Layla
The air in the elevator is stale. My own nervous breath. I clutch the strap of my purse, the broken clasp digging into my palm. Thirty seven dollars. The number is a permanent resident in my head now.
The elevator doors slide open onto the thirty fourth floor, and the difference is immediate. The air here isn't just air. It’s charged. There’s a buzz, a low hum of triumphant energy that wasn't here yesterday.
I see him immediately. Chad. He’s not at his desk. He’s holding court near the coffee machine, surrounded by three other senior analysts. He’s laughing, a loud, obnoxious sound that echoes in the cavernous space. He leans back, chest puffed out, a conquering hero returned from the war.
My heart sinks into my shoes. I walk toward my desk, trying to be invisible. My eyes dart to his workstation as I pass. The two sheets of paper I left on his keyboard are gone.
He didn't throw them away. I know he didn't. I can see it in the way he carries himself. He used them.
I slide into my chair and power on my computer, my hands trembling slightly. I stare at the screen, but the password field is just a blur. I feel a surge of nausea so powerful I have to grip the edge of my desk to steady myself.
“Team meeting in the main conference room in five, people!” a voice booms across the office. It’s Mr. Harrison, the department director. “Chad’s got something to show us.”
My blood runs cold.
I follow the herd of analysts into the glass walled conference room. The table is a long, polished slab of dark wood that reflects the city skyline like a still lake. I take a seat in the back, as far from the front as possible.
Chad stands next to the massive screen at the head of the table, clicking a presentation remote with an air of practiced ease. He looks every bit the part of a financial genius. Mr. Harrison stands beside him, beaming like a proud father.
“Alright, settle down, settle down,” Mr. Harrison says, his voice full of excitement. “As you all know, we’ve been hitting a wall with the OmniCorp reconciliation. A persistent seven figure deviation that nobody could crack. It was threatening to delay the entire merger.”
He claps a heavy hand on Chad’s shoulder. “But this young man here decided to burn the midnight oil. He didn’t just find the needle in the haystack. He rebuilt the entire haystack from the ground up.”
A murmur of impressed whispers ripples through the room. My stomach twists into a knot of pure acid.
Chad clears his throat, a smug little smile playing on his lips. “Thank you, Richard. It was really a matter of thinking outside the box. I realized everyone was looking at the problem from the wrong angle. They were looking for a transactional error.”
He clicks the remote. My code, the lines I wrote in his warm chair last night, appears on the screen. He’s copied it onto a slide.
“The problem wasn’t the transactions,” he continues, his voice smooth and confident. “It was systemic. An elemental flaw in the aggregation script itself. A floating point variable was being used for a currency calculation, creating cascading rounding errors.”
He’s reciting my notes. Word for word.
He walks the room through the fix, my fix, with a fluency that is almost believable. He uses words like ‘elegant’ and ‘robust’. My words. My solution. My beautiful, perfect zero.
“The result?” Chad clicks to the final slide. A screenshot of the balanced report. Deviation: $0.00. “Problem solved.”
Mr. Harrison is practically glowing. “This is exactly the kind of initiative I want to see from my senior team. Proactive. Innovative. Chad, you’ve saved us weeks of work and a hell of a lot of money. The board is going to be very pleased.”
The room erupts in applause. Polite at first, then genuinely enthusiastic. They’re clapping for him. For my work.
I feel my fingernails dig into my palms. My jaw is so tight it aches. I want to stand up. I want to scream. I want to wipe that self satisfied smirk right off his face. But I can't.
I am the intern. The scholarship kid with thirty seven dollars to my name and a sick sister. I am nothing. He is everything.
So I clap. I bring my hands together, the sound hollow and foreign. I am a ghost in the machine, watching a thief get crowned king.
After the meeting, the back patting continues. I slip out and retreat to the safety of my tiny desk. I stare at my screen, pretending to be absorbed in some meaningless task. I need to get my face under control. The fury is a hot, physical thing, and I'm afraid it’s showing.
“Hassan.”
His voice is right behind me. I flinch, then slowly turn in my chair.
Chad looms over my desk, a cup of coffee in his hand. He’s smiling down at me, a lazy, condescending curl of his lips.
