His name was Declan. We worked together at a mid-size marketing agency, same team, same level. He was good at his job. Like, actually good. The kind of good that makes you feel like you're standing still while everyone else is moving.

I had been at the company for three years when Declan joined. I was the guy. Or I thought I was. Within about six months he was getting pulled into meetings I wasn't invited to, and our director, Karen, started cc'ing him on threads that used to be mine. Nobody said anything. It just happened the way those things happen. Slowly, then all at once.

The account was called Hargrove Retail. Regional chain, not huge, but it was the kind of client that came with a title bump if you landed them. Karen told both of us to put together independent pitches. She said she wanted to see two different creative directions. She said, and I remember this exactly, "May the best idea win."

I worked on mine for two weeks. It was solid. I knew it was solid. But I also knew Declan's was probably better because I'd heard him talking through pieces of it with Karen in the hallway and she kept saying "yes, exactly, keep going" in that voice she never used with me.

The day before submissions were due, Declan asked me to look over his deck. He trusted me. That's the thing I have to live with. He walked me through the whole thing and said "be brutal" and I told him it was great because it was, and then he sent me the file so I could reference some of the formatting he'd used.

I don't know when the idea came to me. I don't want to pretend it was some spontaneous moment of weakness. I think part of me had been looking for an opening and I just finally had one.

I had his deck. I had the client contact's email from a shared folder. Our director had said submissions should come from individual team members directly. And Declan's file had a section — one slide — where a data source was cited incorrectly. Small thing. Probably wouldn't have mattered. But I edited that slide before I forwarded his deck to the Hargrove contact a day early with a message that looked like it came from a mix-up. Something like "apologies, sent this to the wrong thread — please disregard until formal submission tomorrow."

Except I also made sure that one slide looked rushed. Sloppy. I changed the font on two elements so they didn't match the rest of the deck.

The Hargrove contact replied to Karen instead of Declan. He said something about having already seen one of the decks and having some concerns about the attention to detail.

Karen pulled Declan's submission. She didn't accuse him of anything. She just said given the miscommunication she thought it was cleaner to move forward with mine. Declan was confused and frustrated and I watched him try to figure out what had happened for about a week. He asked me if I knew anything. I said "honestly man, I have no idea, that's so annoying."

I got the account. I got a title that had the word "senior" in it. Declan left the company four months later for a job that was honestly probably better for him, and we lost touch, and I told myself that meant everything worked out.

Here's what actually happened. I landed the account and then spent the next year and a half completely paralyzed by it. Every time Karen praised something I did I felt sick. Not metaphorically. Actually nauseated. I started turning down visibility because I didn't feel like I deserved it. My wife kept asking why I seemed so checked out and I kept saying I was just tired. I was in therapy for about eight months during that period and I talked around this thing constantly without ever saying it.

I left that job eventually. I told everyone it was for a better opportunity. That was partially true.

I looked Declan up last year. He's a creative director now at a place that would have made our old agency feel very small. He posts occasionally and seems genuinely happy. I've started typing a message to him probably six or seven times. Something honest. Something that says I'm sorry without making him have to manage my guilt.

I haven't sent it.

I don't know if I'm posting this because I want someone to tell me to send it or because I want someone to tell me that enough time has passed that I don't have to. Probably I know which one of those I need to hear and which one I actually want to hear.

If you're reading this Declan, which you're obviously not, I'm sorry. Your deck was better. You already knew that. I just needed to say it somewhere.