I was the one who should have kept his mouth shut. So this time around, I said nothing.
That evening, I had just changed out of my shoes at home when Kate pushed through the door.
Displeasure was written all over her face. She tossed her bag onto the couch and stood in the middle of the living room, staring at me.
"What was that about today?"
"Stomachache," I said evenly.
"Don't give me that excuse." She took a step closer. "Do you have a problem with Nelson?"
I didn't answer.
She let out a cold laugh.
"Terry, be honest with me. Are you jealous of him?"
"Jealous of what, exactly?"
"His degree. His talent. The fact that I put him in a key position the moment he came back."
Kate's voice dropped a few degrees.
"Your attitude in that meeting made it perfectly clear you didn't want him to succeed."
"You think I couldn't tell? The second he started his presentation, your whole expression changed."
"I know you were picking his work apart in your head. You just held your tongue for once."
I didn't argue.
She took my silence as confirmation, and her tone hardened with certainty. "Terry, I know you think highly of yourself. You've been with this company for years, put in the hours, put in the work, and you figure nobody measures up to you."
"But Nelson is different. He has a graduate degree from a top university overseas. His expertise speaks for itself."
"No matter how much he rubs you the wrong way, you don't get to humiliate him in front of the entire team."
"Humiliate him?" I almost laughed. "I didn't say a single word. I got up and left. How is that humiliation?"
"Your attitude was the humiliation."
"Everyone in that conference room saw it. You think they're stupid?"
I stopped responding.
Everything she was saying, I'd heard a thousand times in my last life.
Back then, I'd fought her on it. Told her I was looking out for the company. Told her his program genuinely had problems. As a co-founder, I couldn't just sit back and watch a product riddled with flaws go into live testing.
We'd fought viciously, and she ended it with a line I still remembered to this day.
"You just can't stand anyone being better than you!"
Looking back now, my relationship with Kate had shifted the day Nelson walked into the company.
Nelson was the one that got away for her.
Almost nobody at the company knew, but I did.
They'd grown up together. He'd gone abroad for high school and stayed through graduate school. When he finished, Kate offered him a salary far above market rate to bring him back.
His title was technical supervisor. His actual compensation and treatment were closer to a vice president's.
Her favoritism toward him had been brazen from day one.
When the company was first starting out, Kate hadn't been like this.
Back then, we fought side by side. Pulled all-nighters to hit deadlines. Dealt with impossible clients together.
She told me I was the person she trusted most, that the company wouldn't be where it was without me, that half the credit was mine.
But after Nelson came back, everything changed.
She started finding me lacking. My degree wasn't impressive enough. My way of thinking was too old-school.
Nelson could float any half-baked proposal and she'd call it cutting-edge, forward-thinking, globally minded.
Anything I suggested, she treated like I was just being contrary.
In my previous life, after I pointed out the flaws in his program, Nelson went running to her. Told her I'd embarrassed him in front of everyone. Said months of his hard work had been shot down in a single stroke.
Kate came home and tore into me. Said I didn't know how to respect people. Said I never should have called him out like that with the whole team watching.
I'd felt wronged. Told her I was only stating facts.
