I stared after him. "Paul, what is that supposed to mean? Get back here and explain yourself!"
His only answer was the door slamming shut hard enough to rattle the frame.
Once trust collapses, every word that came before it starts to rot.
I picked up my phone and texted Jasmine, asking her to look into it for me.
That evening, Jasmine walked in carrying takeout from my favorite spot.
But I had no appetite. All I wanted was the truth.
"Jasmine, what did you find?"
She set the food down, her expression heavy. "Jess, I asked my uncle to dig into it."
"His findings show that every single one of your transfer applications over the past seven years was blocked by a distant cousin of Paul's."
A cold laugh escaped me. The irony was almost poetic. "Eight years I've known the man, and I never once heard about this relative."
Because I'd trusted Paul, I had told him about every single application over the years. Without fail, each one came back rejected.
I thought it was because I wasn't good enough. That I didn't have what it took to follow in my parents' footsteps. On countless sleepless nights, I'd drowned in self-blame, hating myself for being so useless.
It had all been rigged from the start.