Her phone buzzes. It is from him. She reads it.

She had changed the color of his script to green, his favorite color. The text resembled  a snake. The words swam before her eyes, slipping and slithering over themselves.

“Did you see the paper?”

It was the paper that he had released. It had depicted a simplified version of their research, promising a second part in more scientific terms.

She responded.

“Yes.”

“What did you think?”

Was he seeking approval? She was not sure how to respond. Her fingers had typed out an angry response, but she thought better and deleted it. She thought more.

She thought about betrayal.

She wished she could talk to him face to face. The only way to communicate was through the detached way of texting. There was so much for her own mind to fill in. His expression, his emotion, his tone.

“You okay?”

It was easy to respond to that.

“How could you?”

“You should be pleased.”

She laughed. It was a bitter sound, one filled with hurt and incredulity.

“To think that I was happy when I first saw your name on the front page.”

She hurt.

“You should be happy. It isn’t a sin to be happy for a friend’s achievements.”

“It was our work. Together. Key word.”

“I hate repeating myself. I already said it was a slip. I let it out early.”

“How does one ‘accidentally’ spill all of our research to the public?”

It wasn’t even her research now. She wondered if he would notice.

“All four years of knowing each other, thrown away for this?”

“...”

He was typing. She didn’t want to wait.

She had never wanted to wait.

Next came curiosity. She was a scientist. It was in her nature.

She had read the headline.

“It’s brilliant work, in any case. This information will change the world.”

It was he who was smiling as though he had saved the world. He was the one talking to interviewers and winning prizes. With cancer having been on the rise for decades, it was the single biggest medical problem in the modern era. With death rates skyrocketing, it was a race to save the human race.

“Was it worth it?”

“Of course. This research will save lives.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Don’t be selfish. Every day we waited, another thousand lives were lost.”

“Selfish? Says the rich brat who stole all the glory for himself.”

“Just because you grew up poor doesn’t change the facts. I deserve it more anyways. I did all the work, you just sparked the flame.”

“Are you trying to tell yourself that or do you sincerely believe that?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, it was never my intention. But with each passing second, I’m beginning to think I made the right decision. You’re hurt, I understand that. Confused. But don’t act like a victim.”

“Stop making excuses. You can’t justify ruining my life. I am a victim. You’re horrible.”

“You never did listen to me.”

“And you never made the right choices. Just because you grew up with machines and a family of doctors, is that somehow supposed to make you smarter than me?”

They had gotten along splendidly. His wit and smiles, her creativity and work ethic--they had begun to crack the code of the dreaded disease, and to change the world.

“We were finished. I don’t understand why you had to prolong publishing it. Or at least I didn’t.”

“You know we only had a few last tests to run. The rule of thumb for all scientists, triple check. You obviously missed a few courses on being a basic scientist, which includes lessons in teamwork.”

“Oh please. As if you ever cared about teamwork. Given another day, you would have done the same thing as me. I know it. I saw your emails. Already prepping interviews alone? Really suspicious there.”

Only a few short days and they would save the world--together. He was crazy to think she would do anything like that. She had just wanted to tell interviewers to be ready. So what if she didn’t want him there? He would have had his own share anyways.

The future had been so clear in her mind; she could almost feel the medal around her neck and the awards in her hands.  How foolish she had been, so wrapped up in delusions of grandeur.

Drip.

Sadness.

Drip.

She had wanted to do this together. She thought he did, too.

“How many dinners did we share, discussing how we would handle the resulting fame? How many dollars did we pledge to donate? How many speeches did we prepare?”

Drip.

“We planned it together. But you were the one that began going off the rails first. I’m not blind to the game of politics. False promises, it rings a very familiar bell to me, and it should for you also. I’m not stupid enough to wait around and get stabbed in the back.”

His face printed on the old fashioned paper blurred like a scene in foggy darkness. In her mind she envisioned him slipping away, drifting farther and farther off.

She cried for the loss of friendship. She cried for the loss of glory.

She hated him.

“How could you say that? Whatever I say, when I say it, I mean it. This wasn’t a game to me, although it evidently was for you. You just can’t get the idea that people can actually share glory, right?”

“Glory and friendship don’t go hand in hand.”

“I’ve lost both.”

“Do you hate me for it? Doing what was best for me?”

“Of course.”

