It was the first Monday of the month, the kind of crisp Chicago morning that smells like ambition and overpriced cold brew. I’d ironed my best slacks, triple-checked my route on the L train, and arrived twenty minutes early to the sleek glass lobby of Kravton & Rye. This wasn’t just a new job; it was a new life. A junior strategist position I had clawed my way toward after four months of grueling interviews, unpaid freelance “test projects,” and a final pitch presentation that nearly gave me hives. This job meant everything: health insurance, a stable income, a future.
The receptionist greeted me with the practiced perkiness reserved for new hires. “Hi, you must be Simone.”
That was me. Simone. For the first time in years, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. They handed me a welcome packet, a branded mug, and a clipboard of HR forms. My new manager, Paige, waved me over with a warm smile that instantly put me at ease. “Glad to finally have you here, Simone. You came highly recommended.”
That’s when I heard it. The screech of the front doors banging open, followed by the rapid-fire clack-clack-clack of someone stomping across the polished marble with the furious purpose of a charging rhino. The receptionist’s face blanched. I turned just as a blur of burgundy faux fur and bleach-blonde extensions burst through the entrance.
My cousin, Belle.
To the untrained eye, Belle looked like any other influencer-adjacent twenty-something: Instagram eyebrows, loud designer knockoffs, and that permanently squinted look of someone always mid-selfie. But I knew the truth. Beneath that Sephora war paint beat the heart of a chaos goblin who thrived on attention and petty revenge. And apparently, she’d chosen today, the most important day of my professional life, for her big Broadway debut.
She stomped into the center of the lobby, threw her Louis Vuitton-inspired tote on the floor, and shrieked, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. “SHE’S A LIAR WHO STOLE MY IDENTITY!”
Heads turned. Conversations stopped. The security guard in the corner straightened in his chair. I felt the blood drain from my face, a cold, sickening rush. Paige froze beside me, one eyebrow arched, silently asking the question I dreaded: Do you know her?
Unfortunately, I did.
“THAT’S MY COUSIN, SIMONE!” Belle screamed, pointing at me with a fake-nailed finger, as if trying to have me smited by God. “She applied for this job using MY name! She used MY credentials! She is a FRAUD!”
She yanked a stack of papers from her bag and tossed them like confetti across the lobby. “I have the emails!” she howled. “I have PROOF! She’s been impersonating me for months!”
Every eye was on me now. The interns, the account managers, the delivery guy who had just walked in. I could feel myself shrinking, folding inward under the weight of their stares.
“She’s a jealous nobody who couldn’t make it on her own!” Belle snarled, her voice cracking with performative anguish. “She’s always been obsessed with me! Since high school! Since forever!”
The papers, a collection of fake email printouts she’d probably written to herself, drifted across the floor. The security guard touched his earpiece, his gaze fixed on me. “Ma’am,” he said, his voice a low, regretful rumble. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”
His hand hovered just behind my elbow, not touching, but close enough to say, We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I couldn’t speak. My throat had tightened into a vacuum-sealed pouch of disbelief and secondhand shame. I looked at Paige, my brand-new manager. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Belle marched up to me, jabbing a finger toward my face. “I didn’t even know she applied here! I found out because she logged into my LinkedIn and changed the name to hers!” She whipped out her phone and started playing a voice memo, a garbled, fake recording where she’d clearly imitated my voice badly, narrating a confession like she was in a high school play. It was unhinged, a deranged piece of fanfiction about my supposed betrayal. But in the shock of the moment, no one questioned it.
Paige took a slow step back from me. “Simone,” she said carefully, “I think we should… pause your onboarding until we can verify everything.”
Pause. That was the word. Not fire, not accuse. Just pause. But as the security guard gently but firmly guided me past a sea of horrified faces, it felt exactly like being fired. Belle chased after us, still screaming, “You can’t just lie your way into my life! I’m the one who deserves this! I’m the one who studied marketing before you even knew what a brand was!” A lie. She had dropped out of a community college entrepreneurship program after her Etsy shop got one bad review.
But the worst part? She was crying. Loud, snotty, mascara-streaked tears. A full Lifetime movie performance. And the crowd was eating it up. She looked like a woman scorned, betrayed by her own blood. Security walked me out. Not her. Me.
Outside on the street, the morning sun should have felt warm. Instead, it felt like a spotlight, illuminating my humiliation for the entire city of Chicago to see. Belle burst through the revolving doors, not done with her performance.
“And don’t act like I didn’t see your text to Uncle Dennis about me!” she shrieked. “Say it to my face, Simone!”
People from surrounding buildings had come out to watch. A woman in yoga pants was filming on her phone. “No way,” she whispered to her friend, like she was watching a deleted scene from Succession.
Belle, now fully red-faced and panting, waved another sheet of paper. It was a screenshot of a text I’d sent her two years ago during a family argument: You never earned anything. You just take credit for other people’s work.
“See!” she yelled at the growing crowd. “Admission of guilt!” Then, a TikToker with a gimbal and a lapel mic stepped in. “Excuse me,” he asked breathlessly. “Is this about identity theft or family drama? Like, what’s the core angle here?”
And in that moment, as Belle posed for the camera, I saw it. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk. She was loving this. This wasn’t about justice. This was her main character moment.
But then something happened that she hadn’t scripted. A woman in a dark green power suit stepped out of the building, holding a sleek leather portfolio. She scanned the scene like a cop arriving at a noise complaint, half-annoyed, half-entertained. This was Elaine, the head of operations, and apparently, she’d been watching the whole meltdown from her upstairs window.
