Chapter 3My Boss On My Payroll

At the six-week mark, my reality collapsed.

My phone rang. The screen flashed: "Phoebe (Little Terror)".

The second I swiped to answer, a sound like an office chair being hurled out of a fourth-story window blasted through the earpiece.

"Sean Avery!"

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"Are you okay?! Did you literally forget you have a sister? It’s been a month and a half! You haven't sent a single dime!"

I frowned, pulling the phone an inch from my ear. "What are you talking about? I sent you eight hundred dollars on Friday."

"Sent it where? To Narnia?! Check your bank app! Check my statements! I have zero dollars and forty-two cents! Nothing! Not! A! Cent!"

My stomach gave an odd, sickening lurch. I pulled the phone down, kept her on speaker, and opened my messaging app.

I clicked on the chat I used every few days. The thread was massive—a wall of green bubbles, long paragraphs of brotherly concern, payment receipts, voice clips.

And occasional replies of "K."

I scrolled up. All the way to the very top.

I tapped the avatar image.

A silhouette of a black cat.

Name: "Margot Reed."

The blood drained from my face so violently I felt dizzy.

My fingers locked up against the glass screen. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I opened the contact card.

Title: Senior Director, Operations.

Company: Beacon Media.

I backed out frantically and typed "Phoebe" into my search bar. Her contact popped up.

Her avatar was also a black cat.

Except Phoebe’s kitten had a splash of white fur around its muzzle, like it had dipped its nose in milk.

Side by side, the difference was unmistakable. But on that first chaotic night in my dim apartment, skimming through a list of tiny circular thumbnails on a cracked screen, I hadn't looked closely. I had just seen a black cat and started sending money.

Through the phone, Phoebe was still yelling. "Sean! Are you listening to me?! Who did you send my tuition money to?!"

"...Call you back," I whispered, and hung up.

I sat on the edge of my mattress, staring at the glowing screen as the chat history drifted past my eyes like a scroll of self-indictment.

Every word.

Every single word had gone to Margot Reed.

The most untouchable, stone-faced executive in the building.

"Hey kiddo, you make it back to the dorm okay? Don't starve yourself."

—Sent to Margot Reed.

"It’s thirty degrees out today. Did you wear a scarf?"

—Sent to Margot Reed.

"If anyone gives you grief, let me know. I can out-argue an entire sorority on your behalf."

—Sent to Margot Reed.

And then, my thumb hovered over the fifty-three-second voice memo.

Cold sweat broke out across my temples. My thumb trembled, hitting play.

My own voice, horribly cheerful, poured out of the speaker:

"...You have no idea how terrifying she is in person... she walks into a room and the temperature drops ten degrees... like you owe her two million dollars and she’s just too exhausted to collect..."

I slammed pause halfway through.

My reflection in the dark glass looked sickly, like a dead fish floating belly-up in a tank.

It was over. My career. My life. My dignity.

I hadn’t just called my senior director "kiddo" for six straight weeks; I had sent her personal spending cash and told her to her digital face that she was a human cryogenic freezer.

And she—

She had known the entire time.

From the very first transfer, she knew. She hadn’t blocked me. She hadn’t reported me to HR. She had texted back "K."

And that morning in the lobby—asking if the office felt too cold...

That wasn't corporate curiosity. That was a warning shot. She had been waiting to see how long it would take for my single brain cell to fire.

And it had taken me forty-five days.

I dropped my phone onto the sheets and buried my face in both hands. A sound leaked out between my fingers—a tiny, pathetic, dying groan.

"...I have to quit."

No, quitting wasn't enough. I needed to break my lease, change my legal name, pack a duffel bag, and relocate to rural Alaska. I needed to live somewhere where no one had ever heard of corporate communications or Apple Cash.

My phone buzzed against my leg. A text from Phoebe: "Sean, seriously, what is happening? Did you give my money to an e-girl?! Do you have a soul?!"

I couldn't answer. I didn't have the metabolic energy to answer.

My mind was trapped in an excruciating frame-by-frame replay of the last six weeks.

Week one: she stared at me. I thought she hated my work ethic.

Week two: she stared again. I thought she was plotting my firing.

Week three: she paused during the meeting so I could finish writing notes. I thought she was developing human empathy.

Last week: "Heading in the right direction. Continue." Dustin thought it was a severance cushion.

Wrong. All wrong.

She had just been watching a total idiot—an idiot who called her his little sister, transferred her thousands of dollars, and insulted her social skills—stumble blindly through her office.

And that morning in the lobby... when her mouth had twitched...

She hadn't been sneering. She had been biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing in my face.