You Took Credit? My Work’s None of Yours

Chapter 2

"Ms. Harper, Mr. Whitmore would like to see you in the conference room."

The assistant came to find me the next morning. She wouldn't quite meet my eyes.

I closed my laptop. "What's this about?"

She lowered her voice. "Ms. Ellery's side is saying that you had an emotional outburst backstage last night and disrupted the team."

"Understood," I said.

The conference room was full. Representatives from the label, legal, and marketing were all there, along with Jade. She was wearing a white knit sweater, seated to Damien's left, her eyes rimmed red.

Damien slid a document across the table toward me. "Sign it."

I didn't open it. "What is it?"

"The official statement." He leaned back in his chair, his tone even. "It confirms that the credit adjustment was an arrangement agreed upon internally by the team well in advance, and that your reaction last night was due to a physical condition."

I turned to the first page. Every word was carefully chosen, polished to a shine — clean enough to serve as a tidy grave.

"And if I don't sign?"

Someone from the label cleared their throat. "Ms. Harper, the project is already live. A dispute at this stage would be damaging for everyone involved."

"Ellie," Jade said quietly, "I really didn't mean to take anything from you. Why don't I give the award trophy back?" She pushed it toward me as she spoke. The base scraped across the table with a sharp, grating sound.

Damien pressed his hand over hers. "Stop that." Then he looked at me. "Ellie, don't put her in an impossible position."

I looked at the hand resting on Jade's. Steady and long-fingered. The same hand that had once guided mine through line drawings, that had pressed a cup of hot water into my palm on the nights I stayed up until my stomach gave out.

It was strange how much a person's hands could remember. And how easily they could forget.

"What about me?" I asked.

Damien frowned. "What?"

"Is my position so easy to be put in?"

A half-second of silence fell over the room.

Jade's tears came immediately. "Ellie, are you still blaming me? Damien only wanted to help me once. I didn't mean anything by it."

Damien pulled a tissue from the box and handed it to her, but his voice was directed at me. "She's just entering the domestic market. She can't absorb too much hostility right now."

"So I'm the one who absorbs it?"

His expression cooled. "This isn't hostility. It's the bigger picture."

The bigger picture. I thought of how many times he had said those words over the years. When a competitor went after me, he told me to endure it — for the bigger picture. When I revised drafts through the night until my wrist swelled with inflammation, he told me to hold on a little longer — for the bigger picture. And now, with my name taken from me, he was still saying it.

As though I had been put on this earth specifically to be flattened by it.

The legal representative set a pen in front of me. Damien said, "Sign it, and tonight I'll take you to see a doctor about your wrist. The old injury's been flaring up again, hasn't it?"

My hand stilled for a moment. He remembered.

He just remembered it at the worst possible time, in the most convenient possible way.

I picked up the pen and signed my name at the bottom of the official statement. Ellie. As the last stroke landed, the tension in Damien's face eased, and Jade finally stopped crying.

I capped the pen. "Damien, since I'm listed as project consultant, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to continue managing the project going forward."

He looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

His voice dropped slightly. "The core line drawings are all with you. If you walk out now, you're asking everyone here to share the consequences."

The representatives from the label exchanged uneasy looks. Jade rushed to say, "Ellie, please don't do this. Damien was saying just last night that the project would be very hard to move forward without you."

I looked at Damien. He looked away.

So he knew it would be hard. He knew I was useful. He just never considered that I could be hurt.

Damien gathered the documents. "Stop being difficult. Hand the remaining line drawings over to Jade this afternoon."

"She won't be able to follow them."

"Then walk her through them."

The answer came too fast — as if I were simply a piece of outdated equipment, and the sensible thing was to strip out the components before discarding it.

"Fine," I said.

Damien seemed unsatisfied by my calm. He held my gaze. "Ellie, you'd better be sure about this."

I stood, picking up the battered umbrella from beside the table. The tip caught the edge of the award trophy with a faint clink.

Jade flinched back. "Ellie, you startled me."

Damien was on his feet instantly, stepping in front of her.

I watched the movement and found I didn't even have the energy to explain myself.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the confirmation receipt from the notary's office, sent after I had uploaded the evidence the night before.

I didn't open it. I just opened the battered umbrella and walked out of the conference room.

Behind me, Damien's voice drifted out, unhurried. "She'll come back."