But she could never hate him. He was her friend, would always be her friend. He could not have gotten this far without her.  As little comfort as it brought her, she had a feeling that was the best she was going to get, and that feeling drove her insane.

Anybody else less clear-headed would have thrown the paper. Torn it up. Instead, she read. Her hands felt numb, but she forced them to move, to turn the page to the article’s conclusion. She forced her blurry eyes to read even as the tears streamed down her face.

“Are you crying?”

“What do you care?”

“I’m merely curious. I’m sure you’ve read the article in great depth by now. I’m quite satisfied with the result.”
She finished reading. Her research, their research, posted on the paper.

“I’m sure you are.”

“I don’t regret publishing it.”

“I understand that. Obviously. I’m not dumb, contrary to what you believe.”

“I never thought you were stupid. Oblivious yet sly, perhaps. I’ve met your type before. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you about yourself. You were the one betraying first. You were the one that was going to leave me behind. I’m not a passive person, my dear.”

The newspaper article contained no acknowledgement of her--no mention of her anywhere, in their work or in his life. It was as if he had taken an eraser and wiped her from the script. From the narrative, from the legacy, from history.

Numb.

She felt numb.

She couldn’t think about the happy times before this, and she couldn’t think about the horrible times ahead.
There was nothing left to feel, nothing left to do.

She wanted to fight, struggle, and scream.

She was much too civilized to resort to violence, but she recognized the primal instinct. She stamped it down forcefully, her mind roiling. Her will struggled to reason with herself. One part tried to defend him. She can, but she wished she could not.

“Have you now?”

“Desperate, ready to do anything to prove themselves.”

“Why are we even still talking?”

“I would say because we should both be celebrating, but that would be a little rude to you. I am gloating though. How do you feel to have your own game thrown back at you in the face? Taste your own medicine.”
“Where did you get that impression? I never had anything planned.”

She hadn’t, had she? She wasn’t that type of person. So what if she dreamed about taking it all for her own? He didn’t deserve it, he never had. She had wanted it. She had stamped down the desire. Right?
“It doesn’t matter if you did or not.”

“You’re paranoid. Paranoid, confused, and crazy.”

She felt hypocritical. It didn’t matter.

“Call me what you want. I won. Don’t think I didn’t hear you talking behind my back. I know things, I have connections. You were going to steal my work, so I claimed what was mine.”

“I was talking to friends. It’s not like I went to the newspaper with all the work.”
So what if she was? It was too late now.

“Sure. As I said, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re done.”

“I can’t believe you.”

She shut off her phone and hurled it across the room. If she had not done that, she might have used it to say things she would regret.

For once in her life, she found herself at a loss. The underlying state was not an unusual feeling, often accompanied by the desire to find out exactly why she was lost and where to go now. This time, however, she did not want to find out.

She couldn’t believe him. His self righteous words, the misguided confidence that he was, in fact, the one in the right. As if he had managed to one up her.

Her cheeks burned with humiliation and rage. All of her life’s research had come to nothing. There was no way she could receive any credit now. She would be seen as piggybacking, she would be seen as insignificant, just as she always had been in life. There was no way she could get anyone to believe her.

Rage. Tears accompanied this sensation as her emotions were lost in the swirling whirl of emotion and knowledge. It tore her apart.

The woman stood from her table, walking over and gazing mournfully upon the mangled plastic. Not even the promised durability of her phone case had protected the device from her uncontrollable lashing out. Guilt washed over her, cold and refreshing against the feeling of helplessness that previously overwhelmed her.
She bent down to pick it up, turning it over gingerly. The screen was intact. Her eyes went wide, a moment of cool air in the blazing inferno. The cheerful home screen lit up on cue, and she went to her text messages.
After the few minutes she had spent thinking, one would suppose there would be a multitude of texts waiting for her when she logged back in. There were none. Evidently, he had finished his gloating.

There was a new text, though. It was from her mother.

Her beloved mother, a woman who had scraped, clawed, and fought her way through life. A woman who had taught her daughter to do the same. Together, they had raised funds for her college degree. Every Monday, her mother would text. Ask for an update, a reminder to actually drink something other than coffee, or an order to sleep after a weekend of frustration or discovery.

She didn’t know how to feel about her mother seeing the news.

The purple text was unassuming, gentle.

“I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t help but wish the text had been in green.

“It’s okay.”

“I know it’s not. Sweetie, you can talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“He really put you through the wringer, didn’t he?”

