You Took Credit? My Work’s None of Yours

Chapter 3

At three in the afternoon, Jade moved into my studio.

She appeared in the doorway holding a pot of white roses. "Ellie, Damien said the light is better in here. He said I could use it for a few days."

I looked past her. Damien hadn't come himself. The administrative manager was there instead, smiling apologetically. "Ms. Harper, Mr. Whitmore's instructions — we'll need you to move to the back conference room temporarily."

The back conference room was at the end of the corridor. No windows. One corner of the table was chipped.

"What about my materials?" I asked.

The manager hedged. "Ms. Ellery will need them for reference. They'll stay here for now."

"Don't worry, Ellie," Jade said quickly. "I won't touch anything." Then she reached out and ran her fingers along the sketchbook on my desk.

I pressed my hand down on it.

She blinked, her eyes going pink at the corners. "I was only looking."

"This was my mother's."

Her voice softened. "Ellie, you're so guarded around me. You'd think I was some kind of villain."

I didn't answer.

She glanced toward the door, her tone shifting. "Damien."

Damien walked in, his gaze moving to my hand on the sketchbook. "What's going on?"

Jade looked down. "I wanted to study Ellie's drafts, but she won't let me. I suppose I'm not worthy."

That I suppose almost made me laugh.

Damien did not laugh. He looked at me. "Give it to her."

"Anything else. Not this one."

"Ellie." He reached out to pull the sketchbook from my hands. I held on too tightly, and the edge of the pages dragged across my fingertips, leaving a dull, stinging pain.

He paused. "It's just an old notebook."

I looked up at him. "It's my mother's."

A half-second of silence.

"I know."

Something struck me quietly in the chest. He knew. He knew, and he still wanted to take it. That was worse than not knowing.

He softened his tone. "Just let Jade borrow it for a couple of days. I'll make sure she's careful."

Jade nodded beside him. "I'll take such good care of it, Ellie."

I looked at her hands — clean, her nails decorated with tiny pearl studs. And I thought of the sketchbook: my mother, too ill to hold a pen steadily, guiding my hand stroke by stroke until it was finished.

"No," I said.

Damien's patience finally ran out. He closed his fingers around my wrist — not hard, but firmly enough. My grip loosened. He took the sketchbook and placed it in Jade's arms.

"Stop being stubborn," he said.

I looked at my empty hand, and for a moment I thought of my mother holding it when I was small. Ellie, she had said, a person's name belongs on their own work.

I had put my name on things for years after that. Until today, when someone erased it.

Jade hugged the sketchbook and smiled sweetly. "Thank you, Damien. Thank you, Ellie."

I asked Damien, "You trust her that much?"

"At least she doesn't put everyone on the spot the way you do," he said flatly.

"Is that so?"

He glanced at me. "Ellie, you didn't use to be like this."

What was I like before? I was the girl who handed him her original drafts in the rain, face a mess from crying. I was the one who learned to make herself quieter because he said he liked quiet people. I was the one who spent five years willingly held in place by two words: don't be afraid.

"People change," I said quietly.

He didn't seem to hear. He turned to help Jade set up the drafting easel, and then he moved the desk lamp from my table to hers with his own hands.

That lamp had been with me for seven years. There was a c***k in the shade — from the first night Damien stayed up with me revising drafts, when he knocked it over by accident. He had told me not to throw it out. He said it meant something.

Now it was illuminating someone else's work.

That evening, I went to the back conference room to gather my things. Two interns were talking just outside the door.

"Ms. Harper got a pretty rough deal, don't you think?"

"Rough? Mr. Whitmore still pays her. Besides, Ms. Ellery's young and pretty. It makes sense he'd favor her a little."

"But those designs were clearly Ms. Harper's work."

"That's exactly why. She's his fiancée — it's easier to ask things of someone on your side."

I sat in the windowless room and, at that last line, let out a quiet laugh.

On your side. The most convenient person to sacrifice.

My phone lit up. A video from Jade.

In it, she was flipping through my mother's sketchbook, turning to Damien beside her. "Damien, I can't make sense of this page."

He sat down patiently. "Let me show you."

The camera shifted as it moved, and for a moment the corner of the table came into frame. The battered umbrella was lying on the floor. One of its ribs had been snapped.