…You have to help me. You’re the best defense attorney in the city.”
I stared at the hands clutching mine—the exact same hands that had typed that text ten years ago. Chloe looked nothing like the untouchable golden girl of our senior class. Her designer coat was rumpled, her blowout was flat, and her eyes were frantic and bloodshot.
“The others?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. I carefully peeled her fingers off my wrists and took a deliberate step back, smoothing the front of my tailored suit.
The story spilled out of her in pathetic, jagged sobs. It hadn’t stopped with me. At Yale, there was a roommate quietly expelled for “plagiarism” so Chloe could secure an exclusive fellowship. At her first tech startup, a junior developer took the fall for a massive data breach, leaving Chloe to walk away with a pristine reputation and a six-figure severance. She had left a decade-long trail of destroyed lives, using human stepping stones to cross every hurdle in her path.
But her luck had finally run out. A federal investigator was looking into her latest venture, and the junior developer had come forward with receipts.
“They have emails,” she choked out, sinking to her knees right there on the imported marble of my firm’s lobby. “They’re going to indict me. If I go to prison, my life is over. Please, I know we have history, but you know how the system works. You’re the only one smart enough to get me out of this.”
I looked down at her. Ten years of night classes, of working three jobs to pay for a lower-tier college that would overlook my record, of fighting tooth and nail against a system that had branded me a delinquent before I even turned eighteen. I had built an empire on the ashes she left me in.
“You came to my firm,” I said slowly, letting the silence of the lobby amplify my words, “expecting me to save you from the consequences of the exact same tactics you used to destroy me?”
“We were kids!” she pleaded, mascara running down her cheeks. “I panicked! But you… look at you now! You made it. You’re a partner! You’re stronger because of what happened.”
The audacity of her rationalization was breathtaking. She wasn’t sorry she ruined me; she was just trying to use the success I bled for as her personal shield.
I walked over to the receptionist’s desk, picked up the phone, and dialed security. “Yes, Frank? We have a trespasser in the lobby. Please escort her out.”
Chloe’s face drained of color. She scrambled to her feet. “You can’t do this! I have nowhere else to go! They’re going to lock me up!”
I looked her dead in the eye as the elevator doors chimed and two security guards stepped out. I didn’t feel anger anymore, just a profound, absolute emptiness where my best friend used to be.
“It’s just survival,” I said softly.
Then, I turned my back and walked toward my corner office, finally closing the door on her for good.