“He thought I was going to betray him and publish everything without him. So he did it first.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

“No. It’s too late.”

“How did he even get the idea that you were going to pull a stunt like that?”

“His blasted paranoia.”

“He always seemed too confident. I can’t believe he had such issues!”

“Me either.”

“I’m going to type to some editors. See what other people can do. It’s not like this work was a secret, everyone in the science community knew you two were partners!”

“Good luck, Mom.”

She left the message, feeling warmed yet saddened. The weight of everything began to sink in. There was nothing left. Of course her mother would try to do what was best for her daughter, but she had a feeling it was futile. She couldn’t do anything but live with it now.

She glanced through her other messages. Despite her hopelessness, other people seemed to be thinking along the same lines of her mother.

There were tons of messages, hundreds of different colors, each chosen carefully to match the sender. They pitied her. They were angry for her. They were worried about her. She felt the support nearly tangibly pulsing from the phone. She shut off the device, pushing it away across the table. She couldn’t deal with their well-meaning wishes at the moment.

She wondered if there was an appropriate way to react to this betrayal. There was no clear-cut means to get revenge, no hope for justice and no path to forgiveness.

The day had only just begun when she had retrieved the paper from her front porch. When she saw her shattered life’s work thrown in her face. It would be his name in the history books, not hers. She doubted she would even be included in his biography. All she wanted to do was to discover a cure for cancer, and she thought that was primarily what he wanted as well.

But he wanted more, and got it. He thought she had been gearing up for war, so he had fired the first shot. An ambush. She could see why he would do it, but hated him for it anyways.

She plucked the ring off her finger, presented to her only two days before in celebration of their final breakthrough. She wondered now if it had been a consolation gift, a veiled apology  in advance. At the time it represented a promise. She had seen the future so clearly with him. She wondered if he had been stringing her along the entire time. She wondered if he had thought the same of her.

There were so many misunderstandings. They were set in stone now.

She stared at the glittering green gemstone. And she hated it.

“Turn on the news.”

The nightly news. He was, of course, the feature story on every channel. Her thumb maneuvered the buttons until landing on a live broadcast. He was there, in all his glory, smiling and waving to the sea of reporters and thankful people.

She could hear the joyful and chaotic screaming, could feel the mass of gratitude and curiosity. It had all been snatched away.

The questions and shouts were overwhelming. The microphone could barely handle all the audio input.

“Thank you! Thank you thank you thank--”

“I love you! You saved my--”

“You’re a genius! You saved all of us--”

“Please! Let me give you this--”

“Pardon me, I just wanted to know if--”

“Excuse me! I have a question--”

“Sir! Sir! What do you have in store for--”

“What exactly led you to--”

“Do you understand that the Nobel--”

One question stood out amongst all the others. The reporter had somehow slid through the crowds and security barriers guarding him from the well-meaning mob, and now shoved the microphone in the man’s face.
The TV crew picked up the scene with experienced hands.

“Sir, is it true that you developed this research in partnership with the scientist Miss--” the crowd’s din reached a decibel that drowned out the name, before dying back down. “--who you were romantically involved with at the time?”

He paused, green eyes glittering with this element of knowing. He focused on the camera, staring right into her own eyes. It was as if he was directly talking to her.

“No. That is just a rumor. I know her only as an acquaintance. Every word is my own, and I certainly don’t have any amorous connections to anyone at the moment.”

The reporter was shoved to the side by gruff security men, and was lost in the sea of people begging to just catch a glimpse of the savior who had cured cancer.

“It’s live.”

“Thanks, Mom. With your help, it only took a month.”

“It helps to have connections.”

“I know.”

“We got him.”

She looked at the headline. The final draft was done.

She had gone to the interviewers. She had promised a juicy story. Sure, it wasn’t the cure to cancer, but it was something better.

The light blue screen illuminated her face in the darkness of the room. The black headlines reflected in her glasses. The newspaper would show up on her porch the next morning, her face plastered on the front page.
It was a scandal alert. It would be seen from everyone. It would be seen by the man who had ruined her life.
She would ruin his.

“Rosa Franklin, the Scientist that Really Discovered the Cure!”

“Rosa Franklin, Woman Repressed!”

“The Curer, the Liar!”

“Exclusive Interview: Rosa Franklin and Her Injustice!”

It was set in stone now. History is carved by the ones who make it.