I decided it was time to give her a masterclass in consequences, mostly because her sheer entitlement had finally crossed the line from annoying to pathological. For the entire past month, she had hitched a ride in my car every single morning. At the end of the month, she sent me a Venmo for exactly fifteen dollars. Her justification was delivered with a perfectly straight face: her morning sickness was so severe, she simply couldn’t stomach the smell of the subway crowds, and she was hoping to keep carpooling next month. In her mind, my commute passed right by her apartment complex, and taking the detour cost me "barely two minutes." She had even whipped out her calculator to do the exact math on my gas mileage. According to her, the one-mile detour, factoring in my car’s MPG and the current price of premium unleaded, cost me about fifty cents a day. So, she figured, giving me a dollar a day meant she was overpaying. The extra fifty cents was supposed to be my tip to buy myself a coffee. A win-win, she called it. I had stared at that $15 Venmo notification, my thumb hovering over the screen, unable to process the sheer audacity. She wasn't done. She added that since I was driving to the office anyway, having an extra body in the passenger seat didn't burn any more gas. Then came the kicker: she offered to bump it up to two dollars a day, but only if I could swing by the drive-thru and grab her an iced oat milk latte while I waited by her curb. The latte was four dollars, but she said since I had to sit at the red light anyway, picking it up was no extra skin off my nose. I had thrown my phone onto my nightstand, the glass clattering against the wood. Right then and there, I decided to take the highway. The next morning, I left half an hour early and took the route from the opposite direction. Yet, the second I stepped off the elevator and walked to my cubicle, she was there, waiting to block my path. She demanded to know if I was aware she had been standing out in the biting wind by my apartment gate for twenty minutes. Then, with the casual flick of her wrist, she announced that her Uber XL had cost her twenty-eight dollars, and since I hadn't given her 24 hours' notice of my route change, I needed to reimburse her. She actually shoved the Uber receipt right into my face. ... 1 My name is Nina. I’ve been in the Project Management department for three years. My car payment is $680 a month, my performance bonus is currently being held hostage by my manager, and the Team Lead promotion I’ve been killing myself for is still hanging in the balance. At 9:07 AM, Chelsea’s phone screen, displaying her $28 Uber receipt, was practically grazing my nose. "Twenty-eight," she said, tapping her manicured nail against the glass. "Venmo or Zelle, Nina?" I unclipped my ID lanyard from my neck, dropped it onto my desk, and calmly pushed her hand away. "You take an Uber, and you expect me to expense it?" She brought the phone right back up. Her eyes went glassy, instantly brimming with manufactured tears. Her free hand moved to rest delicately over her flat stomach. When she spoke, her voice had dropped an octave, thin and trembling. "I stood by your gate for twenty minutes. The wind was freezing. And you know I'm pregnant." She sniffled, casting a wide, pathetic glance around the open-plan office. "If you had just sent a text last night, I wouldn't have stood out there freezing for nothing." The clacking of keyboards around us slowed to a halt. Beth swiveled her chair around, still chewing on the plastic straw of her iced coffee. "What's going on?" Chelsea held her phone a little higher, a martyr on display. "It's nothing, really. Nina just didn't pick me up today, so I had to call a last-minute Uber." She laced the word nothing with a heavy dose of victimhood. "I'm not forcing her to pay me back or anything, but twenty-eight dollars is a lot just because someone forgot to text." Beth gave me a look. "Nina, you didn't give her a ride today?" I pushed my mouse aside. The metallic chill of my car keys pressed into my palm, grounding me. "Why exactly am I obligated to give her a ride?" Chelsea’s bottom lip jutted out. "Because you've been driving me for a month, Nina." "That was just me trying to be polite before you wore out your welcome." The office went dead silent. The printer in the corner jammed, spitting out a harsh, rhythmic clack-clack-clack. Chelsea’s fragile facade cracked, revealing a flash of indignation. "Nina, that's incredibly harsh. I'm pregnant. I physically cannot handle the smell of stale sweat and cheap breakfast sandwiches on the subway. Riding with you is literally just one extra turn." "One extra turn?" I pulled out my phone, opening the Venmo app, and held the screen up for her. "Fifteen dollars. You think fifteen dollars buys you a private chauffeur for a month?" She took a step closer, defensive now. "I did the math on the gas! Your car gets what, twenty-five miles to the gallon? My place is a mile out of the way. That's maybe fifty cents of gas a day. I gave you a dollar. I overpaid you." "And the coffee you demanded I buy?" "The coffee is four dollars! If I give you five, the extra dollar is your tip for waiting. You're just sitting in the car anyway!" I locked my phone and looked up, meeting her eyes dead on. "Chelsea. I am not your driver." The tears spilled over instantly. Perfect, symmetrical drops. "I knew it. I knew you hated pregnant women." Heads popped up over the cubicle dividers like meerkats. Beth rushed to play peacekeeper. "Come on, guys. We all work together. It wouldn't kill you to just swing by and pick her up, Nina." I hooked my finger through my keyring and tossed the keys onto Beth’s desk. They landed with a heavy clatter. "Great. You pick her up tomorrow. She lives ten miles in the opposite direction from you. I'll even Venmo you the fifteen bucks to cover the gas." The straw slipped from Beth's lips. "I... I live way out in the North Suburbs." "Then mind your own business." 