Prologue #3
Veronica laughs, light and professional, and pivots to the next question.
Something about favorite ingredients. Seasonal produce.
I answer on autopilot, my mouth forming sentences my brain has already abandoned, because a small, cold part of me has registered what I just said and is replaying it on a loop.
It’s not really the same thing, is it? Said with a tight jaw, an edge I didn’t intend, and a tone that, stripped of context, sounds exactly how a snob sounds when she believes she’s better than everyone in the room. God, why did I say that?
The rest of the interview passes in a blur of nodding and smiling and speaking in sentences I won’t remember. When the red light finally clicks off, I exhale so hard my whole body deflates.
“You did wonderfully,” Veronica says, standing, and then adds with a little tilt of her head, “though you might get a few comments about the blogger bit. People are touchy about that world.” She pats my arm. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
I don’t fully register the warning. Katie’s already crossing the studio floor, heels clicking, face bright.
“You survived!” She unclips my microphone and pulls me into a hug. “See? Not so bad.”
“Why did I suck that much?”
“You were charming and genuine, and your nana would’ve been proud.
” She holds me at arm’s length, studying my face with the specific intensity of a best friend checking for cracks.
“Now. Let me see where we can push the promo on this, get some clips circulating. We’ll grab brunch and talk through the next steps, and I promise you, this is going to be good.
” She squeezes my shoulders. “You’re extraordinary, Claire.
And that man is going to spend the rest of his life eating microwave meals and regretting every stupid thing he did. ”
I let her lead me out of the studio and into the morning, where the fog has nearly burned off, the town is waking up, and everything feels fragile and sharp and one breath away from shattering.
Katie takes me to brunch at the little café near the waterfront, the one with mismatched mugs and cinnamon sugar dusted over everything, and for a while, I almost believe her when she says I’m going to be okay.
She tells me Louis is an idiot and talks so fiercely about fresh starts that I let myself nod along.
For one hour, with coffee warming my hands and Katie filling every silence before I can fall into it, the world feels survivable.
Then I go home, unlock the door, and reality is waiting for me on the other side.
That evening, I’m sitting on the floor of the living room surrounded by the ghosts of a relationship I thought was real.
His running shoes are still under the coffee table.
Two of his hoodies are draped over the dining chair.
A pair of expensive headphones on the kitchen counter.
Little pieces of him scattered through the apartment, left behind not because he forgot but because they weren’t worth taking.
I’m in sweats and an old T-shirt, and I haven’t eaten since brunch. I still feel nauseous whenever I think about the car pulling away and the way he laughed at whatever the brunette said as they drove off. We never bonded, no biting or permanent mark.
My phone buzzes.
Louis, and every inch of me freezes.
I’ll come by tomorrow to pick up the rest of my stuff. If you could box it up, that’d be great. Thanks, doll.
I stare at the text for a long time, hating that he still thinks it’s okay to use that nickname on me.
Then I get up, stroll to the bedroom, yank open his side of the wardrobe, and start stuffing garbage bags.
Shirts. Trousers. A jacket I bought him for his birthday that he wore once and said wasn’t really his style.
Then I haul it all to the backyard, both bags, and dump them into the firepit near the back fence.
I go back inside for matches.
Extreme? Probably. Therapist-approved? Definitely not. But I watch the fabric catch and curl and blacken, the smoke rising into the evening sky, and for the first time since this morning, the tightness in my chest loosens by a fraction.
My phone buzzes again. Louis.
Well, if you wanted to make an impression online for your book, congratulations. But you could’ve warned me before dragging my name through the mud too.
What the hell?
I stare at the screen. Read it again.
I open my browser, which I almost never do because the internet and I have an arrangement where we avoid each other and we’re both happier for it.
My notifications are a wall of red. Tagged.
Mentioned. Quoted. Shared. The numbers don’t make sense.
Three hundred notifications. Four hundred. Climbing.
I tap the first one.
It’s a clip. Fifteen seconds of my interview, cut and compressed and stripped of everything except the worst possible moment. My face, tight and nervous, mouth moving, voice harder than I remember it being.
“I think there’s a difference between someone who has actually trained and put in the work in real kitchens and someone who just films themselves making pasta in nice lighting. It’s not really the same thing, is it?”
The caption reads: Cookbook author says food bloggers aren’t real cooks.
My stomach drops through the floor.
I scroll, my thumb moving before my brain can intervene. The comments load in waves. Dozens. Hundreds.
Who does this woman think she is?
Love how she gatekeeps cooking while selling a book full of her grandma’s recipes. Lol.
One-star review incoming. Already bought it. Already returning it.
Imagine going on TV and insulting millions of creators because you went to culinary school. Sit down.
My inbox. I open it and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Hate mail from strangers—people who have never met me, never read my book, never heard my name before today—and they’re furious with me.
Some of them are cruel, one saying I deserve to die.
Another calls me a snob with a pretty face and nothing behind it.
A third is a paragraph of insults so specific and personal that I physically flinch and drop my phone.
“Oh, shit! Why did I say that in the interview?”
Louis’s clothes are still burning while my career is doing the same.
My phone rings. Katie. She was going to come over with Chinese and watch a terrible movie with me, but I can’t do that, so I messaged her, canceling it.
She calls me again, but I don’t answer. Then my mom rings.
My sister. A number I don’t recognize. I reject every call.
My hands are shaking too hard to hold the phone steady, my vision blurring with tears I can’t stop.
My chest constricts until my lungs feel crushed.
I put out the fire with the hose, then stumble inside and barely make it to the sink before I’m sick.
There’s nothing graceful about it. Nothing dramatic.
Just my body turning against me because too many people have seen me, judged me, decided what I meant, and now the whole world is reaching for me through that phone.
When it finally passes, I slide down onto the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinet. The tiles are cold beneath my palms. The house is too quiet, while my phone keeps buzzing with notifications I will never, ever open.
Maybe Louis was right. Maybe I can’t even pretend to be the right version of myself for one hour on television.
I press my hands hard against the tile and try to breathe through the shame lodged in my throat, but it’s too big. Too heavy. Outside, smoke rises over the house, carrying the last scraps of today with it.
And I sit there, hollowed out and shaking, wondering how one wrong sentence managed to burn down everything I had left.