21. Hannah
— ? —
Hannah
“I’m not letting you watch this alone,” she says, pushing past me into the apartment. She kicks off her shoes, heads straight for the kitchen, and starts opening drawers until she finds the corkscrew. “Whatever happens tonight, whatever he says, we face it together.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“Yes I did.” She pulls the cork with a satisfying pop and pours two generous glasses. “That’s what best friends do. We show up for the hard parts.”
I take the glass she offers but don’t drink. My stomach is too knotted for wine. I can’t keep my hands still. In forty-five minutes, Cameron is going to appear on national television and say something, I don’t know what, he wouldn’t tell me, and my entire life might change again.
Summer settles onto the couch and pats the cushion beside her. “Sit. Breathe. We’ve got time.”
I sit, but I can’t breathe. Not really. Not the way she means.
At 7:40 p.m., my phone rings. I fumble for it, nearly dropping the wine, and hit the speaker button.
“Baby.” My mother’s voice fills the room, warm and worried. “I’m here. I’m watching the same channel.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Whatever he says, you remember: you don’t owe him anything. You’ve already proven you can stand on your own two feet.”
“I know.”
“I’m proud of you. Have I told you that lately? I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.”
My throat tightens. “I know, Mom.”
Summer squeezes my hand. On the phone, I hear my mother settling in: the creak of her old recliner, the soft sound of her television in the background, the familiar ambient noise of the living room where I grew up.
The clock on the wall ticks. Each second feels like a minute. Each minute feels like an hour. We don’t talk about what’s coming. We don’t speculate about what Cameron might say. We just sit there, the three of us connected by phone lines and shared anxiety, waiting for 8 p.m.
At 7:55 p.m., Summer picks up the remote. Her hand is shaking slightly. Mine would be worse.
“Ready?” she asks.
“No.”
“Good. Honest.” She turns on the TV anyway.
The pre-show chatter fills the room: hosts discussing the evening’s lineup, teasing the “exclusive interview” that’s been all over the news since Cameron’s people announced it this afternoon.
His first public statement since the resignation.
The most anticipated television event of the week, according to the breathless promos.
I feel sick. Summer puts her hand on my knee and leaves it there.
8 p.m.
The opening credits roll, dramatic music swelling, and then Cameron appears on screen.
My breath catches in my throat. He’s wearing the navy suit I bought him for his birthday, the one he said made him feel like a different person. His hair is neatly combed, his posture straight, but there’s a rawness in his expression that the cameras can’t quite hide. A man broken open.
“Mr. Jasper,” the host says, leaning forward with practiced interest, “thank you for joining us tonight. There’s been a tremendous amount of speculation about your sudden resignation from your family’s company-”
“I didn’t come to talk about the company.
And the photos everyone has been passing around are fabrications, doctored dates, manufactured meetings, and the proof of that will be public within the week.
But that’s not why I’m here either.” Cameron’s voice cuts through, steady and clear. “I came to talk about my wife.”
Summer’s grip on my hand tightens. On the phone, my mother makes a soft sound.
“Several months ago,” Cameron continues, looking directly into the camera like he can see through it to me, “I did an interview where I made jokes at my wife’s expense. I called her chaotic. Scatterbrained. I made her sound like an inconvenience instead of the brilliant woman she is.”
The host opens his mouth to interject. Cameron doesn’t let him.
“Hannah has ADHD and dyslexia. She’s managed both her whole life, quietly, bravely, while the rest of the world made assumptions about her intelligence.
” His voice thickens, and I can see him fighting to maintain control.
“She told me about it in the dark on our third date, terrified I’d think less of her.
And I, the man who should have protected that trust, used it to get a laugh on television. ”
I can’t look away. I’m frozen, my wine glass suspended halfway to my mouth, watching my husband say things on national television that he couldn’t say to my face for years.
Summer’s hand is crushing mine now, her rings digging into my fingers, but I barely feel it. On the phone, my mother’s breathing has gone shallow and fast, the way it does when she’s trying not to cry.
“I neglected my wife for years.” Cameron’s not reading from notes.
He’s not glancing at cue cards. He’s just talking, raw and unfiltered, like I’m the only audience that matters.
“Chose work over her. Let my family disrespect her. And when she had the courage to leave, I didn’t even understand why. ”
“Mr. Jasper-” the host tries again.
“My wife filed for divorce because I gave her no choice.” Cameron’s jaw tightens.
“The fault is mine. Not hers. She built a company that helps people like her, people who learn differently, who’ve been told their whole lives they’re not good enough.
She’s incredible. And I spent three years taking her for granted. ”
“This sounds like a public apology,” the host says.
“It is. But not to the public.” Cameron looks directly into the camera again, and I feel it like a physical touch.
“Hannah, if you’re watching, I’m sorry. For the anniversary.
For the interview. For every time I reached for you and wasn’t really there.
You were everything, and I was too blind to see it. ”
“And the resignation?” the host asks, seizing on the news angle. “Sources say you walked away from the company voluntarily. Can you tell us why?”
