Don't Tell Anyone

“Don’t tell anyone,” the new guy whispered, looking over his shoulder like he expected a SWAT team to bust down the door any second. The words reeked of desperation and fear, mixing with the foul stench of the egg salad he had for lunch. This was James, the new moron—the one I had stupidly decided to take under my wing. My gut clenched. Something wasn’t right.

His face was pale, his breath jittery like a man who hadn’t slept in days. I stared back at him from my chair, already regretting this whole interaction. I didn’t like being cornered.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snapped.

“I—I lied on my resume,” he stammered, his voice dropping lower, like confessing the sin would make it disappear. I watched his hands tremble, saw the sweat forming at his hairline. Jesus, what a mess.

For a moment, I said nothing. Outside, the mindless hum of the office kept going—keyboards clacking, phones ringing, people yammering on about deadlines and quotas. Meanwhile, my world tilted sideways. My coffee cup felt like a dumbbell in my hand, my grip tightening.

“You did what?” The words shot out like bullets, each one loaded with disbelief.

James gulped. “I... I didn’t have all the qualifications,” he muttered, eyes darting like a rat in a trap. “But I needed the job. I thought I could learn fast, you know? I’m smart, Mike. I just... please, you can’t tell anyone.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. He was serious. This wasn’t some half-assed joke. The kid had lied, straight-up conned his way into a position people bust their asses to earn. And now, he was here in front of me, trying to pull me into his dirty little scam, thinking I’d keep my mouth shut because... why? Bro code?

I stood up so fast I nearly knocked over my chair. The break room felt like a cage. My head spun as I paced the floor, the linoleum squeaking under my boots. James, the dumb bastard, just sat there looking at me like a whipped dog.

“You lied,” I said, my voice low, barely containing the surge of bile rising in my throat. “You lied to get this job. You have no idea what you’re doing, and now you want me to help you cover it up?”

“Not cover it up,” he blurted, hands up like he could somehow stop the tidal wave of rage barreling toward him. “Just—just don’t say anything. I can learn! It’s just... a small thing, right? No one’s hurt.”

I stopped pacing and glared at him. The idiot still didn’t get it. “No one’s hurt? You don’t think this affects anyone? You lied your way into a job that other people—qualified people—could’ve had. People who didn’t need to pull this crap.”

James was sweating now, his face turning red. “I know, I know! But please, Mike. Don’t ruin this for me. I swear I’ll get better. I’ll fix it. I just need time.”

I imagined pulling a glove from my back pocket and whacking him with it once…, just to see if I could slap some sense into that empty head of his. Time. Time! Like time could somehow erase the fact that he was a fraud. I had busted my ass to get where I was—late nights, missed weekends, grinding my bones into dust for this company. And this asshole thought he could waltz in, lie his way through, and it would all work out because he “was a fast learner and he meant well”?

“James,” I said, and my voice felt like it was coming from someone else, colder than I’d ever heard it. “I’m not covering for you. This isn’t just a lie. It’s a betrayal—to me, to everyone here. This ain’t cool.”

His face crumbled. I could see the panic setting in, crawling over him like a sickness. His lips trembled. “Please,” he whispered. “I’ll lose everything. I’ll be out on the street. I just bought a new mountain bike!”

“You should’ve thought of that before you decided to bullshit your way into this job.” The words were venom. I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to carry the weight of his lie on my shoulders. “You think I’m gonna lose my credibility for you? No way. You’re on your own.”

There was a long silence. James sagged into his chair, a broken wreck of a man. His eyes stared at the floor, lifeless, his hands limp in his lap like he had already been fired. He didn’t even have the guts to fight back. Pathetic.

“What do I do?” he croaked, barely audible. “What do I do?”

“You tell them the truth,” I said. “Or I will.”

His face contorted into something ugly—panic, regret, shame, all twisting together in a pitiful mess. He covered his face with his hands, mumbling something I couldn’t hear, something about losing everything. He probably thought I’d feel bad for him, that I’d let him off the hook. Idiot.

“You’ve got till the end of the day,” I said, already heading for the door. “After that, it’s your head on the block.”

I left him there, in that cramped, soulless break room, to stew in his own mess. The noise of the office washed over me as I walked back to my desk, but it felt distant, muted. All I could think about was what I’d just done. The righteous fury was still burning in my gut, but underneath it was something darker. Something cold. I had just disabled him. But it wasn’t me who did it. It was him.

Hours passed. Each second felt like a sledgehammer to the back of my skull. What if he didn’t confess? I was prepared to even up the truth and set it straight. I could work with him if management requested it, but this was done nefariously low manner.

By late afternoon, the tension was unbearable. Then I saw him—James, walking out of the manager’s office, his face pale, blank. He looked at me as he passed. I didn’t show any empathy, just curiosity. I had given him the chance to come clean, but I knew.

He had told them.

The weight in my chest didn’t lift. Not really. I had done what I needed to. James was gone the next morning, his desk cleared out, his name erased from the system. The office buzzed with gossip, but no one knew the truth. No one except me.

And I didn’t tell anyone.