Ethan appeared to be vaguely upset by my remark. There was a hint of mockery underneath his smile that did not look very pleasant.

He thought dismissively to himself that I was too young and far too impulsive. With my mismatched ambition and lack of patience, I wasn’t going to make it far in this city. I had only spent five years in the industry and was already expecting to ascend to the top! Did I think life was some sort of Hollywood movie?

To triumph, one needed to have true talent instead of relying on so-called nepotism. To name an example, sleeping with an executive to make it to the top wasn’t going to work. The business world was cutthroat; it was no Make-a-Wish Foundation. However, I should try again next time. If there was a next time, he would fairly crown me.

With that in mind, he tried to console me. “Arya, the celebration party is going to be held in the Rainbow Hall. You should come too.”

“No, thank you.” I declined politely, “I’m going home to get some rest.”

Ethan frowned. I was not the type to decline a chance at networking. It was the most important part of thriving in this industry. However, before he could spare another thought, Sophie had taken his arm.

Meanwhile, I hailed a ride. After burrowing in the backseat, I looked out the window and beheld the dazzling nightscape of Manhattan. There was something glacial about it.

Before I even got home, I could see the trending hashtags on social media, listing “Ethan Moore,” “Sophie Vanderbilt,” and “Architecture Power Couple.” Each hashtag was styled in bold red, suggesting that they were trending topics.

Ethan had an award-contending project that was three years in the making—a sustainable community development project set in a district in Brooklyn. He had very eagerly named Sophie as the lead architect of the project. If I were at the celebration party, I wager that my expression would’ve been so twisted that I would lose all social graces.

When the display on my phone darkened, I saw my reflection. I looked tired and pale. It did not seem like I was looking anywhere near pleasant as it is.

As soon as I closed the application, I received a text from Ethan.

“No need to wait for me. I’m going to be held up for a while.”

Instead of replying, I swiped the text away. A dim blue light was cast over my face while I began to reminisce about the process of how he breached into my world.

“That girl from Columbia University is a diamond in the rough. I was the one who trained her. Ignore those trending headlines. They’re artificially boosted anyway. I was only modifying her blueprint. We need to make headlines, Arya. This is business we’re talking about. When are you going to grow up?”

...

At first, it was “Who is she?”

Gradually, it became “Why her?”

Toward the end, nothing remained but silence.

When I read the long and elaborate messages about Sophie on the screen, I realized that it did not occur to him that it had been a long time since I texted him at all.

All that was left was a cruel line of text that said I was left on read.

The straw that broke the camel's back was an episode from three months ago. What it came down to was a matter of priority.

On that particular day, Sophie was cut by a marble slab somewhere in the affluent district of the Hamptons. At the same time, I was conducting a site survey at an abandoned factory in the Bronx and ended up hurting myself when I fell from a stairway. The injury she sustained was only a tiny cut, no longer than a centimeter in width, while I suffered a spinal injury. Even in the same city, our fates were a sharp contrast.

The extent of Ethan’s concern for me was limited to a short sentence, asking, “Are you okay?”

Meanwhile, he made a grand and chivalrous display of taking Sophie to the best hospital in the region in his Tesla. He was so worried for her that he even sought medical advice on social media with a post that read, “Urgent! What's the solution to preventing a potential scar?”

From the pictures, I could see Sophie seated in the passenger seat of his Tesla. Despite how frail she looked, she was still mesmerizing. Meanwhile, I lay all by myself in the emergency room surrounded by the smell of disinfectant.

I watched as Ethan exchanged quips and banter with his friends in the comments section while ignoring the texts I had sent him. The indifference he directed toward me hurt more than the spine injury itself.

After spending a sleepless night, I went to see him while still strapped with a heavy brace on my back. I found him in his office staring intently at a model of a Rhino, which Sophie had designed on the screen. His brows were furrowed with focus, as if that was a thousand times more important than my condition.

“Give me a second, Arya. There's a structural problem here.”

He didn’t even bother to turn around to face me.

I stood outside the glass door and watched as he fiddled with Sophie's design. In the span of two hours, it finally occurred to me that even a measly sketch was more important to him than I was.

There was a Young Architect Award certificate issued by the Institute of Architects, which he received last year, framed on the glass door.

At one point, his secretary Emma approached to inform me in a lowered voice. “Arya, Ethan is still going over the design with Sophie, and it might take at least two more hours…”

She examined my reaction briefly before continuing, “Why don't you come back later?”

