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“Why are we giving him choices?” Tazeem huffed in obvious frustration. “Don’t answer. I know! Because he’s your friend.”
“Yes, because hewasmy friend.” She emphasized the ‘was’ because now she was certain that their friendship had never been true. To make Tazeem understand her choice better, she proposed, “If this is Ren, and he did the same thing to you, would you be able to cut him down like you’re asking me to do to Derrick?”
“Ren would never do something like this to me.”
“That’s the same way I thought of Derrick,” she explained. “He was my friend, just like Ren is your friend. I trusted him, just like you trusted Ren. So, would you be able to ruin Ren’s career if you found out he’d betrayed you?”
With great reluctance, Tazeem admitted, “I guess it would be hard.”
“It is hard.” Chess proposed, “So, let me just handle this my way, okay?”
After a few seconds of thought, he sighed. “Okay, let’s do it your way.”
Chess thought her way of dealing with the issue would be simple; confront Derrick, force him to step away from their team, then get back to work. But as often happens, things got a lot more complicated.
“What do you mean you know it’s me?” Derrick glared at her with fierce eyes when she confronted him in her office later the same morning. “I didn’t do anything.”
“We both know that’s a lie.” Chess fought to stay calm despite her anger. “You’re the one who’s been sabotaging our team.”
“What are you talking about?” Derrick noisily pushed back his seat and stood up. “This is bullshit. I’m going back to work.”
“Sit down, Derrick.” Her tone was as icy as her gaze as she stared him down. “We both know this isn’t bullshit.”
He watched her for a few silent seconds before slowly sitting down. His eyes watered as if he was on the verge of crying as he asked, “Why are you being like this? This is very hurtful. You know I would never do something so horrible to you. We’re friends.”
If this were any other day, Chess would’ve been fooled by those tears in his eyes. She would’ve felt guilty for even thinking that he could betray her. But today, she felt only anger as she watched him try to act like he was hurt.
“Are we really friends?” Chess turned her laptop so he could see the screen. “Then explain this.”
“What’s that?” Derrick peered at the laptop just as Chess pressed play.
The moment the video began to play, Derrick stiffened. As he watched the clip, his eyes widened, his lips parted, and he began to breathe faster. He didn’t even finish the video. He shoved the laptop violently away from him as if he didn’t even want to look at it anymore. “That’s- that’s- that’s not me. That’s a fake-”
“It’s you, Derrick,” she cut him off sharply. “It’s not an edited video. It’s not a deep fake. It’s you. You know it, and I know it. So let’s cut the crap.”
“I swear on my dead mother-”
“Don’t bring your poor mother into this. She raised you better than this, and I’m sure she’d be ashamed to find out that this is how you turned out.” Chess’s voice rose with every word she spoke. “Are you serious, Derrick? I thought we were friends. How could you do this? Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t,” Derrick insisted.
“Don’t do that. Just tell me the truth,” Chess yelled, getting more and more frustrated with his insistent denial. “What would make you want to hurt me like this? Did I do something to you?”
This time he didn’t respond. He just stared at her in sullen silence.
“Was someone blackmailing you?” she offered more calmly. “Did Mark offer you something I can’t? Were you getting something from it?”
She just needed him to give her a good reason for his betrayal. Maybe that would make it easier to forgive him.
But Derrick wasn’t ready to give her any answers. Looking away from her, he declared, “This is rubbish!”
“I agree, this is rubbish,” she retorted. “It’s rubbish that you, the person I thought of as my friend, would do something so hurtful. If it was just Miller’s pictures, the venue cancellation, and framing Felicity, maybe all this would be easier to swallow. But using Jay was too much.” She felt the back of her eyes sting and tears gather as she added, “I told you that Tazeem was his father in confidence. Because I trusted you. How could you use that information to stab me in the back?”
Derrick’s gaze immediately snapped back to meet hers. “You can’t prove that.”
“That’s all you got for me?” She mockingly mimicked, “You can’t prove that?”
“Well, you can’t.” Scowling fiercely, he noted, “All you have is a video of someone who looks like me typing on a computer. You have no proof for all the other stuff you’re blubbering about.”
