By the time the sun set, three people had decided I was the problem, and by midnight, they were coordinating and having numerous meetings. I had gotten some of our guards to keep tabs on them, so that I could find their activities and mitigate against them.
That was the cost of being useful; you became indispensable right up until the moment someone realized removing you would be easier than admitting you mattered.
I knew the shift had happened because the calls stopped.
Not the frantic ones, not the back-channel pings from aides and analysts who needed something fixed now. Those never stopped, but the polite calls, the ones padded with reassurance and performative concern, all went quiet.
No more checking in. No more how you are holding up.
Silence, I'd learned, was never neutral.
