The whole thing struck me as absurd. All those years, every dollar he'd spent on Yolanda, and not once had a cent of it come back to him.
I rehearsed the words in my head, over and over. How to say we were done.
Just as I opened my mouth, Yolanda shrieked from outside the room.
Greg didn't say a word. He turned and walked out.
All night, I lay there with my eyes open until dawn.
Over the next few days, I pulled several all-nighters in a row, organizing documents and starting the paperwork for my visa to the States.
The next morning I went into the office.
The first thing I saw was that my nameplate was gone from my desk. In its place sat Yolanda's name.
My personal things had been swept onto the floor, including the professional certifications I'd accumulated over years in this field.
Yvonne, the assistant, stood in the doorway, shrinking into herself as she spoke in a small voice. "Lena, you were out on leave, so you wouldn't know. Mr. Mann promoted Yolanda to team lead, and your desk got reassigned."
She'd barely finished when Greg walked into the work area with Yolanda beside him. I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles white. "I've held this position for five years. Every important client, every major translation project, I handled them, and I never made a single mistake. She's been here one year, and both projects she touched had translation errors. On what grounds does she get promoted over me?"
His expression was cool, his tone carrying the flat detachment of company business.
"The workplace doesn't reward seniority. It rewards value. And Yolanda has overseas exchange experience, plus a higher degree than yours. A promotion is perfectly normal."
I let out a cold laugh before I could stop myself.
Yolanda tugged at Greg's sleeve. "Greg, why don't we just drop it? I don't have to be team lead. Really, I don't mind."
Greg immediately moved to shield her, his voice going colder, as if the words were meant for my ears alone.
"The position is settled. It won't change. You don't have to accommodate anyone. Just do your own job."
The coworkers around us kept their heads down, not daring to make a sound.
Then, out of nowhere, Yolanda pulled my Harvard acceptance letter from my briefcase, her face all astonishment. "Is this a Harvard acceptance letter? You didn't forge a fake one to save face after finding out about the reassignment ahead of time, did you?"
"It's real. All of it," I said, the words out before I thought.
Greg reached over and took the papers, flipping through a few pages with careless indifference. Then he gave a low laugh.
"Even if you're desperate to climb, you shouldn't stoop to faking something like this."
"You've only got an ordinary bachelor's degree. How would you ever meet the admissions bar for a school like Harvard?"
The same old line.
Yolanda went to an elite university. She'd even been his junior at the same school.
In his mind, I'd always come up short next to Yolanda. Start to finish.
Five years of honest, diligent work at this company, and none of it outweighed his bias.
Yolanda held the letter between her fingers, a smug glint hidden in her eyes. "Lena, I know you've been under a lot of pressure lately. You were afraid the reassignment meant you'd get cut, so you wanted to prop yourself up a little. But fake is fake. Getting called out like this is so humiliating."
"I didn't fake anything." My voice stayed level. "Five minutes on the school's official website and you can verify it."
"Enough."
Greg cut me off flat and tossed the letter onto the floor.
"If my subordinates found out my girlfriend pulled a stunt like this, where would that leave me?"
"You might have no shame, but I still do."
With that, he turned and slid an arm around Yolanda, murmuring about how to redo this office in whatever style she liked.
I bent down and picked up the crumpled letter, wiped the dust off its surface, and turned to walk out of the office.
Glance after glance of pity swept over me from every direction.
I sat down at the out-of-the-way desk I'd been assigned, spread out the resignation letter I'd prepared in advance, and signed my name.
Then I raised my hand and knocked on the door of Greg's office.
