Chapter 27 #2
“Because it’s all right there, Caleb. All the stories.
All the photos. They only tell one side, and it’s not mine, and it doesn’t even matter because the end result is the same.
I walked into that kitchen, and I walked out of New York with nothing, and it was my fault too.
I knew better, and I did it anyway, and now…
” I fling a hand uselessly toward the general direction of town. “Now I’m the scandal again.”
He lets me get it all out. Every shaky word. Every self-inflicted punch.
When I run out of air, he waits a beat, then another, like he wants to be sure I’m really finished.
Then, very quietly, he says, “I don’t believe that.”
“Of course you don’t,” I snap, because kindness feels like someone running a gentle hand over a third-degree burn. “You haven’t read the comments yet.”
He doesn’t even flinch.
“Don’t need to.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it after,” he replies. “I know who you are.”
A fresh wave of tears hits, because that? That right there is the problem.
“No, you don’t,” I choke. “You know this version. The… cornbread and casserole version. The one who makes Sadie dinosaur pancakes and cries when Moose gets a splinter. You don’t know the version who stayed with a man who lied to everyone, including his wife.
The one who believed him when he said she didn’t understand him.
The one who kept working there, kept loving him, even when… ”
My voice breaks on the memory of Marcus’s face, red with fury, spitting accusations.
You’re just a sous chef. No one really cares about you.
“Even when it was wrong,” I whisper.
The kitchen hums around us. The fridge, the faint rattle of the vent, the tick of the cooling oven. It feels like the whole room is holding its breath too.
Caleb is quiet for a long moment.
Then he asks, “Did you make a mistake?”
It’s not a trap question. It’s simple. Direct. Somehow, that makes it easier to answer.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Did he?”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “He was my boss. He lied to me. That should answer your question.”
Caleb nods once. “So you made a mistake. He made a bigger one. And now strangers on the internet are trying to decide who deserves to be stoned in the comment section.”
The bluntness of it startles a wet snort out of me.
“Caleb,” I protest weakly.
“What?” he asks. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“It’s… more complicated than that,” I say, scrubbing at my cheeks with the heels of my hands.
“There were power dynamics, and ego, and… I was obsessed with the job. With the kitchen. With the idea that if Marcus thought I was good, then I was good. It’s not like I was some innocent…
whatever. I knew he was bad for me, and I stayed anyway. I kept lying. To myself. To everyone.”
He’s quiet again.
“You ever lie to me?”
The question hits like a slap and a hug at the same time.
I blink at him. “No.”
“You ever lie to Sadie?”
“No, no way.”
He nods. “Boone?”
I hesitate.
“By omission,” I say finally. “I didn’t tell him everything. I let him assume the best. That I just burned out. That I… walked away from a demanding job. I didn’t tell him I set fire to my own life first.”
Caleb exhales through his nose.
“That’s a hell of a metaphor,” he says. “But for the record? You didn’t set the fire alone.”
“Does that matter?”
“It does to me,” he says simply.
My throat closes.
“Caleb…” I start, then trail off, because what am I supposed to say? Thank you for not thinking I’m the devil? Thanks for sitting on the floor while I have a breakdown next to the salt?
He shifts, inching just a little closer. The point of contact is small, but it feels huge. One solid, warm line in the middle of everything.
He tilts his head, trying to catch my eyes.
“Can I tell you what I see?” he asks.
I want to say no. I want to say don’t, don’t make this worse, don’t make me hope. Instead, I sniff and shrug, which he apparently takes as a yes.
“I see a woman who moved across the country because she refused to stay stuck in a kitchen that chewed her up,” he says.
“I see someone who gets up before dawn to pack a six-year-old’s lunch in ways that make her excited to eat carrot sticks.
I see someone who sings while she works, even when she thinks no one’s listening.
I see someone who talks to the old horses like they’re people and brings the ranch hands extra biscuits on the days she knows the work is harder. ”
My chest aches.
“Caleb…”
“I see a woman who made mistakes,” he continues, not letting me interrupt, “and is paying for them over and over in ways that don’t match the crime. I see someone who deserves more than to be defined by the worst thing she did in the worst season of her life.”
My eyes burn so hot I have to look away.
“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.
“Nothing important ever is,” he agrees. “But it also isn’t as simple as ‘monster’ and ‘saint,’ and that’s the game people like Dottie like to play. They pick a side and pretend the whole story fits in a caption.”
I huff out a shaky laugh. “You’re very poetic for a man who spends most of his time elbow deep in horse feed.”
He huffs quietly. “I read a lot.”
My breathing evens out. The sobs recede into hiccupy aftershocks.
I let myself lean into the warmth at my shoulder. Let myself pretend the rest of the world is still outside the ranch, that the kitchen is still just a kitchen, not a stage.
His hand moves, just slightly, like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he asks, “What do you need?”
The question cracks me open.
Because I don’t know.
I need the internet to forget me. I need Marcus to vanish. I need Dottie to drop her phone into a well. I need Boone not to look at me like he did something wrong just by wanting me.
I need… so many impossible things.
“I don’t know,” I croak.
He nods like that’s a perfectly reasonable answer.
“Okay,” he says. “Then we start small. You need water?”
I almost laugh.
“Are you… trying to hydrate me out of my feelings?”
“Dehydration makes everything worse,” he says, entirely serious.
A tiny, reluctant smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “Water would be good.”
He pushes to his feet with a small grunt and crosses to the sink. Glass clinks. The faucet runs. Then, he comes back and hands me the glass, fingers brushing mine. The contact sends a stupid little spark up my arm.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“Anytime.”
I take a sip.
The cool water hits my tongue, slides down my throat, and suddenly I realize how dry my mouth is, how my whole body has been clenched for so long it forgot how to do anything else.
I drink half the glass in one go.
He watches me, eyes soft.
“You don’t have to keep cooking today,” he says. “We can figure something out.”
That panicked part of my brain, the one that’s been trained to equate usefulness with worth, flares.
“I can’t just not cook,” I protest. “That’s my job.”
“You’re also a person,” he says. “People get to fall apart sometimes.”
“And who feeds everyone while I’m busy collapsing in a corner?”
“I can make grilled cheese,” he offers.
A watery laugh escapes me. “You put the cheese on top of the bread the other day.”
“It still tasted good.”
“You are a menace to sandwiches.”
He shrugs. “Silas can order pizza. Boone can grill something.”
The mention of their names makes my chest squeeze.
I picture Boone, phone in hand, jaw clenched, scrolling.
I picture Silas pretending to laugh it off, then quietly trying to figure out how to make everything better with a party and a joke.
Shame floods through me.
“I don’t want them to see me like this,” I mumble, folding an arm over my face. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
There it is.
The root of the panic. Not just that they know, but that they can see. That my humiliation is happening under a microscope.
“I think…” I just about manage to gasp out. “I need to spend tonight… alone. I just… I need to think.”
The words tumble out of me like I’ve knocked over another bowl, like I’m watching myself from somewhere outside my own skin.
I’m on my feet before he’s even processed it, glass of water clutched in my hand, heart sprinting like I’m running from a fire.
“Delaney…”
His voice catches me between the ribs.
I don’t look back.
If I look at his face, I’ll stay. I know that with a bone-deep certainty that terrifies me. I’ll stay and I’ll cry on his flannel and I’ll let him be kind to me and I’ll want things I don’t deserve.