Yale's firm eventually collapsed into bankruptcy and liquidation. Once the pillar fell, everyone abandoned ship. In the blink of an eye, the ambitious young star of the industry became a man with nothing, penniless, disgraced, and abandoned.
Finally, he seemed to understand that I wasn't acting out of anger. I was really gone.
And that realization drove him into even deeper desperation.
He sold off his last watch and rented a cramped room near my apartment building. Day after day, through wind and rain, he stood downstairs waiting for me, barely sleeping at all.
He began recreating the things I used to do for him. He shopped for groceries himself, cooked spicy dishes he had always refused to taste, and delivered them to my office.
Whenever the front desk called to ask what to do, my a