2 Chelsea clutched her stomach, her voice rising in pitch. "Nina, if you have a problem with me, take it out on me! Don't drag other people into this. It's not like I'm not paying you. How am I supposed to work in this kind of toxic environment?" I stood up. My chair scraped against the industrial carpet, a loud, grating sound. "Aren't you already working?" She stared at me. Her chest heaved once, twice. Then, suddenly, she bent over, gripping the edge of Beth's desk as if her legs had given out. "Ugh—" She yanked Beth's wastebasket toward her and began to dry-heave loudly. A small crowd materialized instantly. Beth rubbed her back, while the guy from IT frantically shoved a box of Kleenex into her hand. Beth shot me a vicious glare. "Could you just back off? Look at what you're doing to her." I reached over, picked my keys back up, and dropped them into my purse. "What am I doing to her? I didn't get her pregnant." The sharp, rapid click of leather loafers echoed down the aisle. Greg, our department manager, emerged from his glass-walled office, a manila folder tucked under his arm. "What the hell is going on out here?" Chelsea lifted her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, a crumpled tissue pressed delicately against her nose. Her voice was a whisper, fragile as spun glass. "Greg, it's... it's fine. Nina just didn't wait for me this morning, and I was out in the cold wind for a while. I think I just caught a chill. My stomach is in knots." Greg’s gaze snapped to me. "Nina. My office. Now." The second the heavy glass door clicked shut, he tossed the folder onto his desk. "What is your problem?" I stood in front of his desk, refusing to take a seat. "It's my car. I drive who I want to drive." He drummed his knuckles against the mahogany. "Chelsea is in a delicate condition. What does it cost you to show a little grace?" "Does grace include reimbursing her Uber rides?" "Don't get smart with me." He pushed his ergonomic chair back and leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Do you know who her husband is? He's a VP at Apex Logistics. The guys who signed that massive contract with us last quarter. We're currently negotiating a budget expansion with them. We brought her into this department to keep relations smooth. If she gets stressed and it gets back to him, can you shoulder that fallout?" I unzipped my tote bag. I pulled out a thick stack of printed receipts—the $150 detailing bill, parking stubs, toll logs—and dropped them onto his desk. "She used my car for a month and paid me fifteen dollars. Last week, she spilled a sticky oat milk latte all over my door panel. Detailing cost me a hundred and fifty. Yesterday, she dragged mud onto my passenger seat and left footprint smudges on the upholstery. If you're so committed to team morale, here’s the itemized invoice. Are you writing the check, Greg?" He didn't even glance at the receipts. "Nina. You are up for the Team Lead position. The number one thing I am looking for is a team player. Right now, you're failing that test." "Being a team player means being her unpaid chauffeur?" "She is pregnant." "Does being pregnant mean she gets to hijack my property?" Greg’s face darkened. "Watch your tone. You're young. Taking a little hit for the team builds character." I slid the receipts back into my bag. "Then you build some character." He slammed his hand on the desk. "Nina!" Outside the glass, shadows shifted. The blinds were open, and I could see the tops of heads bobbing near the cubicles, pretending not to watch. Greg swallowed his temper, forcing his voice into a tight, controlled hiss. "I am telling you to check your attitude. Starting tomorrow, you will resume picking her up. Furthermore, the first draft for the Apex proposal is due this afternoon. She's clearly unwell, so you will pick up her slack." I glanced at the clock on his wall. 9:21 AM. "So, I'm the driver, the ghostwriter, and the scapegoat?" "It's called stepping up." "Stepping up to be a doormat?" He leaned back, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "If that's how you want to frame it, fine. But remember, you aren't the only candidate for Team Lead. If you can't handle the heat, I can easily pass the torch to someone who can." I grabbed my bag. "Fine." He thought I was yielding. He offered a tight, patronizing smile and nodded toward the door. "Make sure this doesn't happen tomorrow." When I pulled the door open, the cluster of heads