THE REWRITE CLUB #3
Luca passes her a glass of wine, which she takes, sips, and sets down instantly, then apologizes for drinking before we’ve toasted or whatever it is people do at these things.
“So…” I say, trying to give her an easy landing, “…what brought you in tonight? Besides the flyer?”
She hesitates, chewing her lower lip, then says, “I saw it on the community board and thought… I don’t know, maybe this is stupid. It’s not really my story to tell.”
Nobody corrects her or assures her it’s not stupid. The circle just waits.
Natalie glances at her glass, then says, “It’s about my best friend. Matthew. He’s been with this girl, Rebecca, for almost three years. I know…” she glances at us, bracing “…I know she’s cheating on him. I’ve known for months.”
Luca, never subtle, says, “You need to tell him.”
Natalie shakes her head and seems to brace herself. “I can’t. Rebecca has spent months telling Matthew that I’m… that I’m obsessed with him. That I’m jealous and trying to break them up. She’s been planting the seeds for so long that if I say anything, it’ll just look like proof.”
Liv, in a rare show of compassion, says, “Classic. Textbook move of a manipulative narcissist.”
Natalie nods. “Exactly. He’d never believe me. Even if I showed him messages or even photos. She’d just twist it into more evidence that I’m trying to destroy her.”
She breathes, shaky and shallow, then, “I feel like I’m watching someone drown, and if I try to pull him out, he’ll just drag me under too.”
There’s a silence that nobody tries to fill.
Luca asks like a bull-in-a-China-shop, “Well, are you?”
She blinks. “What?”
“In love with him.”
Natalie looks down, and I watch her fight with herself, the old story that’s played out for centuries.
“I’m not lying,” she says finally, so quietly I almost miss it. “But I do love him.”
The confession visibly costs her and she braces again, as if she is waiting on our condemnation. Freya is the one who finally breaks the silence.
“Did he know you loved him, before Rebecca said it?”
Natalie shakes her head, voice rough. “I never told him. I knew he’d never feel that way. I thought… I thought if I kept my distance, I could keep him, at least as a friend.”
Elsie, soft as a feather, says, “You deserve better friends than that.”
Natalie’s eyes go glassy. “He’s always been there for me. Until she came into the picture anyway.”
The group is quiet again. We’ve all been the outsider in someone else’s story. We’ve all had to choose whether to speak or to survive.
Liv, perhaps more gently than she means, says, “Do you want him to know? Even if it means losing him?”
Natalie’s hands tighten around the wine glass, knuckles white. “I don’t know. I just don’t want him to end up as wrecked as I was, when it happened to me.”
I see Luca’s face change, just slightly. The showman slips, and the man who’s spent years taking care of sad, broken things peeks through.
“We can help,” he says, and for once his voice is almost humble. “We’ve all done this before. Not your version, exactly, but something close enough.”
He looks around the circle, and I feel the weight of what he’s promising. That this isn’t just a group for confession, or for commiseration. It’s a group for rewriting the story, together.
Natalie blinks back tears, and for the first time since she sat down, she seems less afraid of them. She looks at me, and there’s a plea in her eyes: How do I survive this?
I wish I had a one-size-fits-all answer, the kind that sounds good in books or on podcasts. But the only thing I can offer her is the truth I learned after all the fighting and forgiving and getting up the next day.
“You keep showing up,” I say. “You keep telling the truth. Even if you’re the only one who believes it.”
She nods, once. Like it’s the best answer she could have hoped for.
We spend the rest of the meeting plotting.
Not just what Natalie will do, but what we’ll all do when the past tries to claw its way back in.
Freya volunteers to help vet the final proof.
Liv, of all people, offers to compose the confrontation email, because she has “a way with words that makes people regret their life choices.” Elsie promises cake for every step Natalie takes, even if she has to bake it herself.
To which Natalie reveals that she is the owner of the new bakery next door.
Causing Luca and Elise to start berating her into being their new supplier.
By the end, it feels less like a club and more like a conspiracy. The best kind.
After she leaves, we watch her through the front window, the way she stands under the streetlight reading the flyer again, then tucks it into her coat and walks off, her step a little lighter than when she came in.
We’re all a little lighter, I think, for having been here.
I look at the circle: at Elsie’s tired but soft eyes, Liv’s defensive scowl, Luca’s easy smile, Freya’s quiet strength.
For the first time in years, I let myself imagine the story going somewhere better.
Maybe it’s not a happy ending that I used to dream about. But it’s something. Maybe even something better.