The words land one by one, heavy and humiliating.
“So, I’m supervised,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Chaperoned.”
She doesn’t correct me.
“And if that doesn’t happen,” I ask quietly. “If restaurants don’t want me. Or if I don’t write the apology.”
Marie-Louise meets my eyes.
“Then we let you go.”
There it is.
I go very still.
She watches me carefully. “I need your answer by five tomorrow. The Gazette will run its own apology in Wednesday’s edition after the article drops in the Times. If yours isn’t there with it, that’s the end.”
My throat burns. I blink hard, once, twice, refusing to let anything spill over.
“I can’t believe you’re not backing me,” I say, and I hate how thin my voice sounds despite my best efforts. “You know this is bullshit.”
She nods. “I do.”
“And you’re still asking me to apologise.”
“I’m asking you to help me keep the paper alive,” she says quietly. “Because that’s my job. And right now, that has to come first.”
I laugh, short and broken. “So I get to choose between my integrity and my livelihood.”
She doesn’t flinch. “You get to choose between a controlled fall and a clean break.”
The room feels smaller than it did when I walked in.
“I didn’t sleep with him for a story,” I say. “I didn’t manipulate anything. I didn’t lie.”
“I know,” she says again. “But knowing isn’t the same as winning.”
I stand, legs unsteady.
“Five tomorrow,” I repeat.
“Yes.” Marie-Louise looks determined.
I nod once, because if I don’t do something deliberate I might fall apart right here.
As I open the door, Marie-Louise speaks again.
“For what it’s worth,” she says. “I hate this.”
I pause, hand on the handle.
“So do I,” I say.
And then I walk back into the open-plan office, carrying a decision that feels far heavier than any apology ever could.