immediately scattered. Chelsea was sitting back at her desk, taking tiny sips of hot water from a paper cup, leaving a faint rim of pink lip gloss on the edge. Seeing me emerge, she made a show of rubbing her belly and offered me a pale, fragile smile. "Nina, I hope Greg didn't come down too hard on you. You know what, let's just forget about the Uber money. I'll just take the loss." I stopped in front of her desk, looking down at her. "Do you know what drivers hate the most?" She blinked, her sweet mask slipping for a fraction of a second. "What?" "Pests that dart out into the road when you least expect it." The blood drained from her face. 3 I turned on my heel and walked back to my desk. The hum of my computer booting up felt like the only sane sound in the room. At 10:30 AM, I was elbow-deep in a spreadsheet when Chelsea drifted over, a thermal lunch bag dangling from her wrist. "Nina, I'm really craving that spicy Thai place downtown for lunch." I didn't look away from my monitors. "Cafeteria is on the second floor." "I can't stomach the smell of the grease down there." "Then starve." She carefully placed the thermal bag next to my keyboard. "My husband said you drive too aggressively. I got dizzy the second I got in your car yesterday. Tomorrow morning, you need to take that air freshener out of your vents. It's too chemical. Pregnant women shouldn't breathe that stuff." My fingers stopped typing. I waited two full beats before I reached out and shoved the thermal bag right back toward her. "When did I ever agree to drive you tomorrow?" "Greg already talked to you, didn't he?" She pointed a manicured finger toward the manager's office. "Don't make this difficult for yourself, Nina." "Difficult for me?" She leaned in, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, a cruel little smile playing on her lips. "You're terrified of losing that Team Lead spot, aren't you?" She enunciated the next words with agonizing slowness. "If you're scared, learn to be obedient." I stared at her, letting the silence stretch until it became suffocating. Unfazed, she pulled a slip of paper from her folder and dropped it onto my desk. "Oh, and run an errand for me at lunch. Go to the pharmacy down the street and pick this up. It's my hormone prescription. You have a car, it'll be quick." I pinched the corner of the paper. It was a poorly photocopied prescription slip, blurry around the edges. "Quick?" "Yeah. You're going out for lunch anyway, right?" I folded the paper precisely in half, and then in half again, and tucked it into the breast pocket of her cardigan. "You're pregnant, Chelsea. You're not royalty." Her face crumpled. She clutched the slip, spun around, and stormed off. Halfway down the aisle, she froze, grabbing the partition of the nearest cubicle. "Ugh—" The trash can was practically thrown at her this time. The office erupted into motion. She bent double, her shoulders shaking violently. Beth patted her back, shooting daggers at me over Chelsea’s trembling shoulders. "Nina, do you have to antagonize her?" I shoved my AirPods into my ears and clicked back to my spreadsheet. At 12:05 PM, I grabbed my keys to head down to the parking garage. I needed to grab my sunglasses. As I stepped out of the elevator into level B2, I saw it from fifty feet away: my passenger side door was wide open. Chelsea was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of my car, her feet resting on the door jamb, leaning over the center console, rummaging through my glove compartment. I stopped dead in my tracks. She heard my heels click against the concrete, turned, and froze. But only for a second. She quickly recovered her poise, holding up my expensive Le Labo car diffuser. "This smell is way too overpowering," she announced. "I'm doing you a favor and taking it out." I closed the distance in five strides and grabbed the door, yanking it open to its widest limit with a loud clack. "Why the hell are you in my car?" "You left it unlocked." She lifted her chin, pointing toward the center console. "I was just looking for a tissue, but your car is a complete mess." My eyes dropped to the seat. Beneath her dangling feet, a sticky puddle of spilled iced coffee was pooling on my floor mat. Shoved into the door pocket was a half-empty plastic cup, condensation dripping down its sides, a straw bent awkwardly against the plastic. "Who told you that you could bring that trash into my car?" "I was going to leave it on my desk, but Beth said I should just bring it down here to save time." "Beth told you to shove a leaking cup of coffee into my door panel?" She rolled her eyes, an exaggerated, teenage sigh. "Nina, seriously, can you stop being so petty? It's just a coffee." I reached past her, grabbed the sweating cup, and chucked it into the concrete trash bin against the concrete pillar. It landed with a hollow thud. "Get out." "I'm already sitting down! Just drive me to the Women's Clinic down the street so I can pick up some bloodwork." "Get. Out." She unbuckled the seatbelt with agonizing slowness. As she swung her legs out, she deliberately dragged the muddy heel of her boot across the fabric of the passenger seat, leaving two dark, ugly streaks. "You have such a nasty temper," she sneered. "No wonder you don't have a man to take care of you." I grabbed the handle of the door. "Walk." The moment her boots hit the concrete, I slammed the door shut with enough force to make her flinch backward. "Tomorrow morning. 