Chapter 6
* * *
The workday ended without fanfare. No triumphant wrap-up, no last-minute crisis—just the gradual unspooling of my resolve after the investor meeting had wrung me dry.
Jennifer left first, smoothing her skirt and announcing she was “going to let a stranger attack her back muscles for ninety minutes” with a massage she’d booked weeks ago as a contingency.
David tucked his laptop under his arm and headed out with a bouquet he’d had Sarah snag from her mother’s floral shop. “Rebecca survived another quarter; the least I can do is show up with lilies.”
Kevin locked his office door, sealing himself away with his data sets and the bottle of gin in his bottom drawer he thought no one knew about.
As for me, I smiled where I was supposed to, thanked who I was supposed to, and gathered my things with steady hands. I held it together.
Right up until I didn’t.
Failure.
The word had been circling since Margaret’s camera went dark. Chewing at the edges of my sanity.
Failure.
The elevator doors slid shut. My reflection flickered back at me in the stainless steel: neat bun, burgundy lipstick still intact, suit jacket without a wrinkle. Every detail said composed executive.
But inside, something paced.
By the third floor, the day started replaying in shards. Holt’s unnerving intensity. Nathan Bell’s smug grin. Davidson’s bored contempt on the follow-up call, like I’d wasted his afternoon.
“We need more concrete next steps,” I mocked the words, hoping it would make me feel better.
It didn’t.
The elevator hummed. The numbers glowed. I watched them tick up and tried to keep myself even. In. Out. But my lungs didn’t care. The air went in but refused to settle. It hovered somewhere high and painful.
By the time the elevator opened into the lobby, the marble floor looked too bright.
The security guard nodded. I waved. My feet carried me on autopilot past the revolving door and toward the waiting car.
Harold tipped his hat, ever patient, but I caught only fragments—gray hair, straight posture, concern he’d never voice.
Traffic lights smeared red and green across the windshield as Harold weaved through streets. Sirens wailed somewhere distant. Horns snapped and faded. My inbox winked up from my phone’s lock screen in a wall of red dots.
At the top of the notifications sat the Falkirk calendar block. 2:00 p.m. next Thursday. The invitation had come quickly. Then another: Following after for immediate debrief—Davidson.
My finger hovered over my thread with Read, craving distraction—connection—anything that didn’t reek of obligation or expectation.
His name sat there, steady and uncomplicated.
No title. No company. No demands. Just a word that had stopped feeling like a username weeks ago and started feeling like a constant.
But I couldn’t open it, the war of emotions inside of me overriding need and logic.
The car turned, the city tilting outside, and by the time the elevator doors opened, my mind was spinning—bag dropped on the console, jacket shrugged off and missing the hook entirely. It slid to the floor in a defeated slump.
The investors’ call replayed again, more vivid now that there was nothing to drown it out.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Margaret’s pen.
Not here. Not real. But inside my head all the same, hitting the same three-beat pattern it had while she’d listened to Davidson tell me my progress didn’t count.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The air went wrong first. Too thick, as if the room had been filled with invisible cotton. Every inhale felt like sucking through another layer. My vision narrowed at the edges. Colors dimmed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Stop,” I whispered.
The word sounded small in the room. Useless.
The chorus didn’t pause. You failed. You wasted their money. You’re dragging everyone down with you. Faces flashed in a glitchy parade: Sarah at her desk, Rebecca’s canceled Hawaii trip, Kevin’s twins, Candace crying on my couch. All of them tethered to Elion. To me.
You’re the common denominator.
“You’re fine,” I told myself. Out loud this time. “You’re fine. The call wasn’t even that bad.”
Liar.
My pulse picked up, thudding in strange places—behind my knees, in my fingertips.
I pressed my fingers to my temple, as if I could physically clamp the noise down. It only shoved it sideways, making room for another voice to come through.
You’re running out of time, Emma.
The room tightened.
My phone buzzed against the counter, the sound sliced through the fog, sharp and bright. I turned it over.
Read: How did it go today?
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Of course, he’d reach out exactly when I was least able to answer. Because that was how the universe worked, wasn’t it?
“How did it go,” I echoed, a brittle laugh tearing free. “It went beautifully. Everyone loved me. I’m getting a pony.” My voice cracked on the last word.
I shouldn’t answer. I wasn’t sane. Wasn’t the pretty contained version of myself that he knew.
Better to let it sit, to come back when I’d patched myself together.
