21. Cassie
— ? —
Cassie
The confrontation comes four days later, and I’m the one who initiates it.
I’ve spent the past few days watching Charles’s narrative spread through social media and whisper networks like a virus.
His drunken livestream got picked up by gossip blogs, and suddenly everyone has an opinion about Cassie Wallace and her scheming ways.
Half the people I used to know have unfollowed me.
The other half keep sending messages asking if the rumors are true.
I’m done hiding. I’m done letting Charles control the story while I cower in silence.
“Are you sure about this?” Elliot asks as we pull up outside the restaurant where I know Charles has lunch every Thursday. Same table, same time, same martini. Creatures of habit are easy to find, and Charles has always been predictable.
“I’m sure.” I check my reflection in the visor mirror. I look good. Confident. Polished. Like a woman who has nothing to hide and everything to gain. “He’s been telling everyone his version of events for days. It’s time he hears mine.”
“I should come with you.”
“No.” I turn to face him. “This is something I need to do alone. Charles always made me feel like I couldn’t stand up for myself. Like I needed someone else to fight my battles. I need to show him, and myself, that that’s not true anymore.”
Elliot doesn’t argue. That’s the thing about him I keep not expecting, the way he knows the difference between protecting me and stepping on me. He just reaches across and laces his fingers through mine, and he holds on until we pull up outside.
“I’ll be right here,” he says. “Not because you need me to be. Because I want to watch you do this.”
“That’s a little terrifying, you know. How much you believe in me.”
“Get used to it.” He lifts my knuckles to his mouth, presses a kiss there, lets go. “Go ruin his afternoon.”
And that’s the thing I carry in with me, not the rage at Charles, not the years of being made small. Just the warmth of a man who looked at me like I was a force to be reckoned with, and meant it.
I walk into the restaurant with my head high, ignoring the curious glances from the hostess and the subtle whispers from nearby tables.
Word travels fast in this city, and apparently I’m the villain of the moment.
The scarlet woman who destroyed her marriage and is now trying to ruin her poor, innocent husband.
Let them whisper. By the time I’m done, they’ll have something new to talk about.
Charles is exactly where I expected him to be, tucked into a corner booth with his Thursday martini and his phone.
He’s scrolling through something, probably checking how many people have shared his latest accusations, probably basking in the attention and sympathy.
He doesn’t notice me until I’m standing right in front of his table.
“Cassie.” Several expressions cross his face in quick succession: surprise, guilt, then a carefully constructed mask of wounded dignity. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t.” I don’t wait to be invited. I slide into the booth across from him, watching him scramble to compose himself. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about. My lawyer said all communication should go through official channels…”
“I don’t care what your lawyer said. This isn’t about the divorce. This is about the lies you’ve been spreading all over social media and in every gossip circle in the city.”
“I haven’t spread any lies.” But he won’t meet my eyes, and his hand trembles slightly as he reaches for his martini. “Everything I’ve said is true. You did conspire with Beaumont. You did take client information when you left. You have been trying to destroy my reputation.”
“Really? Show me the evidence.”
“What?”
“You keep saying you have proof. You keep telling everyone I stole from you, that I’ve been plotting against you for months.
Show me.” I lean forward. “Because we both know you can’t.
There is no evidence. There’s just a sad, pathetic man who can’t accept that his wife left him because he was cheating on her. ”
Charles’s face flushes red. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I know that you hired Celine because you wanted someone young and pretty to make you feel important.
I know that you told me to take a break from my job, the job I loved, the job I was good at, so you could have her all to yourself.
I know that you made me feel invisible in my own marriage for years before you finally had the decency to get caught. ”
“That’s not…”
“You told me to take a break, Charles.” My voice rises, and I don’t try to control it.
Let the whole restaurant hear. Let everyone who’s been whispering about me hear the truth.
“Remember? You looked me in the eye and said I seemed stressed, that I should step back for a while, take some time for myself. And I believed you. I thought you actually cared about my well-being. But you were just clearing the path for your affair. You were just making sure I wouldn’t be around to catch you. ”
“Keep your voice down…”
“No.” I slam my palm on the table, and he flinches. “I’m done keeping my voice down. I’m done being quiet and compliant and invisible. You want to tell people I’m trying to ruin you? Fine. Let me tell you what actually happened.”
I stand up, raising my voice loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear.
“This man cheated on me with his secretary. He lied to me for months. When I caught them together, he tried to make me feel like it was my fault. And now, because I had the audacity to leave him and find happiness with someone else, he’s telling everyone that I’m the villain.
” I look around at the other diners, who have all stopped eating to stare.
