's too heavy. You won't get a car."

He stubbornly nudged the umbrella closer to my side.

"That's not your problem."

I took out my phone to call a car.

His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

"Margie, let's talk."

His hand was cold, damp from the rain.

I frowned and tried to yank free, but he only gripped tighter.

"Let go!"

"I won't!"

He almost shouted it. "Margery, do you really have to treat me like this? I've already got nothing left!"

"You did that to yourself."

"Yes, I did it to myself!"

His eyes were red as he stared at me. "I was wrong, I really know I was wrong. Veronica and I are completely done, she's nothing but a liar! I must have been out of my mind to ever believe her!"

The rain was loud, and his voice came through it in broken pieces.

"Margie, forgive me, please? Let's start over. We still have ten years"

"Leslie."

I cut him off, my voice very calm.

"We don't have ten years anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean those ten years died the moment you decided to help Veronica steal my data."

He froze, and his grip loosened a little.

I took the chance to pull my hand back and stepped away.

A car stopped in front of us, the window rolling down. It was Professor Finch's doctoral student, Hubert Chavez.

"Margery, still not home this late? Get in, I'll drive you."

"Sure, thanks."

I opened the door and got in.

The car pulled away, and in the side mirror I saw Leslie still standing there, rain mixed with something else sliding down his face.

He looked pitiful.

But what did that have to do with me?