Until this situation resolves. As if there's some magical endpoint where everything goes back to normal. As if reputations rebuild themselves.
Maya stays through dinner, helps me draft responses to the worst of the messages, builds a framework for fighting back. But even she looks overwhelmed.
"We need Korgan to make a statement," she says finally. "He needs to confirm that your relationship is real, that you never manipulated him."
"He won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because he would have called by now. Because if he believed in what we have, in what we talked about yesterday, he wouldn't let me face this alone."
"Maybe he's protecting you. Maybe the producers told him staying away was the best thing for both of you."
"Or maybe he realized they're right. Maybe I am just a small-town baker who got in over her head and made him collateral damage."
"You don't believe that."
"Don't I?" I stare at the TV, muted now but still cycling through clips of us. The cinnamon roll moment looks different through this lens. Calculated. Strategic. "Look at it from his perspective. He takes a huge risk, defies his family, chooses me over his entire culture. And the next day, evidence surfaces that I've been using him from the beginning."
"Evidence that was clearly manipulated?—"
"Evidence that sounds exactly like something I would say. Because Ididsay it, Maya. I said I'd do whatever it takes. I said the bakery was everything."
"Out of context?—"
"Is it? Was any of this really about him, or was it all about saving my business?"
The question hangs between us. Maya opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. Because she knows. She was there for every conversation, every strategy session, every moment of doubt.
"Both," she says finally. "It was both. You went on that show for the bakery. But what happened with Korgan, that was real. I saw you fall for him. I saw you change."
"Did you? Or did you see me get better at playing the part?"
"Trinity—"
"I need you to go."
"I'm not leaving you alone right now."
"Please. I just... I need to think."
She argues for another ten minutes, but eventually leaves. Promises to come back in the morning, to keep working on a response strategy, to help me rebuild.
I lock the door behind her and sink onto my couch. The apartment feels enormous and tiny at the same time. Too big for one person, too small for everything crashing down.
My phone rings. For a wild moment, I think it might be Korgan. But it's just another unknown number.
This is Rebecca Alford from Channel 12 News. We'd like to offer you an opportunity to tell your side of the story. Please call me back.
I delete it without reading the rest. Then I delete the next one. And the next.
By midnight, I've received seventeen interview requests, forty-three hate messages, and zero calls from the person whose voice I actually want to hear.
I try his number one more time. Straight to voicemail.
"Korgan, it's me. I know you're probably not supposed to have your phone, but if you get this... I didn't plan any of this. What we have, what happened between us, none of that was fake. I know how it looks, I know what they're saying, but please. Please don't believe them. Call me back. Please."
I hang up and immediately want to call again. To explain better, to say all the things I should have said yesterday instead of focusing on strategy and evidence and fighting back.