I insistently shook my head and said, “I’ll wait for him.”

Emma seemed troubled by this.

“You might distract them if you stay here.”

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through me, which made my whole body collapse under its weight. Fortunately, Emma grabbed me just in time.

The sudden commotion caught Ethan's attention from the other side of the glass wall. He glanced over in my direction and seemed not very impressed with the scene he was witnessing.

“Please escort the unauthorized personnel.”

He spoke with clear conviction as if he was doing what was right and kicking out an unwanted homeless man from a dignified venue. Then, his gaze lingered on my twisted posture for a moment. His lips seemed to tremble slightly as if he wanted to ask if everything was fine.

“Ethan, how about the light projection…”

His attention was quickly redirected back to the screen when he heard Sophie’s faint and pleasant voice. The concern he directed at me vanished like a mirage. It seemed to last all but a split second before it dissipated like dust.

The message was clear enough. He wanted me to drop the act, be professional, and get out of here before I embarrass him. Once he was done, perhaps he would be generous enough to send me a copy of the meeting minutes he jotted down with Sophie as a way to “make up” for what happened today.

The air conditioning unit droned on dully and endlessly. The only thing separating us was a wall. He was the one with the power over the temperature, while I was left to shiver from the mixture of the lingering heat of Manhattan in July and the air conditioning.

I pulled the coat tighter around myself before turning and heading out through the elevator.

Five years ago, we graduated from Columbia University together and vowed that we would take the city by storm.

However, it looked like I was going to have to accept the bitter truth that the man who once walked by my side was gone.

The following day, the organizing committee of the competition put together a livestream for a podcast at a loft studio somewhere in SoHo. The so-called “roundtable discussion” was, in truth, a carefully orchestrated public stunt for crisis management.

Ethan sat in the lounge chair, still dressed in the Tom Ford suit from the night before. His tie was loose, which made him seem rather hungover, yet it also gave him an air of nonchalance. It was a good embodiment of the “effortless social elite” look that was popular amongst the masses.

When he spoke into the microphone, he assumed his usual ‘mentor’ role.

“Arya is a doer. She works incredibly hard.”

He paused briefly before continuing in an arrogant tone characteristic of a head lecturer from the Harvard School of Design.

“However, I’m sure you all have heard of the term 'less is more’ used widely in architecture. Excessive flair can sometimes lead to an overdone product.”

Then, he abruptly changed the subject and brought Sophie into the conversation.

“Sophie is something else entirely. She is a genius when it comes to creating a curated experience. Her instinct for space is… phenomenal.”

I looked at him and felt my stomach churn.

Overdone?

I spent three whole months in an abandoned factory in the Bronx to cover up countless graffiti spray-painted by gangs. I went door-to-door conducting community surveys. Was that supposed to be overdone?

Meanwhile, Sophie was lounging on a beach somewhere in the Hamptons, drawing up blueprints on her iPad. What part of that was instinctual?

While Architectural Digest and Dezeen commended my design as being refreshingly humanist, my partner was publicly humiliating me on a live stream.

I wanted to offer a retort, but a wave of memories rushed over me, gaslighting me with remarks that I shouldn’t be so sensitive or that it wasn’t that serious.

Since this was all for show, I decided to end the farce.

“Ethan.” I adjusted the microphone before crossly cutting off his sentence with a signature podcaster tone. “That was an excellent speech, but I’ll have to interrupt you for a moment. I need to go to the washroom.”

I took off my headphones before getting up to leave. A wave of silence fell over the studio.

During the intermission, Ethan confronted me in the back alley.

He lit a cigarette and frowned. “Have you lost it? I put this whole thing together to give you some exposure. You were supposed to acknowledge and discuss what you learned from your failure. While you're at it, you should applaud Sophie's talent… It'll do good things for your career.”

So that was his real goal all along.

There had been countless accusations of Sophie being a nepo baby online. That was why he needed me, a “veteran” with technical expertise to vouch for Sophie and to prove that her victory was earned. That was the only way the accusations could be stamped out.

The whole affair was laughable. I shot a look at him.

“Ethan, I’ll give it to you. It’s a pretty good PR strategy.”

I forced a sarcastic smile before continuing, “But I'm just a runner-up. I can’t possibly have the merit to critique the champion, do I?”

With that, I turned and walked away, leaving him to the onslaught of cold gusts of wind in the alley. This time. I was done with the whole song and dance.