Chapter 19 | Responsibility

Monday morning at the office felt calmer than usual.

Maybe it was me.

Or maybe it was simply the effect of coming back from a study trip.

Everything seemed more stable, more predictable.

The screens, the keyboards, the stacked files. Even the smell of coffee in the open space felt almost reassuring.

Numbers, at least, judged no one.

I had barely opened my computer when Clara passed behind me.

“So?”

I looked up.

“So what?”

“The school trip!”

“Ah…”

I lifted my shoulders slightly.

“It was… instructive.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Translation: emotional catastrophe.”

I smiled weakly.

“Yeah…”

“Ah, young people.”

She placed a coffee cup on my desk.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

“Survival gift.”

I took a sip.

The coffee was far too hot.

“Careful,” she added. “Pascal is looking for you.”

I straightened slightly.

“Pascal?”

“Yes.”

She made a small dramatic gesture with her hands.

“And when the CFO is looking for someone at nine in the morning, it’s rarely to talk about the weather.”

My stomach tightened slightly.

“Great.”

“Good luck,” she said with a smile.

Mister Delmas’s office was at the end of the corridor.

The door was ajar.

I knocked.

“Come in.”

Mister Delmas was sitting behind his desk, surrounded by files and a gigantic screen full of Excel tables. The kind of setup that gives the impression one wrong move could trigger an entire accounting close.

He looked up.

“Ah, Eliott.”

“Good morning.”

“Sit down.”

I sat.

My brain was already preparing three different disaster scenarios.

Accounting error. Wrong file sent. Reputation ruined.

Mister Delmas clasped his hands on the desk.

“How was your study trip?”

I blinked.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes.”

“You lie badly.”

I let out a small nervous laugh.

“I hear that often.”

He nodded.

“Good sign.”

I didn’t know why.

“Why?”

“People who lie well become dangerous.”

He slid a file toward me.

“On the contrary, I more easily trust people who lie badly.”

I looked at the file.

“I have something for you.”

“A project?”

“Yes.”

I looked up at him.

“A big project.”

I stayed silent.

He opened the file himself and slid a few pages toward me.

“Internal control on the group’s bank reconciliations.”

I lowered my eyes to the tables.

Then lifted my head again.

“The group?”

“Yes.”

“I mean… the whole group?”

“Not all entities. Three subsidiaries to start with.”

I blinked.

“Three?”

“Yes.”

“That’s… a lot.”

“Exactly.”

I felt my heart speed up.

“Why me?”

He looked at me calmly.

No smile. No effect. Nothing theatrical.

“Because you’re talented, Eliott.”

The sentence fell simply.

Without emphasis.

Without excessive kindness.

Just like an observation.

I stayed still.

“And because,” he continued, “you do something few people do here.”

“What?”

“You think.”

Small pause.

“And with your brain, which helps.”

I lifted my shoulders slightly.

“That’s not always useful.”

“Yes, it is.”

He leaned slightly forward.

“The problem, Eliott…”

He paused.

“Is that you think it bothers people that you work differently.”

I felt a warmth rise in my chest.

“Sometimes, yes.”

“That’s false.”

He shrugged.

“Most of the time, people don’t care.”

“And the ones who do?”

He gave a small smile.

“Those are usually the least interesting.”

I lowered my eyes to the file.

The columns were dense. So were the amounts. It all already looked huge.

And yet, under the fear, something else was starting to appear.

Not confidence yet.

But maybe a form of place.

The door opened without a knock.

Lyralda poked her head in.

“Hi Pascal, I need…”

She stopped when she saw me.

“Ah. Sorry.”

“No, come in,” Mister Delmas said.

She entered the office.

Her gaze passed briefly over me.

Then over the open file in front of me.

And something changed in her expression. Very slightly. Not total surprise. Not real worry. More that way she sometimes had of understanding a scene before it was even finished.

“You already put him on group control?” she asked.

“Yes,” Delmas answered.

She sighed lightly.

“You could let him breathe for two minutes before throwing him at three subsidiaries.”

“He’s breathing,” Mister Delmas said.

She tilted her head a little toward me.

“Are you breathing?”

I nodded.

“Yes, yes.”

“Barely, liar.”

Mister Delmas had that small discreet smile I had already seen on him, the one he reserved for certain very short, very fluid exchanges with her.

“He’ll survive.”

“Maybe,” she answered.

She came closer to the desk, placed two fingers on a page, and quickly scanned it.

“You’re giving him the consolidated statements for May and June, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The tone between them was calm. Well-practiced. No extra words. No unnecessary explanation.

The kind of professional ease that my brain, already tired by its own existence, immediately began watching with far too much attention.

Lyralda straightened.

Then looked directly at me.

“Right.”

She tapped the edge of the file once.

“Continue.”