“I quit because my wife told me I loved my company more than her.” Cameron’s voice doesn’t waver. “She was right. So I’m proving her wrong.”
“That’s quite a statement.”
“It’s the truth. I spent years choosing work over the woman I married.
Choosing legacy over love. Choosing the easy path instead of the right one.
” He takes a breath. My wine is tipping sideways and Summer takes it out of my hand without either of us looking away from the screen.
He said I was right. He stood in front of the entire country and said I was right, and no version of him I’ve ever known could have done that, not the man from the gala, not the man from the interview, not even the man who’s been camped in my office for weeks trying to prove something.
The host asks something and I miss it completely, because I’m looking at his face instead of listening, at the shadows under his eyes that nobody covered with makeup.
He would have refused the makeup. I know him well enough to know that, and it undoes me a little, understanding that he wanted me to see exactly what the last months have cost him.
Summer isn’t saying anything either, which for Summer is its own kind of loud.
“I’m not asking the world to forgive me. I’m asking her. And if she decides I haven’t earned it, if she still wants the divorce after tonight, I’ll sign the papers. Whatever she wants.”
The broadcast cuts to commercial.
The screen fills with bright colors and cheerful jingles, someone selling car insurance, someone else hawking laundry detergent, and the jarring normalcy of it feels obscene after what we just witnessed.
I sit there shaking, tears streaming down my face, unable to reconcile the mundane advertisements with the earthquake that just shook my entire world.
“Hannah.” Summer’s voice is gentle. “Hannah, breathe. You have to breathe.”
I try. The air doesn’t want to come.
“Baby?” My mother’s voice through the phone, worried. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”
“I-” The word catches in my throat. I swallow, try again. “I don’t know.”
Summer and my mother both start to speak at the same time, then stop. In the silence, the commercial break chatters on, selling things nobody in this room could possibly care about.
“I just watched him-” I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t have words for what I just watched. My husband, dismantling himself on national television. Taking every private failure and laying it out for strangers. Doing the one thing he’s never done in five years of marriage: putting me first.
The commercial break ends. The interview resumes. But I’m not really watching anymore. I’m too busy trying to hold myself together, too busy processing the magnitude of what just happened.
When it’s finally over, when the credits roll and the screen goes dark, the three of us sit in stunned silence. Summer refills her wine and doesn’t drink it either. On the phone, I can hear my mother blowing her nose and pretending she isn’t.
My phone buzzes. Unknown number.
I almost don’t answer. After everything, after the emotional devastation of the past hour, the last thing I want is to talk to anyone. But something makes me pick it up, some instinct I can’t name.
“Enjoy the performance?” A voice I recognize. Silky. Poisonous. “So touching. So romantic. Ask him who really helped him succeed. Ask him what he was really doing those late nights at the office.”
My blood goes cold.
“Who is this?” Summer demands, leaning toward the phone.
“Just a friend with some information.” Violet’s laugh is brittle. “But don’t take my word for it. Why don’t you come see for yourself? I’m downstairs. I have proof of everything. And I think you’re going to want to see it.”
She hangs up.
What was he really doing those late nights.
The question sits there doing exactly what she built it to do.
And it lands, that’s the sick part, for one second it actually lands, because she knows exactly where to push and she’s had a year of practice pushing there.
Then I catch myself doing it, standing in my own living room with her voice still in my ear, doubting my husband on her schedule, exactly the way I’ve been doing it for a year without knowing whose schedule it was.
That’s why she called before coming up. She wanted to hear what it did to me first. She got the anniversary and she got the interview and she got a year of my marriage, and she’s not getting this too. Not tonight. Not after what he just did.
“What the hell?” Summer grabs the phone from my hand, staring at the blank screen. “Was that-”
“Violet.”
“Hannah, don’t.” My mother’s voice comes back through the speaker, sharp with warning. “Whatever she’s selling, you don’t have to buy it. You don’t have to give her anything.”
“What’s going on?” Summer demands. “What did she say? Hannah, talk to us.”
But I can barely hear them. My mind is racing, trying to process: the broadcast, Violet’s call, the folder she claims to have, the proof of everything. I thought we were done with her. I thought Cameron firing her ended it. But she’s been waiting, planning, biding her time for this exact moment.
“She says she has proof,” I finally manage. “Evidence. She wants me to see it.”
“It’s a trap.” My mother’s voice is firm. “Hannah, listen to me. That woman has been trying to destroy your marriage for years. Whatever she has, it’s fabricated. It’s designed to hurt you.”
“She might be right.” Summer’s voice is quieter, more uncertain. “But what if she’s not? What if there’s something you need to know?”
The buzzer sounds from the lobby.
Summer and I look at each other.
“I’ll get it,” she says.
She crosses to the intercom, listens for a moment, and turns back to me with her face pale.
“It’s her. Violet. She’s downstairs with a folder, and the doorman won’t let her up. She’s asking for you.”