7:30. At the gate," she called out, a mocking lilt in her voice. At 2:00 PM, the auto detailing guy sent me photos on my phone. The floor mats, the door panel, the seat fabric—the stains were worse under the shop lights. "Deep clean, extraction, and odor removal. $150. Gave you the returning customer discount," he texted. I looked across the office. Chelsea was sitting at her desk, delicately eating pre-cut melon from a Tupperware container, taking tiny, bird-like sips of a yogurt drink. 4 I screenshotted the detailing bill, enlarged the image, and walked over to her desk. "You ruined the upholstery. Pay up." She barely glanced at the screen. "$150?" "Yes." She pulled out her phone, her thumbs tapping lazily across the screen. "Done." I looked at my lock screen. A Venmo notification. $3.00. Note: Emotional compensation. I turned my phone around, making sure the people in the adjacent cubicles could clearly see the screen. "Did everyone catch that? Three dollars." Chelsea took a slow sip of her yogurt. "Cleaning your car is your own responsibility, Nina. I just sat in the passenger seat. I gave you three dollars to be nice. You should be thanking me." "Thanking you for what, exactly?" "For even speaking to you." She set the yogurt down and dramatically pressed both hands to her lower belly. "I am carrying a child. Why are you screaming at me? If your hostility causes complications with my pregnancy, are you prepared to pay for that?" A soft voice from the neighboring pod murmured, "Let it go, Nina. Don't make a scene." I let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Keep your three dollars. But hear me now: you are never setting foot in my car again." She smiled, a sickly sweet upward curve of her lips. "You don't make those decisions, Nina. You answer to Greg." That evening, I stayed late. The office had mostly emptied out; half the overhead lights were dark, and the night crew was pushing vacuums down the hall. When I finally got down to the parking garage and walked up to my car, I noticed something draped over the passenger seat. It was a silvery-gray, heavy fabric. An EMF radiation protection blanket. Stuck to the window was a neon pink Post-it note. Nina, leave this in the car. Pregnant women can't be exposed to the electronics in your dashboard. Also, make sure the oat milk latte tomorrow is HOT, not iced. — Chelsea. I peeled the sticky note off the glass, crushed it into a tight ball, and shoved it into my pocket. The next morning, at exactly 6:57 AM, my phone buzzed on my nightstand. Chelsea. I hit decline. It buzzed again. Decline. On the third ring, I switched the phone to Do Not Disturb and tossed it aside. At 7:21 AM, I merged onto the highway, taking the long way around the city. At 9:03 AM, the exact same theater production played out by my cubicle. She held out a fresh Uber receipt—thirty-five dollars this time—her face a mask of tragic suffering. "Do you have any idea how long I stood by the gate?" "I assume exactly as long as you stood there yesterday." "Yesterday was yesterday! Today is today!" She shoved the screen closer to my face. "If you weren't going to pick me up, the least you could do is tell me." "Since when do I report my whereabouts to you?" "Since you implicitly agreed to be my ride for the last month!" "Since I implicitly allowed you to walk all over me, you mean?" Her bottom lip trembled. Right on cue, the waterworks began. "I know exactly what this is. You're jealous of me." "Jealous of what, exactly?" "Jealous that I have a husband who adores me. Jealous that I'm starting a family. Jealous that someone actually cares if I get home safe." I laughed out loud. It echoed in the quiet office. "If he adores you so much, why isn't he driving you?" The soft, pitiful mask tore, revealing the nasty truth underneath. "My husband is a very busy man." "And I'm not?" "You're single. You go home to an empty apartment. You have nothing better to do." The office went still. Even the rhythmic clicking of Beth's stapler stopped in mid-air. I slowly pushed my coffee mug to the side, clearing a space on my desk. I leaned forward, resting my hands flat against the laminate wood. "Chelsea. Say that one more time." She clearly hadn't expected to say the quiet part out loud, her eyes darting nervously for a second before she doubled down, lifting her chin. "Am I wrong? You live alone. Your car is empty. Why is it such a tragedy for you to just do a favor for a mother-to-be?" I picked up the heavy, spiral-bound project proposal from my desk and tapped it slowly against my palm. "Your husband's car has an empty passenger seat too. How about I have him drive me home every night? Is that cool with you?" Her eyes turned to ice. "You wish you were in his league." I slammed the heavy proposal down onto the desk. The smack made half the room jump. "If someone like you is in his league, why wouldn't I be?" Absolute silence descended on the floor.
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