And she left as quickly as she had entered.

Mister Delmas followed her with his eyes for half a second before returning to me.

Then he smiled slightly.

“If Lyralda worries about you…”

He lifted one shoulder.

“It means you have something.”

I didn’t know what to answer.

So I simply looked at the file in front of me.

The if Lyralda worries about you stayed stuck somewhere in my head.

Not like good news.

Not completely.

More like one more detail in something I didn’t understand well.

I left Mister Delmas’s office with the file held against me.

The corridor seemed calmer than usual.

Or maybe it was just my brain needing a few seconds to understand what had just happened.

A big project.

Mine.

I walked slowly back to the open space.

Each step felt a little strange, as if the floor had slightly changed its slope.

I sat at my desk.

The file stayed in front of me.

I opened it.

Tables. Columns. Bank statements. Three subsidiaries.

A lot of numbers. Far too many numbers.

I stayed there looking at the pages for a few seconds.

Then I let out a small nervous laugh.

“Great.”

Clara lifted her head from her screen.

“That’s the face that worries me.”

“What face?”

“The face of a guy who has just received either a promotion or a sentence.”

I turned the file slightly toward her.

“Group internal control.”

“Wow!”

She whistled softly.

“Pascal likes you!”

“Or he’s testing me.”

“Or both!”

She leaned in to look at the pages.

“Three subsidiaries?”

“Yes.”

“Well then.”

She straightened.

“Welcome to real life!”

I sighed.

“Thank you.”

She took a sip of coffee.

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect.”

I frowned.

“Why perfect?”

“Because people who aren’t scared often make mistakes.”

She shrugged.

“You’ll check three times.”

I smiled slightly.

“Probably.”

“There you go.”

She returned to her screen.

“So it’ll be fine.”

I dove into the documents.

At first, everything seemed confused.

Numbers. Dates. Lines repeating themselves.

But little by little, my brain did what it knows how to do best: look for patterns. Anomalies. Gaps. Things that don’t land exactly where they should.

One hour passed without me realizing it.

Then two.

At one point, I felt someone stop behind me.

I looked up.

Lyralda.

She was looking at my screen.

“Still breathing?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a good sign.”

She leaned slightly to look at the tables. Her hair slipped near my shoulder.

“Pascal really likes you.”

I let out a small breath.

“Or he wants to kill me.”

She smiled.

“He only kills useless people.”

“Reassuring.”

“We only have three subsidiaries, you know.”

I turned toward her, trying to understand what she was implying.

I turned the screen slightly toward her.

“I may have found something.”

“Show me.”

I pointed to a line.

“There.”

“There’s a two-day gap between the statements and the entries.”

She watched for a few seconds.

Then nodded.

“Good work, Eliott.”

I felt a small warmth in my chest.

“Thank you.”

She crossed her arms.

“You see?”

“What?”

“You’re good.”

I lifted my shoulders slightly.

“It’s just numbers.”

“No.”

She looked at me.

“It’s attention.”

The silence settled for a few seconds.

Then she added:

“And that is rare.”

She stayed behind me a little longer. Without speaking. Just watching the screen.

And, strangely, her presence didn’t put pressure on me.

Quite the opposite.

But at the same time, there was something else behind that calm: the memory of her entering Mister Delmas’s office without knocking, their way of talking to each other, the way he let her finish her thought as if it had already been ongoing for a long time.

My brain didn’t need much more to build an entire hypothesis.

Lyralda finally placed a very light hand on my shoulder.

A brief gesture.

Almost professional.

“Keep going. You’re on the right track.”

Then she straightened.

“And Eliott?”

I looked up.

“Yes?”

She gave a small smile.

“Try not to believe everything people say about you.”

Then she went back toward the legal department corridor.

I followed her with my eyes without really realizing it.

That was when I saw Mister Delmas appear at the back, coming out of his office with two sheets in his hand, stopping her with a flick of his wrist.

She stopped immediately. He handed her the documents. She took them. They spoke in low voices. She frowned slightly, he answered something that seemed to amuse her, very little, just enough to move the corner of her mouth.

Then they each went their separate ways.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Just two colleagues who had been working together for a long time.

And yet, from where I was, with my already well-established ability to invent stories out of almost nothing, the scene looked like it belonged to a continuity that completely surpassed me.

I stayed still for a few seconds.

Then I looked back at the screen.

In the window behind the desks, my reflection appeared vaguely.

It was not the same face.

Still the same guy, a little too calm.

But something had slightly changed.

The reflection no longer seemed only… displaced.

It looked busy. Focused.

Maybe even…

useful.

I straightened, picked the file back up, and for the first time in a long while, I caught myself thinking something strange.

Maybe I wasn’t only the guy who was too kind.

Maybe I was also…

someone competent.

And that was almost good news.

Almost.