This Time, I Never Touched Her

I stared at the row of security monitors, cold sweat soaking my back. I could still feel the dump truck crushing my arms and legs, the pain buried deep in my bones.

It was 1 a.m. In 40 minutes, an influencer named Crystal Briggs would come staggering through the door.

In my previous life, I stood in this exact spot and watched her stumble inside.

Eager to help, I stepped out from behind the desk.

I steadied her by the elbow and helped her to the elevator. She leaned against the wall, swiped her key card, and got in on her own.

I held her elbow only as long as she needed the support. The whole thing took less than a minute.

As the elevator doors closed, I worried that she might fall in the bathroom once she got home.

Back then, all I saw was someone who needed help.

Around noon the next day, I was having a sandwich during shift change when a coworker walked over with a strange look on his face. He held out his phone, showing me a livestream.

On the screen, Crystal was in tears as she told her viewers her version of the night before.

"Last night, a security guard at my complex… He saw how drunk I was and tried to drag me into the emergency stairwell. I couldn't fight him off… My hands still shake just thinking about it."

My ears started ringing.

Comments were already pouring in.

[Seriously? Security guards think they can get away with this now?]

[Find out who he is! Make sure he can never show his face again!]

[This is the kind of creep they hire at a luxury condo complex?]

In less than three hours, the internet decided I was guilty. My name, work history, hometown, even Dad's name, all appeared at the top of the comments for everyone to see.

Someone even shared screenshots of Crystal's lies in our hometown's community group chat.

Dad could barely read. He put on his reading glasses and struggled through the screenshots, one word at a time. When he finished, he collapsed beside the stove from a stroke.

By the time a neighbor found him and got him to the nearest hospital, his body was already cold.

I clutched my phone and sobbed as I watched the security footage. I went through it frame by frame, clipped the part where she swiped her own card and walked into the elevator, and posted it on every platform I could think of.

No one believed me.

[Those are management's cameras. They can edit the footage however they want.]

[He works for them. Of course they'd cover for him. How does this prove anything?]

[Even if you didn't drag her into the stairwell, who knows where you put your hands while you were "helping" her?]

Nothing I said got through to them.

In the end, I lost it. I tracked down the address of her agency and went there to wait outside.

All I wanted was to look her in the eye, in front of everyone, and ask her why she did this to me.

As I crossed the street, a dump truck ran a red light and slammed into me.

The world spun around me, but all I could think about was Dad. I never even got to see him one last time.

Now, I was back, watching the glass door on the security monitor. No one had come through yet.

At 1:40 a.m., the glass door swung open. Crystal tottered inside on her stilettos, exactly as she did in my previous life.