“Our support staff are just invaluable,” she said, gesturing vaguely in my direction as the executives applauded the project I had spent two years building.
The intern I mentored, the one I’d shared everything with, had just erased me in front of the entire company. She stood at that podium presenting my work, my words, my soul, as her own.
I taught her everything. She paid me back by systematically stealing my career right out from under me, one late-night file download at a time.
She was a master of the big performance, of charming the bosses and stealing the spotlight. What she never counted on was that every lie she told left a digital footprint, and I was about to show everyone the map.
A Blank Canvas: The New Intern
The email landed with the quiet thud of an unwanted obligation. Subject: Your Summer Intern – Maya Jenkins. I stared at it, the cursor blinking on a half-finished slide deck for Project Nightingale. Nightingale was my baby, my shot at a Director title, the culmination of two years of late nights and working weekends. It was a comprehensive rebranding initiative, and it was everything.
My phone buzzed. A picture from my husband, Tom. Our son, Leo, was holding up a misshapen clay bowl from his art class, beaming with a gap-toothed grin. Our little Picasso, the text read. I smiled, a real smile that reached my tired eyes. This was why I did it. The mortgage, Leo’s college fund, the dream of a vacation that didn’t involve checking work emails by a hotel pool.
Another email. This one from my boss, Mr. Harrison. Sarah, let’s make sure this intern gets real-world experience. I’m counting on you to show her the ropes. The subtext was clear: Don’t just give her coffee runs. Don’t mess this up.
A young woman appeared at the edge of my cubicle, hovering with a nervous energy that felt vaguely familiar. She was maybe twenty-two, dressed in a blazer that was trying a little too hard, her dark hair pulled back in a severe, professional ponytail. She clutched a leather portfolio to her chest like a shield.
“Sarah Price?” she asked, her voice brighter than I expected.
“That’s me. You must be Maya.”
“I’m so excited to be here,” she said, her eyes wide with a sincerity that felt both refreshing and exhausting. “I’ve read about the work your team does. It’s incredible. I just want to learn everything.”
I managed a tight smile and motioned to the empty desk beside mine. “Welcome to the team. Let’s get you logged in.” I felt the weight of Nightingale, the pressure from Harrison, and the picture of Leo on my phone. This intern wasn’t just an intern. She was another task, another variable in an equation I couldn’t afford to get wrong.
The First Echo
The first week was a blur of onboarding. I walked Maya through our systems, our workflow, our byzantine file-naming conventions. She was a sponge. She didn’t just listen; she asked questions that were sharper than I expected, questions that showed she was already connecting disparate dots. She absorbed everything with a quiet intensity that was impressive.
“This is the big one,” I said, opening a locked folder on our shared drive. “Project Nightingale. Most of this is still confidential, but Harrison wants you to have real experience, so…” I waved a hand at the screen. “This is as real as it gets.”
I spent an hour walking her through the core concepts, the market research, the three-tiered rollout strategy I’d spent months perfecting. I showed her the pitch decks, the budget forecasts, the internal branding guides. I was giving her the keys to the kingdom, and a part of me, the part that remembered being a terrified intern myself, felt good about it. I was being the mentor I never had.
“The core of it,” I explained, pointing to a slide with our proposed new tagline, “is this idea of ‘intuitive integration.’ It’s about making our products feel like a natural extension of our clients’ own teams.”
Maya nodded, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Intuitive integration,” she repeated softly, as if tasting the words.
Later that day, I saw her by the elevators. She was talking to Mr. Harrison. I was too far away to hear, but their body language was easy, familiar. Harrison laughed at something she said. As he stepped into the elevator, I saw Maya give a confident little nod. It was a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, but it felt… practiced. When she walked back to her desk, she didn’t mention the conversation. She just asked if I could show her how to run the quarterly performance metrics again.
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