Chương 16: Chapter Fifteen

Monday October, 17th Kate hadn't come over Friday. She hadn't called or texted for over three days and for her, that was unheard of. This was bad. Really really bad. I needed to suck up my pride and go see her. I picked up some double chocolate chunk brownies and went over to her apartment shortly after I thought she'd be getting home from work. It took me a full five minutes of working up the courage before I managed to get out of my car. I got to the door and a very nice doorman, Richard Rocks, greeted me.

He recognized me from previous visits and buzzed me in before I even had to ask. I considered how much different an apartment building seemed with even just a doorman. Something like that really made the apartment building feel a lot nicer. Certainly more secure. I had to take the elevator to Kate's apartment. I pressed her floor number and noticed that the button for her floor was a slightly different shade than the others. It must've been recently replaced.

As I waited for the elevator to do its thing I concentrated on the button and made the slight color adjustment. There. It was a small thing but it looked a lot better in my opinion. I smiled to myself as the elevator doors opened. I knocked. A minute of no response and I hesitantly knocked again. I probably just knocked too quietly the first time. Footsteps paused in front of the door. She was probably checking the peephole. I looked up and gave what I hoped was my best apologetic smile and held up the brownies.

The lock disengaged and after a moment's hesitation the door slowly squeaked open. Kate looked exhausted. It was obvious that she had not gone to work today. Her dark hair was pulled up and a giant mess on top of her head. She had on no make up, dark circles ringed both of her eyes, she was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt from a company picnic fiveish years ago. It was endearing that her comfort clothes was a work picnic shirt that we had designed together.

She'd obviously worn this one a lot as it was quite faded, the text was still legible and read, "H&S Design: We Make Things Look Good. Including This Shirt. I felt the corner of my mouth twitch remembering that day.

"Sam." Kate's voice was flat and quiet. She sounded exhausted. Any trace of anger in her voice had been extinguished.

"Can I come in?" She stared at me for a long moment. I could see her weighing it as her hand tightened on the door, choosing whether or not to close or finish opening the door. She worked the muscles in her jaw, sighed and then finally stepped aside.

"I was just about to crack open a new bottle of wine. Want a glass?" She asked.

"Sure." Her apartment, which was normally very clean but well lived in, was a disaster zone. Her trashcan was filled with wine bottles and take out containers, clothes were draped haphazardly over chairs. Her cat was glaring at me from around the corner.

"Since when has Chaos been stand-offish?"

"He's been pretty weird the past two weeks. I think he is picking up on my stress." She said as she grabbed a new bottle of wine out of the fridge. She handed me a glass of wine before walking over to collapse on her couch. She pulled her legs up underneath of her. I settled on the other side of the couch and Chaos jumped up as well. His ears were back and eyes narrowed. He settled in between us. A furry demilitarized zone. I took a long sip from my glass and tried to figure out where to start.

"I'm sorry." I said finally.

"I should have told you what I had found out, and what I was planning. I should have warned you. Honestly, I was so selfish and focused on how making Daniel suffer would make me feel that I didn't consider how any of this would impact you. I'm a shitty friend and I'm sorry." Kate didn't say anything, she just watched me over the rim of her glass.

"I know you put yourself on the line for me," I continued.

"The date with Daniel. The paystub. Literally everything you've done checking in on me, getting pizza. You've done nothing but try to make me feel better and I just made everything worse. That wasn't fair."

"No," Kate agreed.

"It wasn't."

"I just–" I stared into my distorted reflection in the wine.

"I was so angry. They fired me Kate. Eight years and they threw me away. They knew it was made up. That's what the emails between Rebecca and Greg said. They knew, and they did it anyway. I told myself it would be better if you didn't know, for your own innocence to be infallible." If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. She started to protest but I held up a hand.

"I was lying to myself. It wasn't to protect you. It was that I just wanted them to hurt like I was hurting. I wanted to reveal the monsters beneath the facades all three of them have been showing."

"Did it help?" She asked finally.

"I thought it did. I was excited, really excited to hear how it went down and what the office tea was. But when you called. The hurt in your voice. No. It didn't help. It honestly made me more angry." Kate sighed and set her glass of wine down on the end table. She pulled her knees up to her chin and held onto her legs as if she were afraid they would run off on their own if she didn't. She looked so much younger here than she really was. She set her forehead on her knees and did slow breathing.