Tomorrow I could make a joke about Falkirk nitpicking numbers, turn it into banter.
Keep him in that safe, tidy box where he thought I was competent and amusing and a little intense, but in an attractive way. Not like this.
But my hand moved anyway.
I didn’t remember unlocking the screen. Didn’t remember finding the keyboard. The next thing I knew, a single word glowed back at me in blue.
Me: Horribly.
“No.” Heat flushed up my neck. “No, no, no.” I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth as if I could stuff the admission back in.
Too late. The tiny “delivered” check mark sat there, calm and final.
Everything seemed to warp around me. My fingers dug into the edge of the counter until my knuckles ached.
Stupid. You’re so stupid. He didn’t sign up for this. He wanted witty documentaries and food debates, not… this.
Ping.
Read: Oh no. What happened?
He doesn’t actually want to help, the chorus hissed. He wants proof. He wants a story to tell later. “You wouldn’t believe this woman I talked to. She was a complete disaster.”
I looked down at the glow. One part of me wanted to pour everything out—the investors, the way Davidson’s smirk had lodged behind my eyes, the feeling of being picked apart piece by piece.
Another part screamed shut up, shut up, shut up. And that voice was loudest, drowning out all the others.
Me: It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand.
Harsh. Dismissive. The kind of line to end conversations.
Good, some broken piece of me thought. That’s better. Push first. Mark the exit. If he leaves now, it’ll hurt less.
Ping.
Three dots flickered across the screen, vanished, came back.
Read: I’d still like to try.
Something inside me lurched.
He’s lying, the chorus sneered, scrambling to regain footing. He likes the idea of trying. He likes the version of himself who is patient and kind. He doesn’t want you; he wants to feel like a good man. To use you.
Pressure sat heavy on me.
The phone blurred. The countertop tilted. My other hand curled in the hem of my shirt, twisting until the seams protested, searching for something to pull on that wasn’t my own skin.
My thoughts scattered, then reassembled in sharper lines. If I kept talking, I would say too much. If I said too much, he would see all of it. The cracks, the rot, the frantic mess.
I could stop this. Right now.
My thumbs moved before the rest of me could vote. Tears streamed down my face, brought on by the incessant voices. The truths they screamed.
Me: Leave me alone.
The words shot across the screen like a bullet. Immediate regret followed, hard and hot, rising with dizzying speed.
“God.” My head fell in defeat, a sob crawling up through me. “Why did I do that?”
Because it’s easier, something small inside me answered. You always pick the easier path.
Tears spilled, hot tracks sliding down my cheeks.
Ping.
Read: No.
I blinked once. Twice. The word stayed.
No.
Not a paragraph. Not a lecture. Not a clumsy attempt at reassurance. Just two letters that broke the script clean in half.
The chorus stuttered. For a heartbeat, they had nothing.
Then they regrouped, scrambling to contain the breach. He must not have understood.
Another message.
Read: I’m not leaving just because you told me to.
My inhales went ragged, hitching in shallow bursts. I pressed the heel of my hand between my brows until it hurt. My father’s voice rushed in, crowding the edges of my mind. Emma, soften yourself. No man will want a wife like this.
My mother’s tone followed, sweet and poisonous. Oh honey, you bring this on yourself. You’ve scared people off since you were little—I’ve told you that a thousand times.
Then the questions hit, no space between them. Why wasn’t I good enough? Why couldn’t you love me like you loved everyone else? Why was I always the problem?
The edges of my mind blurred, voices breaking into the space around me, freed from the prison. Why? Why? Why?!
Me: Why?
The word looked small on the screen, almost childish. A raw, cracked laugh tore free—somewhere between hysteria and surrender.
Maybe this was it. Maybe I’d finally broken reality cleanly enough to get a hallucination. Maybe none of this existed beyond my own skull.
Ping.
Read: Because the woman I know wouldn’t shove me away over a bad meeting. Something else is going on here, and I refuse to let you face it alone.
I stared at the words so long my eyes started to burn.
The woman I know.
He didn’t say “the profile” or “the messages.” He didn’t hedge with seems or appears. Just a statement, like he’d decided on a version of me and was sticking to it.
The chorus rallied, furious. He doesn’t know you. He knows curated answers and filtered photos and the way you write when you’re calm. He hasn’t seen this. If he did, he’d bolt.
Tears spilled, faster now, dripping off my jaw onto the back of my hand.
Me: How? Why?