When I reached his row, he looked older. The sharpness that once defined him was gone. His shoulders sagged a little, his eyes softer.
“I just wanted to apologize,” he said quietly. “I made a mistake. I took the easy route — and you paid the price for it.”
He told me what had happened after I left. The company lost its biggest investor, the board dissolved, his marriage ended. He said it without bitterness, only weary acceptance. “I lost everything,” he admitted. “But it made me see what really matters.”
For the first time, I saw him not as the man who had taken my job, but as another human being trying to make peace with his choices.
I told him about my own road — the therapy sessions that helped me breathe again, the anxiety that still visited some nights, and the nonprofit I had started to support others facing burnout and job loss.
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