“Ask yourselves: if someone cheated on you, lied to you, made you feel worthless for years, would you just quietly disappear? Or would you fight back?”
The restaurant is silent. Charles is staring at me with a mixture of horror and fury, his face nearly purple.
“You’re insane,” he hisses.
“No. I’m angry. There’s a difference.” I lean down close to his face, lowering my voice so only he can hear. “Spread whatever lies you want, Charles. Tell everyone I’m a monster. But every time you open your mouth, I’m going to open mine louder. And unlike you, I have the truth on my side.”
I turn and walk out of the restaurant, my heart pounding but my head held high. I can feel every eye in the room following me, can hear the whispers starting up behind me like waves crashing on a shore.
Let them whisper. Let them wonder. The truth is out now, and Charles can’t put it back in the bottle.
Elliot is waiting in the car, his expression anxious until he sees my face. Then he starts to smile.
“How did it go?”
“I told him exactly what I think of him. In front of about fifty witnesses.” I’m shaking, I realize. Not from fear, but from the adrenaline of finally, finally saying everything I’ve been holding back for months. “He looked like he was going to have a stroke.”
“Good.” Elliot pulls me into a fierce hug across the center console. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I’m proud of me too.” I pull back and grin at him. “Now let’s go home. I need to process the fact that I just caused a scene in the middle of a crowded restaurant.”
We’re almost to the house when my phone starts buzzing incessantly. I pull it out, expecting more messages asking about the rumors.
Instead, I find that someone at the restaurant filmed my entire confrontation with Charles.
The video is everywhere. Thousands of shares in the past twenty minutes. Comments flooding in faster than I can read them.
“Queen energy. This is how you handle a cheating ex.”
“Finally someone called out that lying bastard.”
“The way she said ‘you told me to take a break’ gave me actual chills.”
“Charles Wallace just got destroyed in his own favorite restaurant and I am HERE for it.”
“It’s spreading everywhere,” I breathe. “People are actually believing me.”
“People love an underdog story. And right now, you’re the underdog who just stood up to her bully and won.” Elliot squeezes my hand. “Charles’s narrative just fell apart.”
I should feel triumphant. Part of me does. But mostly I just feel exhausted, wrung out from the confrontation and the adrenaline crash that’s starting to hit me.
“Take me home,” I say. “I need to lie down.”
We’re just pulling into the driveway when Jinny calls.
“Cassie,” she says the moment I answer. “Are you watching social media right now?”
“I’ve seen enough social media for one day, thanks.”
“No, you don’t understand. Charles just posted a new video. Like, five minutes ago. And it’s...” She pauses. “You need to see this. It’s insane.”
I pull up Charles’s profile with trembling fingers.
And there it is. A new video, posted eight minutes ago. Charles’s face fills the screen, red-eyed and clearly still drunk, his hair a mess, his shirt buttoned wrong. Behind him, I can see the empty restaurant booth I just walked away from.
“I was manipulated,” he’s saying into the camera, his voice cracking with what sounds almost like sobs.
“I was manipulated and I was weak and I made mistakes, but it wasn’t my fault.
Celine... she seduced me. She made me think she loved me.
But she was just using me the whole time.
She threatened to tell everyone about things I did, private things, if I didn’t do what she wanted. ”
The comments are already flooding in, but Charles keeps going, his voice rising.
“This whole mess is HER fault. Celine’s. She came into my life and she destroyed everything. She made me think my marriage was over. She made me believe my wife didn’t love me. And now she’s abandoned me and I have nothing and it’s ALL HER FAULT.”
He’s crying now, ugly tears streaming down his face.
“I was the victim. I was ALWAYS the victim. And everyone believed Cassie’s lies but I was the one being manipulated. I was the one being used. Celine is the villain here, not me. Not ME.”
The video cuts off abruptly.
I stare at my phone in stunned silence.
“He’s blaming Celine,” I finally manage. “He’s throwing her completely under the bus.”
“Publicly,” Jinny says. “In front of the entire internet. That video has ten thousand views already and it’s only been up for eight minutes. By tomorrow, everyone in the city is going to see Charles Wallace having a complete breakdown and blaming his mistress for ruining his life.”
“This is...” I don’t have words. “What happens now?”
“Now?” Jinny laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Now we watch it all burn down. And we hope we’re far enough away not to get caught in the fire.”
I hang up and show the video to Elliot, who watches with growing disbelief.
“He’s lost it,” I say. “Completely and totally lost it.”
He blamed her for everything. The affair. The lies. The destruction of his marriage. All of it, dumped squarely on Celine’s shoulders while he painted himself as the helpless victim of her manipulation.
And somewhere out there, Celine is watching her lover burn her entire life to the ground.