“Hi, Delaney,” a calm voice replies. “This is Rachel from HR. How are you holding up?”
How am I holding up?
I look at my knees, scraped from the alley floor. At my knife roll. At the back door that’s no longer mine to walk through.
“I’ve been better.”
“I’m sure.” She sighs gently. “I’m very sorry for the circumstances. I know this is difficult. I’d like to talk through your separation package and next steps, if that’s okay.”
She explains the offer in smooth, legal language. A couple of months' pay. Health insurance for the same amount of time. A mutual non-disparagement clause. A non-disclosure agreement that might as well read,You will never publicly contradict Marcus’s version of events.
“Just to be clear,” I say when she pauses, “if I sign this, I can’t tell anyone what actually happened.”
“You’re free to discuss your feelings in private settings. You just won’t be able to make public statements that could harm the company or its representatives.”
Representatives. Marcus.
“So if a journalist calls me?” I push. “If someone wants my side?”
“I’d strongly advise against speaking to the media,” she says. “It could jeopardize your severance, and frankly, it’s rarely helpful for anyone in these situations. The story cycle moves on quickly.”
Not for the girl in the headline,I think.
But my rent is due in ten days. There are no Michelin-star kitchens lining up to hire “the sous chef from the scandal article.”
I close my eyes. Pride is expensive. Survival is not optional.
“Email it. I’ll look it over.”
“Of course.” Her voice softens. “For what it’s worth, Delaney, I know this isn’t all on you.”
It lands like a crumb tossed to a starving person—not enough to fill me, just enough to remind me how hunger feels.
After the call, I sit there until my legs go numb. Then I stand, sling my bag over my shoulder, and walk out of the alley into the bright, indifferent city.
No one looks at me twice. No one knows my life just imploded.
Maybe Marcus is right.
Maybe no one will remember my name.
But where the hell does that leave me?
CHAPTER ONE
Delaney
Two months later…
I shouldn’t be here.
That’s the first thought that hits me as the bus pulls into Coyote Glen, brakes squealing as if it disapproves too.
Pines crowd the edges of the road, tall and dark and endlessly still. Nothing like the city skyline I left behind. The air looks different here. Softer. Clearer. As if someone scrubbed the world clean while I wasn’t looking.
I step off the bus with my duffel slung over my shoulder, my suitcase bumping along behind me, and my knife roll clutched to my chest, because some habits die hard, even when your whole life has fallen apart.
Everything else is boxed up in a storage unit three hours away, paid up for exactly three months with my severance and panic savings. The apartment is gone, the lease broken, the life I killed myself to build boiled down to one rolling suitcase, a duffel, and my knives.
