I was staring at my computer monitor when the announcement appeared on the companywide livestream.
“Quarterly performance bonus recipient: Ava Bennett. $75,000.”
For several seconds, I simply stared at those words without blinking. I waited for them to change. I waited for someone to correct the mistake. I waited for my name to appear where hers was supposed to be.
It did not.
Ava Bennett was our twenty-three-year-old summer intern. She had been with Sterling Meridian Consulting for exactly eleven weeks, and she was receiving my quarterly performance bonus.
On the livestream, our division director, Brock Vance, stood at the front of the main conference room with his usual polished smile. Behind him, the glass walls reflected the Chicago skyline in the late afternoon light, the kind of corporate backdrop that made every decision look cleaner than it really was.
Brock placed both hands on the podium and spoke as if the entire announcement had been carved into stone.
“Ava has shown exceptional promise, fresh strategic thinking, and the kind of innovative energy this company wants to reward.”
People in the room began clapping.
I sat completely still.
My hands hovered over my keyboard, but I could not type. My throat tightened as I watched Ava sit beside Brock, looking surprised, pleased, and slightly overwhelmed. She had no idea what was happening.
None of us really did.
Except Brock.
I had worked at Sterling Meridian Consulting for four years. Four years of staying late, taking weekend calls from frantic clients, turning around impossible projects nobody else wanted to touch, and carrying accounts that kept our division profitable.
That quarter alone, I had brought in six new enterprise clients. Each one was worth more than Ava would make in a year.
