I was sitting in the office at 1 AM last Tuesday because the heater makes this clicking sound that keeps me awake anyway. My dad is back in the hospital with his heart thing and the bills are just piling up on the kitchen table. I was going through the old archives on the server to find a detail for the new library job. I clicked on a folder from two years ago, something from the intern pile we never hired. I saw a PDF from some kid at the state university. I opened it and I swear my heart just stopped. It was the museum. The one Elias won the national award for last month. The one that got us the front page of the big architecture mag. It wasn't just similar. It was the same fucking thing. The way the concrete fins curve around the east side, the hidden garden in the middle—it was all there in this kid's school project. Elias must have seen it when he was looking for a junior and just took it. He didn't even change the dimensions of the atrium. I sat there in the dark and I felt like I was gonna throw up on my keyboard. Elias is the guy who started this firm. He’s the "visionary." People come to us because they think he’s some kind of god. If I tell the board or the press, this place is dead in a week. We’ve got twelve people working here now. Most of them are young kids with their first apartments and big loans. If the firm goes down, they’re out on the street. And me? I’m 52. Nobody is hiring an architect my age who ratted out his own boss. I’d be blacklisted before I could even clear my desk. My parents moved here with nothing so I could have this "respectable" life. My mother still tells the ladies at her church that her son is a big-shot architect. She doesn't know I spend half my time fixing Elias's sloppy mistakes so the buildings don't fall down. If I lose this job, I lose the insurance for my dad’s surgery. I lose the money I’m sending to my daughter for her senior year. I can’t tell them I’m unemployed because I wanted to be a hero for some kid I don't even know. I saw Elias at the coffee machine this morning. He was wearing that stupid expensive watch and talking about "purity of form" to one of the new girls. I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to grab him by his silk tie and ask him how he sleeps at night. But I didn't. I just smiled and said "Morning, Elias," like a fucking coward. I went to my cubicle and I worked on the library drawings. I used his "style" because that’s what the client wants. It felt like I was erasing myself with every line I drew. The kid who made the design—his name is Leo. I looked him up on LinkedIn. He’s working at a construction supply place in Jersey. He’s not even an architect. He probably thinks his work wasn't good enough because we never called him back. He’s out there selling dry wall while Elias is getting trophies for his ideas. It’s not right. It’s a total shit show. But every time I go to hit 'send' on an anonymous email to the ethics board, I think about my daughter’s tuition. I think about my dad’s oxygen tank. I’m the same as Elias now. Maybe worse. He’s a thief, but I’m the guy who’s helping him get away with it. I look at the award sitting in the lobby and all I see is a stolen car. I’m tired. My eyes hurt from the screen and my head is pounding. I keep thinking maybe I’ll find a way to get the kid a job here and make it up to him that way. But Elias would never allow it. It would be too close to home. I don't know why I'm typing this. Maybe I just need to see the words so I can stop pretending I'm a good man. I'm not. I'm just a guy who’s scared of being poor again. I’m a guy who’s gonna let a kid’s career stay in the trash so I can keep my 401k. That's the truth of it. I’m gonna go to work tomorrow and I’m gonna lie again. And the day after that. I’m just waiting for the whole thing to burn down, but I know it won't. People like Elias always win. And people like me just watch them do it.