“Excuse me,” Elaine said, her voice cutting through the chaos. “You said your name was Belle?”
Belle immediately straightened, turning on the charm. “Yes, that’s right. I’m the real Belle. The one she’s pretending to be.”
Elaine opened her portfolio. “That’s interesting,” she said, her voice dripping with ice. “Because we have a copy of the resume submitted under the name Simone Moore, along with interview footage, Zoom logs, and a LinkedIn profile that’s been active for over five years under her name.”
Belle’s smile twitched. “That’s because she made all that! She hacked my accounts!”
“Interesting,” Elaine said again, flipping a page. “Because your name, Belle Moore, doesn’t appear in any of our professional databases. No degrees, no job history, not even a digital resume. In fact, the only trace of you in our system is an email you sent yesterday from a Gmail account called ‘BelleWinsAgain,’ asking for a referral fee if we fired Simone.”
The crowd went dead silent. Even the TikToker slowly lowered his gimbal, his eyes wide.
Elaine continued, her voice cold and precise. “And you might want to know that impersonating someone for the purposes of professional sabotage is a crime. Especially when you print fake emails, forge recordings, and make public accusations that could be legally defined as slander.”
Belle blinked, her brain struggling to process. “You’re… you’re trying to protect her because you already hired her!”
Elaine raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “No. I’m protecting my company from a lawsuit, which you have just made extremely likely.” She then turned to me, her expression softening almost imperceptibly. “Simone, would you like to come back upstairs now?”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and then just nodded, a wave of dizzying relief washing over me. As I turned to go, Belle lunged forward, but the security guard stepped in with a perfectly timed, “Ma’am, don’t.”
As the guards escorted a screaming Belle to the curb, she launched her final, pathetic Hail Mary. “This isn’t over, Simone! You think you’ve won, but you haven’t!”
To which Elaine, without missing a beat, replied over her shoulder, “Oh, she already did. You just didn’t get the email.”
I rode the elevator back up to the 17th floor in stunned silence. When the doors opened, the office had that weird hush you only hear after a fire drill, with everyone pretending to work while definitely side-eying me. Someone whispered, “She’s back,” like I’d just been resurrected.
Elaine clapped her hands, her voice sharp and cheerful. “Let’s all remember to reserve judgment until facts are verified! Welcome, officially, Simone.”
And just like that, I was back. But down on the street, Belle was still very much online. The TikToker had posted the video. It hit two million views by dinner. Reddit got involved within hours. The internet became my unwelcome but effective courtroom. Online sleuths pulled up Belle’s history faster than FBI interns on a caffeine bender. They found her Etsy store, which had exactly two products: a resin ashtray shaped like a cursed heart and a bedazzled keychain. Her “business” Instagram had 114 followers.
Elaine became a meme. A freeze-frame of her saying, “She brought documentation,” was turned into t-shirts and reaction GIFs. The next morning, I got an email from HR: Please disregard yesterday’s interruption. We are thrilled to have you join our team. Also, security has issued a permanent no-trespass order against Belle Moore. Attached was a copy of the ban form. Under the behavior section, it simply said: “Volatile presence.” I printed it, framed it, and hung it above my desk at home like a diploma.
Two weeks later, an envelope arrived. Inside was a handwritten note from Belle on Hello Kitty stationery, written in glitter pen: You think you’re better than me just because you have a desk and a salary? LOL. That place will chew you up. I’m already building something way bigger. Watch your back. Taped to the back was a coupon for 15% off her resin ashtrays.
I laughed so hard I cried. I walked to the shredder, fed the whole mess through in one slow, satisfying motion, and said out loud to no one in particular, “Guess I finally earned something she can’t steal.”
It’s been two years since my “volatile” first day, and life has been better than I could have imagined. I’m no longer a junior strategist; I was promoted to a senior role last year, and I now lead my own team. Paige, my manager, has been an incredible mentor, and Elaine, the HR hero, still checks in on me. The office nickname for me, for a while, was “The Survivor,” but now, it’s just Simone. I’ve earned my place here through hard work, not drama.
As for Belle, her life took a different trajectory. Her fifteen minutes of viral infamy as the “Cousin from Hell” made her a local laughingstock. Her influencer dreams imploded. No brand wanted to be associated with her. Her Etsy shop failed. Last I heard from our aunt, Belle had to get a real job, working as a cashier at a discount department store. The ultimate irony for someone so obsessed with designer labels.
Our family, who had been fed a steady diet of Belle’s lies about me for years, was forced to confront the truth when the videos went viral. There were some awkward phone calls and half-hearted apologies, but the dynamic has permanently shifted. They can no longer ignore her toxic behavior, and they can no longer dismiss my hard work.
I ran into Belle last month at a grocery store. She was restocking shelves in the cereal aisle. She saw me, and for a moment, her face flushed with that old, familiar rage. But then, it just… crumbled. She looked away, her shoulders slumped, and just kept working. There was no fire, no drama, just the quiet, dull reality of a life she had built for herself. She didn’t get the fame she craved, but she did become famous, in a way.
I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed my groceries and left. I didn’t feel a sense of triumph or revenge. I just felt… quiet. That’s the real victory, I think. Not the takedown, not the public vindication, but the peace that comes after the storm. Belle spent her whole life trying to build a brand on a foundation of lies and shortcuts. She thought success was an image you could fake, a life you could steal. But I learned that real success, the kind that lasts, is built quietly, brick by brick, with integrity and hard work. You can’t fake documentation. You can’t fake competence. And you can’t steal a reputation that has been earned. You just have to build your own.