My voice cracks. The last two words come out small and ugly.
“Because it’s all right there, Caleb. All the stories. All the photos. They only tell one side, and it’s not mine, and it doesn’t even matter because the end result is the same. I walked into that kitchen, and I walked out of New York with nothing, and it was my fault too. I knew better, and I did it anyway, and now…” I fling a hand uselessly toward the general direction of town. “Now I’m the scandal again.”
He lets me get it all out. Every shaky word. Every self-inflicted punch.
When I run out of air, he waits a beat, then another, like he wants to be sure I’m really finished.
Then, very quietly, he says, “I don’t believe that.”
“Of course you don’t,” I snap, because kindness feels like someone running a gentle hand over a third-degree burn. “You haven’t read the comments yet.”
He doesn’t even flinch.
“Don’t need to.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it after,” he replies. “I know who you are.”
A fresh wave of tears hits, because that? That right there is the problem.
“No, you don’t,” I choke. “You know this version. The… cornbread and casserole version. The one who makes Sadie dinosaur pancakes and cries when Moose gets a splinter. You don’t know the version who stayed with a man who lied to everyone, including his wife. The one who believed him whenhe said she didn’t understand him. The one who kept working there, kept loving him, even when…”
My voice breaks on the memory of Marcus’s face, red with fury, spitting accusations.
You’re just a sous chef. No one really cares about you.
“Even when it was wrong,” I whisper.
The kitchen hums around us. The fridge, the faint rattle of the vent, the tick of the cooling oven. It feels like the whole room is holding its breath too.
Caleb is quiet for a long moment.
Then he asks, “Did you make a mistake?”
It’s not a trap question. It’s simple. Direct. Somehow, that makes it easier to answer.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Did he?”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “He was my boss. He lied to me. That should answer your question.”
Caleb nods once. “So you made a mistake. He made a bigger one. And now strangers on the internet are trying to decide who deserves to be stoned in the comment section.”
The bluntness of it startles a wet snort out of me.
“Caleb,” I protest weakly.
“What?” he asks. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“It’s… more complicated than that,” I say, scrubbing at my cheeks with the heels of my hands. “There were power dynamics, and ego, and… I was obsessed with the job. With the kitchen. With the idea that if Marcus thought I was good, then I was good. It’s not like I was some innocent… whatever. I knew he was bad for me, and I stayed anyway. I kept lying. To myself. To everyone.”
He’s quiet again.
“You ever lie to me?”
The question hits like a slap and a hug at the same time.