Then she turned her head and looked at me. The hollow exhaustion wasn't all that I saw. There was something bothering her, something other than my betrayal. A single tear rolled down her cheek and hung on her chin threatening to fall.

"Sam, it's been a nightmare."

"I'm sorry Kate. Tell me what has been going on for you."

"Since you were let go the office has been muted, like no one really wants to talk about it. If your name comes up a hush comes over the room and everyone scatters. They know we're best friends and so I've come under scrutiny. People I've known for years making comments about AI lovers or being on the side of putting designers out of work."

"Oh, Kate–" She cut me off continuing.

"Daniel was escorted from the building Friday. They literally drug him out. He was fuming claiming that he'd been set up and that Greg would pay for all of this." She laughed bitterly.

"And then today HR came in. They're saying that there are security holes in our systems and that Daniel must have been a bad actor, they uncovered that his employment records don't hold up. Rebecca was let go for not following protocol with the hiring process, and Greg is spinning everything as if it were her idea." She took a breath and slowly closed her eyes before opening them and continuing, "Your team is being blamed for not following proper security measures." I felt my stomach twist.

"My team was just a bunch of juniors who did like basic adjustments and bug fixes."

"Yeah, I know. But they need someone to blame, and now you can't defend yourself or them. Daniel isn't there, so–" She shrugged.

"New security protocols everywhere. Mandatory retraining, password changes every other week. There's talk of monitoring software. And rumors are flying around about stopping remote work. Although…" She let a smile wash over her face for a moment.

"Someone grabbed the altered deck before it was scrubbed. So the rumor is they're too afraid to follow through with everything in case someone leaks it." She groaned and picked her wine back up.

"But, so far no one has. I just have such a headache."

"Kate, I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault. I mean, parts of it are your fault. But Greg was always just looking for an excuse to tighten control. He has never been a fan of the way his dad ran things."

"I miss his dad."

"Yeah, me too. He was a great guy."

"So, who do you think took the deck?" She looked at me and blinked.

"I don't think anyone took the deck."

"Then why did you say that someone had it?"

"Because I have it." I sat up.

"What?"

"Yeah, I have it. I figured, that if something was on there crazy enough to make Allmart storm out it would be scrubbed from the servers in no time. So, I grabbed it onto my flash drive."

"Oh my god Kate. They track all of the files from the server."

"Sure. Which is why I took it from Daniel's computer. He left it unlocked during all of the commotion." I stared at her in disbelief.

"You are crazy."

"I know. But I'm tired. Can this whole thing be over?"

"It's over." I promised quickly. Kate studied my face a long moment before deciding she believed me.

"You mean it?"

"I promise." Kate's shoulders relaxed slightly. She reached over and squeezed my hand.

"Good. I think we need to get back to considering setting up our own company. I missed you, you know. Even when I was furious with you. I missed you."

"I missed you too." We finished the bottle of wine and ordered take out.

"So did you look at it?"

"At what?" She asked as she held lo mein in front of her mouth in a very poor grip on chop sticks. A noodle dropped back onto her plate.

"At the deck."

"Of course I looked at it."

"And?"

"I let you in, didn't I?" We watched some competition show reruns on TV until midnight. As I was getting ready to head out Kate grabbed me in a hug, and held on far longer than usual.

"Thank you for coming over Sam. No more secrets?"

"I'll think about it." I said pretending to think very hard. She whacked me on the shoulder and caused me to laugh.

"Joking! Joking! Of course no more secrets." I drove home through the quiet streets. Code shimmered on the edge of my vision and if I tried, on every surface. I turned on the audiobook I'd been nursing and let the narrator's voice wash over me.

"Aurora stared at the ruins of her childhood home, the ashes still warm beneath her feet. Malikai stood behind her, his hot breath on her neck.

'There's nothing left for you here,' he said.

'Come with me. Let me show you what you could become.'" I was going to let it go, move on and be a normal person. I'd finally stop disappointing my mother. I'd have normal problems and a normal job. I really truly believed that. For maybe three days.