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.

“Ethan’s new project listing is about to be closed! It’s for a prime location in the heart of Brooklyn! Aren’t you going to try to fight for it?”

Lisa grabbed my arm firmly.

I took a look at my phone and saw that there were unread messages.

“I’m not going.”

Lisa’s hand trembled with rage, causing her to spill her oat latte onto the table.

“What do you mean you’re not going? That was your design! He robbed you at the award ceremony!” She was yelling at this point. “He’s taking advantage of you!”

“What about it?” I interrupted her lethargically.

Of course, I realized he was taking advantage of me.

Four years ago, we were holed up in a shoebox apartment somewhere in Chinatown, working on a project in the Lower East District. In that place where even the vermin avoided, we spent our days drawing up blueprints.

After we became successful, he became the darling of the New York Times, while I remained unknown. When I tried to fight for at least a bit of credit for the design, he smiled briskly and practically executed me in front of all the shareholders in the conference room.

“Arya, you shouldn’t let your feelings cloud your judgment. It’s very unprofessional.”

He hardly needed to raise his voice to make me come off as the laughingstock of the entire company. I was reduced to a useless doll with a pretty face, trying to climb the corporate ladder by latching onto her boyfriend.

“There are some things he was right about.” I said while looking at Lisa with a vacant look in my eyes, “I’m not cut out for this.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m tired, Lisa.”

When I said that, I felt like I was cutting off the last thing that kept me going. All those dreams we had about winning the Pritzker Prize for architectural design, those vows of leaving a mark on the Manhattan skyline were gone.

The urgent wailing of an ambulance siren filtered through the windows. The sound was slowly fading off into the distance, a metaphor of my symbolic death in the final year of my contract.