Page 19 of The Revenge Game

My deepest apologies to anyone who can no longer look at bridge trolls the same way.

Best regards,

Justin

PS I think we can all agree that some things, once seen, cannot be unseen. If anyone needs the number for a good therapist, let me know.

I read his words a few times, trying to make sense of it.

He’s dismissing the email as a client playing a practical joke? What the hell?

Somehow, he’s managed to take my carefully crafted revenge plan and spin it into an opportunity to show off his wit and charm.

And from the tone of his email, it seems he found the whole thing amusing.

Something twists in my stomach. Where’s the mortification? The shame? The overwhelming desire to crawl into a hole and disappear that I used to feel every day of high school?

Surely, I caused him some momentary distress, at least.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he’s the kind of guy who can shrug off something like this as a joke. He’s probably sitting in the sales department now, laughing about it. It’ll be just another thing to include in the backslapping in-jokes Justin and his kind have.

Judging by the replies already flooding in with cry-laughing emoji and dubiously tasteful jokes about trolls and clubs, he’s winning over his audience.

Some things never change.

Justin’s still the golden boy, and I’m still watching from the shadows.

And somehow, my best-laid plans just made him shine even brighter.

My next few days consist of dealing with the bread and butter of the IT department help desk: convincing Paul from Operations that his computer freezing wasn’t actually caused by the office being too cold, explaining why computers don’t like having tea spilled into their keyboards—looking at you, Dave—and helpingvarious staff members understand that ctrl+alt+delete isn’t actually a magic spell that fixes everything.

I also spend an enlightening hour explaining to Roger why keeping his passwords on Post-it notes stuck to his monitor might not be the height of security.

Despite the menial tasks, I actually find myself enjoying work. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed having a job. Colleagues to talk to. Tasks to keep me busy, even if it is just helping Margaret from Accounting understand that her computer isn’t possessed by demons when her caps lock is stuck.

Between jobs, I finish my marketing department system update and put the last touches on my latest revenge plan for Justin.

Justin’s calendar shows he has a big presentation to a customer at ten-thirty on Friday morning. At twenty past ten, I upload the custom program I wrote that should result in some embarrassing chaos for Justin during his presentation.

It’s a brilliant piece of coding if I do say so myself.

“You coming to morning tea?” Xander asks just as the upload finishes. Xander’s a big fan of morning tea, I’ve discovered. Along with second breakfast, mid-morning snack, pre-lunch appetizer, and what he calls his “creative energy refueling sessions,” which seem to occur every hour on the hour.

Anything to get him out of actually doing work.

Because Adam’s away at a management training course today, Xander’s been even worse than normal. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s spent his entire day watchingYouTubetutorials about Dragon’s Sphere egg-hatching techniques and organizing his extensive collection of energy drink cans by flavor profile.

“I think I’ll just work through morning tea today,” I say.

Xander gives me an incredulous look as he lumbers to his feet.

I’m sitting at my desk logging printer cartridge replacement requests into a spreadsheet when, suddenly, the door to the office bursts open.

It’s Justin.

His perfect hair is slightly ruffled like he’s been raking his hands through it, and he’s holding his laptop like it’s a grenade about to detonate.