“Good job on that scanning yesterday,” he says, his voice low enough that only I can hear. “Really… thorough.”
I just stare at him, my throat too tight to speak.
“Keeping the basics in order is what makes the big picture stuff, like what I just did, even possible,” he continues, taking a slow sip of his coffee. “It’s all part of the same machine. So, you know, thanks for your contribution.”
The insult is a masterclass in cruelty. He’s not just taking credit. He’s rubbing my face in it. He’s telling me I’m nothing more than a cog, a button pusher whose only purpose is to support his greatness.
My vision tunnels. All I can see is his smug face, his expensive watch, the life of ease he was born into and that I am fighting so desperately to earn a fraction of.
“You’re welcome, Chad,” I say. My voice is a ghost of a whisper, but it’s steady. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
He gives me a final, dismissive nod and saunters back to his desk, the conquering hero returning to his throne.
I turn back to my monitor, my whole body trembling with a rage so profound it feels like it might tear me apart. I take a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. I need this job. I need this job. The words are a mantra, a prayer against the storm inside me.
“He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
The voice is soft, right next to my ear. I look up, startled. A young woman with dark, curly hair and kind eyes is standing by my desk, holding two mugs of coffee. She looks like another intern. Her blazer is nice, but not designer. She has a pen smudge on her cheek.
I don’t know what to say. Admitting anything feels like a risk.
She smiles, a knowing, slightly sad smile. “I’m Elena, by the way. I’m in the marketing department, but we all hear the finance gossip.” She extends one of the mugs to me. “This is for you. You look like you need it more than I do.”
I hesitate, then take the mug. It’s warm. “Layla. And… thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” she says, leaning against the filing cabinet. She lowers her voice. “That was quite a show in there. Chad’s a real genius, huh? Pulling an all nighter to crack the OmniCorp problem.”
Her tone is light, but her eyes are sharp, searching my face. I give a noncommittal shrug. “He’s a senior analyst.”
Elena takes a sip of her coffee, her gaze never leaving mine. “Let me guess. He had you on some mind numbing, pointless task yesterday, right? Kept you busy.”
I nod slowly, my heart starting to pound for a different reason.
“And I bet he was complaining all day about how unsolvable his project was,” she continues, her voice a low, confidential murmur.
I just look at her. I don’t have to say anything. She knows.
She sighs, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first. He did the same thing to Kevin last semester. An intern from my program. Kid was brilliant with market analysis. Chad had him running his personal errands for a month, then stole his entire quarterly projection report and passed it off as his own.”
The world tilts on its axis. “What… what happened to Kevin?”
Elena’s expression darkens. “They didn't extend his internship. Chad told Mr. Harrison that Kevin lacked initiative. Kevin got let go a week later. Now he’s working at his dad’s hardware store back in Ohio.”
My hands are cold. The warm mug does nothing to stop the chill spreading through me. This isn’t just about stolen credit. It’s about survival. Chad doesn't just take your work. He erases you.
“So,” Elena says, her voice soft but firm. “Be careful, Layla. This place is full of sharks. And Chad might be a fool, but he’s a dangerous one.”
She pushes off the filing cabinet. “It was nice to meet you. For real.” She gives me another small, sympathetic smile. “Hang in there.”
And then she’s gone, disappearing back into the maze of cubicles as quietly as she appeared.
I stare into my coffee. My reflection is a warped, pale stranger. An ally. I have an ally. But the comfort of that thought is smothered by the cold, hard reality of what she told me.
I’m not just fighting for credit anymore. I’m fighting for my spot. For my future. For the two hundred and forty three dollars my sister needs.
The rage inside me hasn’t gone away. But it’s changed. The hot, explosive anger has cooled, hardening into something else. Something solid and sharp.
I look over at Chad. He’s on the phone, laughing, spinning in his expensive chair. He thinks he’s won. He thinks I’m a nobody, a stepping stone he can crush without a second thought.
He’s wrong.
I take a sip of the coffee. It’s bitter. I welcome the taste. He might have won the battle today. But this is a war. And I have no intention of losing.
