James couldn't remember the last time he'd left the house.
It had been eight days. Maybe nine. Sarah had left for her bookstore job that morning, leaving a note on the kitchen counter: "Please do something today. Anything. Just do something."
He'd read the note three times and done nothing.
The laptop was still open on the kitchen table. A job listing from Cornell—the teaching assistant position Sarah had mentioned. The salary was reasonable. The work was in his field. It was perfect. He hadn't applied.
Instead, James had made coffee and sat at the table and thought about Ken Blake.
The thought had started small. A memory from graduate school—Blake laughing at something someone said at a departmental dinner. Blake standing in front of the lab, explaining his research methodology to a group of undergraduates, confident and articulate and genuinely brilliant.
Blake had been a good man before James destroyed him.
That was the thought James couldn't escape: Before James destroyed him.
Not "before Blake's research was found to be fraudulent." Not "before the system held Blake accountable." But "before James destroyed him."
Because that's what had happened. James had looked at Blake's data and seen the problems. James had reported it. James had published his findings. And then James had gone to depositions and testified and watched Blake's entire life collapse in real time.
The lawsuit had been civil, but brutal. Blake's colleagues had testified against him. The university had launched an investigation. Blake had tried to fight it, but the data was indefensible. Eventually, Blake had been forced to resign.
Then Blake had started the campaign. The emails to Emily. The showing up at her workplace. The voicemails that escalated from pleading to threatening. Blake had been breaking down, clearly in crisis, and James had watched it happen and done nothing to help.
Instead, James had pressed charges.
Sarah had found him on the back porch at 3 PM.
"You're still here," she said.
"Where else would I be?" James replied.
"Working. Applying for jobs. Literally anywhere but sitting on this porch thinking about things."
James didn't answer. He was looking at the woods, at the way the trees created walls of green that seemed to close in on the property. The house felt smaller every day. The walls felt closer.
"There's coffee in the kitchen," Sarah said, sitting down on the porch railing. "Cold now, but there's coffee. You made it this morning and never drank it."
"I'm not thirsty," James said.
"You're not doing anything," Sarah corrected. "You're not eating much. You're not sleeping—I can hear you moving around at 3 AM. You're not applying for jobs. You're not talking to people. James, you're disappearing."
"Maybe that's for the best," James said.
Sarah was quiet for a moment. Then: "What does that mean?"
"It means I don't deserve to be here," James said. He was finally saying it out loud. The thought that had been circling for days, waiting for permission. "It means I spent ten years destroying someone's life and now I'm hiding in upstate New York pretending I'm recovering. It means I'm a coward."
"You're not a coward," Sarah said.
"I exposed Blake's research," James said. "I reported fraud. Which was the right thing to do. Except Blake wasn't just some abstract researcher. He was a person. And I watched him fall apart and I did nothing. I pressed charges when he started calling Emily. I helped put him in prison. And now I'm supposed to feel good about that because I was 'just doing my job'?"
"What was your alternative?" Sarah asked. "Let him keep harassing Emily? Let fraudulent research stay published?"
"I don't know," James said. "But I know there was a person involved. I know Blake was suffering. And I know I chose not to care about that."
Sarah stepped down from the railing. She stood in front of James. "Listen to me. You did the right thing. Blake did something wrong. You reported it. That's not destruction. That's responsibility."
"Then why does it feel like destruction?"
"Because you're a person with a conscience," Sarah said. "But guilt isn't the same as culpability. You're not responsible for Blake's choices after you reported him. You're not responsible for his harassment campaign. You're not responsible for his prison sentence. Those are his consequences for his actions."
"I am responsible for exposing him so publicly," James said. "I published my findings. I put his name in academic journals. I made sure everyone knew what he'd done. I could have gone to him privately first. I could have given him a chance to explain or fix it. Instead, I went straight to public humiliation."
Sarah sat down on the porch steps. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because you want me to apply for jobs," James said. "You want me to move on. You want me to pretend that my life is worth continuing. But I'm not sure it is. I'm not sure I deserve to move on."
"Stop," Sarah said, and her voice was hard now. Different from before. "Stop doing that. Stop performing guilt. Stop pretending that self-punishment is moral responsibility. Because it's not. It's just self-indulgence."
James looked at her. "What?"
"You heard me," Sarah said. "You're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself, telling me how terrible you are, how you destroyed someone's life. You know what that is? That's you making this about you. That's you centering yourself in Blake's story instead of letting him own his own consequences."
"That's not—"
"It is," Sarah interrupted. "Blake falsified research. That's on Blake. Blake harassed Emily. That's on Blake. Blake went to prison. That's on Blake. But you? You reported fraud. You did your job. You followed the rules. And now you're sitting here like you're the villain in someone else's story."
James didn't respond. He was trying to process what Sarah was saying, trying to figure out if she was right.
"Here's what I think," Sarah continued. "I think you want to feel guilty because guilt means you still matter. Guilt means your actions had consequences. But you know what? Your guilt doesn't help Blake. Your guilt doesn't undo anything. Your guilt just makes you useless, which means you're not helping anyone—not Blake, not me, not yourself."
"So what am I supposed to do?" James asked. "Pretend it doesn't matter? Move on like I didn't destroy someone?"
"No," Sarah said. "You're supposed to acknowledge what you did, accept that you did the right thing even though it had painful consequences, and then you're supposed to live. You're supposed to apply for that job. You're supposed to eat. You're supposed to sleep. You're supposed to exist in the world and do good things and build something. Because right now you're not doing any of that. You're just existing in this tiny space of guilt where nothing matters."
Sarah stood up. "I have to get back to work. There's a frozen dinner in the freezer. Eat it. And James—apply for the job. Or don't. But don't sit here pretending you're the tragic figure in some story. Because you're not. You're just a person who did his job and now you need to do the next job, which is living."
She left him alone on the porch.
That night, James didn't sleep.
He sat in the dark of his bedroom and thought about what Sarah had said. She was right that guilt was self-indulgent. She was right that he was centering himself in Blake's story. But she was also wrong about something.
James hadn't just reported fraud. He'd done it publicly. He'd done it in a way that had ensured maximum damage to Blake's reputation. Had he considered Blake's wellbeing? No. Had he considered that Blake might be struggling? No. He'd just thought about the rightness of the exposure and the satisfaction of being correct.
And that was the thing James couldn't forgive himself for: not the act of reporting, but the satisfaction he'd felt doing it. The knowledge that he was right and Blake was wrong and that this would end Blake's career. He'd felt righteous about it. He'd felt like he was punishing Blake.
That was different from just doing his job. That was personal.
James got out of bed and went to the kitchen. He opened his laptop. The Cornell job listing was still there. He read through it carefully. Teaching Introduction to Research Methodology. Advising undergraduate researchers. Helping students understand how to evaluate data critically.
He could do this job. He could be good at it. He could teach students how to be honest researchers. He could teach them about ethical responsibility and due process and the importance of private conversations before public accusations.
He could do damage control by helping the next generation avoid his mistakes.
James clicked the apply button before he could change his mind. He uploaded his résumé. He wrote a cover letter that was honest—about his background, about his experience, about why he wanted to teach. He didn't mention Blake. He didn't mention the scandal. He just wrote about why research methodology mattered and why ethical thinking mattered.
It took an hour. When he finished, he felt something shift inside him. Not redemption. Not absolution. But maybe possibility. Maybe the idea that he could exist in the world and do something useful.
He sent the application at 2 AM.
Then he went back to bed and, for the first time in over a week, he slept.