The realization hit me somewhere between the studio and the freeway. Denise had watched me accuse her, on camera, without proof. I’d saidI believe Denise orchestrated the entire scheme.I’d saidI believe I was targeted by my best friend.I’d said it live, to the world, with nothing but my gut and a timeline andthe bone-deep certainty that comes from knowing someone for years and finally seeing them clearly.
And Denise was going to sue me.
Of course she was. That was the smart play, the Denise play, the move I should have seen coming from the moment I walked into that studio. She’d file for defamation. She’d paint herself as the wronged friend, the loyal partner falsely accused by a bitter woman who’d lost everything and needed someone to blame. She’d hire a good lawyer and she’d cry on the stand and she’d be so convincing that even I might doubt myself.
I’d just handed her the weapon.
I told the driver to take me to the airport. Pressed my forehead against the window and watched the California freeway blur past and felt the full weight of what I’d done press down on me until I couldn’t sit up straight.
I’d told the truth. But the truth without proof was just an accusation. And an accusation, on a livestream, with my name and face attached, was exactly the kind of thing that could destroy whatever was left of me.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe the way Dr. Carlisle taught me, in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, and felt nothing except the specific terror of a woman who’d just jumped off a cliff and couldn’t see the ground.
I was backin New York by eleven.
Maggie was waiting at the door. She took one look at my face and didn’t ask questions. Just steered me to the couch, put a glass of water in my hand, and sat beside me while I stared at nothing.
“You were incredible,” she said after a while.
“I was reckless.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Maggie, I accused Denise of a crime on a livestream. Without proof. Without a single piece of documentation. She’s going to sue me for everything I don’t have.”
“She might.”
“She will. It’s what I would do, if someone went on camera and said those things about me without evidence.”
Maggie was quiet for a moment. “Do you regret it?”
I thought about it. Really thought about it, not the reflexive no that would make me feel brave, not the reflexive yes that would make me feel safe.
“No,” I said. “I don’t regret telling the truth. I regret that the truth is all I have. I needed proof and I went in without it because—” I stopped. Set the water down. “Because I was afraid that if I waited for proof, I’d never go at all. I’d talk myself out of it. Find a reason to stay hidden. Let the fear win.”
“So you jumped.”
“So I jumped. And now I’m falling and I can’t see where I’m going to land.”
Maggie squeezed my hand. “You’re going to land fine, Rose.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But I know you. And you’ve survived worse.”
Drake appeared from the bedroom with the twins, who were supposed to be asleep but had clearly staged an uprising. Shannon grabbed my finger the way she always did, tight and possessive, and I held on because her small warm hand was the most real thing in the room.
I went out to the fire escape. I brought the blanket and my phone and the specific exhaustion of someone who’d just turned herself inside out on camera and was waiting to see if the world would punish her for it.
The city was doing its thing below me. Millions of lights, millions of lives, millions of stories that had nothing to do with Rose Gracen and a livestream from a studio in LA.
I sat there for a while. Didn’t check my phone. Didn’t look at comments or headlines or the texts that were still coming in from numbers I didn’t recognize. Just sat and breathed and watched the lights and waited for the panic to subside or the ground to give way, whichever came first.
The window slid open behind me. Maggie climbed out onto the fire escape, which was a production because the window was small and Maggie was not a graceful climber. She had her phone in her hand.
“Rose.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
