There’s something in my voice now that I don’t bother smoothing out.
“What I owe her,” I add, “is privacy. And honesty. And saying things to her face, not through a microphone.”
The presenter inclines her head. “That’s very clear.”
The red light clicks off.
“And that,” she says, “is all we have time for.”
I take the headphones off, heart still racing, but calmer now.
Some things, I realise, don’t need to be broadcast to be heard.
Chapter 19
Chloe
It has been aday.
Not in the mildly inconvenient, tea-will-sort-this sense. In the everything-happened-at-once-and-my-nervous-system-is-still-vibrating sense.
The editorial ran.
Printed. Online. Shared. Commented on. Supported in ways I wasn’t prepared for. The Gazette’s social media has been busy and, astonishingly, mostly kind. Messages from women I don’t know telling me they’re glad someone said it. That they’ve felt it too. I read those slowly, carefully, like they might dissolve if I rush.
Marie-Louise hasn’t said much since. Which from her feels deliberate rather than ominous. I’ll take deliberate.
Then there was the radio interview.
I hadn’t known it was happening until the air in the newsroom changed. Raised voices behind glass. Marie-Louise’s face tightening, then shifting, like someone realising they’ve just lost control of a narrative.I only found out later that Rupert had called and demanded she made sure I heard the interview.
And she did. She made the office manager put the radio on for the whole newsroom to hear.
Tom’s voice.
Calm. Thoughtful. Refusing to perform. Refusing to use me as leverage. Talking about the work, not the woman. Drawing a line and standing on the right side of it without ever saying sorry for us.
I did not listen like a journalist. I listened like a person trying very hard not to cry in public.
It was a lot.
Now I’m home. Shoes kicked off. Bra flung over the back of a chair with intent. The flat is quiet in that way that only comes after a loud emotional day. I’m folding laundry because it is something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve refreshing Twitter.
Hadrian watches from his rock, eyes following my every move.
“I know,” I tell him. “I don’t understand it either.”
He flicks his tongue.
“That’s not helpful.”
I keep waiting for my phone to buzz.
Something simple. Something neutral.You okay.Something that would give me a shape to respond to.
It doesn’t.
And I don’t text him either, because what do you say after a man goes on local radio and refuses to share private thoughts in public out of respect.
