I needed to see you.
I hear another version of his voice layered over this one.
I told you what you wanted to hear.
“How did you find me?”
He hesitates just long enough to look thoughtful. “A colleague mentioned you. Instagram, actually. Someone tagged a photo. You were in the background. I thought I was imagining it at first.”
My skin crawls.
“So you followed me.”
“I checked,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
I shake my head. “You can’t just show up like this.”
“I missed you,” he says.
There it is.
The line that used to undo me.
My brain flashes to another moment… late night in the prep kitchen, burners still warm, his hand in my hair while he murmured how indispensable I was. How talented. How different.
You really think I’m going to blow up my career because you got attached?
“I worried,” he continues now. “You disappeared. No goodbye. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
I stare at him.
At the man who stood in his office and told me my life was collateral damage. At the man who watched me pack my knives while the kitchen went quiet around me.
“I left,” I say slowly. “Because you kicked me out. You destroyed my career. You made sure I wouldn’t be able to talk to you again.”
He flinches. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
“I protected the restaurant,” he says immediately. “I protected you. You were spiraling, Delaney. People were talking. I stepped in.”
“You threw me under the bus,” I snap, pulse roaring in my ears. “You let them believe I was unstable. That I imagined everything.”
“You couldn’t handle the pressure,” he says softly.
The words slide in like a blade.
For a split second, I’m back in the alley, sitting on the cold concrete with my knife roll clutched to my chest, watching him on my phone telling reporters how deeply sorry he was for the confusion.
Anger rises, cleaner this time.
“I was burned out,” I say. “I was exhausted and isolated and sleeping four hours a night because you convinced me that if I slowed down, I’d be replaced.”
He opens his mouth.
“I’m not finished.”
That stops him.
