20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Lina
Val doesn’t waste time. By midmorning, she’s already at her laptop, jaw set, fingers moving fast. “I’m handling social media,” she says. “You don’t need to read the comments. You don’t need to explain yourself. You focus on healing.”
She drafts the statement herself, short, firm, impossible to twist.
She informs everyone of my well-being. That there was an incident with an alcohol induced male outside the shop. That it was handled quickly. That a bystander intervened and helped keep me safe. No names. No speculation. No drama.
She posts it everywhere. And something unexpected happens. The comments shift.
At first it’s concern—
Is Lina okay?
So glad Lina’s safe.
Following that, gratitude.
Thank God someone stepped in.
Glad the owners are alright.
After that, it evolves into a different thing altogether. Defensive. Protective. Fierce.
People from town start correcting rumors before Val gets a chance. Regulars I recognize by name. Customers who come in every Saturday. Parents who bring their kids throughout the day or after school. Other small business owners.
This place is family. Don’t spread lies about people who work their asses off. They contribute to our community. Show them some respect.
Someone posts about how kind we are. Someone else shares a story about staying late to help them place a custom order. Someone else mentions how cozy and safe the shop is and how they can’t imagine why anyone would try to disrupt that.
Offers start rolling in. If you need anything, call us. We’re watching out. We’ve got your back.
I sit on a stool behind the counter, sore and exhausted, scrolling through it all in disbelief.
The staff drifts back to their stations, the day inching forward like it’s attempting to feign that nothing seismic happened. Val watches them go, and afterward, looks at me.
“Hey,” she says gently. “Can we talk for a minute? In private?”
I nod and follow her towards the back, into the small office.
She closes the door behind us, leans against it, and stands there for a moment, like she’s bracing herself.
“I owe you an apology,” she says, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. When she opens them again, there’s guilt waiting there.
I blink. “For what?”
What could she possibly be sorry for?
Her face crumples—enough to tell me this has been sitting with her for a long time.
“For not seeing it,” she says. “For not understanding who he really was.”
I try to speak up to protest, but she keeps going.
“He fooled everyone, Lina. Me. My husband. All of us.” Her voice cracks. “My husband was best friends with Cole for years. Years of cookouts, outings, dinners, and holidays. And watching that video—“ She stops, presses her lips together as she rejects it. “I can’t unsee it. Or unhear his words.”
She turns her eyes towards me again, eyes burning now.
“The names he called you,” she says, voice tight. “A fucking whore.” Her hands curl into fists. “And not like someone lashing out in the heat of the moment. There was menace in it—meant to reduce you to those words. He was trying to make you feel like those words were true.”
My jaw tightens.
“I never understood how someone who claims to love you could say things like that,” Val continues. “Not only to hurt—but to dominate. To make you smaller.”
She exhales, shaky. “And the way he kept telling you what you were allowed to do. Like your life still belonged to him.”
She regards me, eyes wet. “That was really fucking unhinged.”
I nod once. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Val’s gaze drops to the floor. There’s more.
“I keep thinking about how many times you almost left,” she says after a moment. “How many times you told him you were done.”
I swallow, tasting the sour memories.
“He sensed it, didn’t he?” she continues. “Every time you started slipping out of his reach.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to.
“That’s when he’d call me,” Val says, her voice breaking. “He’d confide in me. Tell me how scared he was of losing you. How much he loved you. How he had no clue what he’d do without you.”
She presses a hand to her mouth.
“And I believed him,” she whispers. “But he was only arranging a grand production. I thought I was helping. I thought I was protecting you and whatever regret you might have for leaving a good thing.”
Her eyes fill. “I helped convince you to stay. Every time. God! What the fuck was I thinking?”
The words linger between us, weighty and devastating.
“I didn’t realize he was manipulating both of us,” she says. “Using me—your best friend—to keep you where he wanted you. And now, after seeing that video…after seeing who he really is—“
Her voice cracks fully now.
“It kills me, Lina. Knowing I played a part in keeping you there.”
I step closer. “You didn’t know, and you didn’t. I stayed all on my own,” I say quietly.
“But I should have known,” she insists. “I should have questioned it. The way he always controlled what you wore. How he controlled where you could go and who you could be around. In some weird way I thought it was his way of loving you. But saying that all out loud, I can see how fucked up it really is.”
She drags her hands down her face.
“Seeing the video made it click,” she says. “That wasn’t new behavior; it was just the first time it wasn’t hidden.”
She observes me, the sorrow and disappointment within herself is written all over her face.
“And you lived with that for fifteen years,” she whispers. “Starting when you were sixteen. You were only a fucking kid, Lina.”
Kid resonates more than I anticipated. It catches me somewhere deep, in a place I didn’t know still existed. I let the word linger between us, quietly claiming a part of me.
“Yes,” I say.
She gives a small nod. “I don’t know how you didn’t lose yourself.”
“I did,” I answer honestly. “More than once.”
Val nods, absorbing that.
“I hope you realize,” she says firmly, “I don’t see you as weak. I see someone who survived something most people don’t recognize as threatening until it’s too late.”
I meet her gaze. “I refuse to be pitied,” I say.
She nods. “I know.”
“I’m angry,” I tell her. “And I’m allowed to be. But I won’t live in misery. If I do, I’d never get back up. And I worked too hard to find myself again.”
She steps forward and grips my hands.
“I see it now,” she says. “All of it. The words. The intimidation. The obsession.”
“And it ends here,” she adds. “For good.”
The first time Cole used cruel words towards me was six months into dating. By then, he’d already made sure I was head over heels.
I was sixteen—young enough to believe intensity meant love, old enough to believe being chosen by someone so certain of me meant I’d found forever.
He was nineteen. Older. Confident and experienced. Attentive and flattering.
I didn’t see it as grooming. I didn’t have the language for that yet.
The words came out of his mouth so heated and sudden.
“You fucking bitch. You stupid fucking bitch!” Spat in anger over something small—something so insignificant I don’t remember.
I do remember freezing. The shock of it. The way it didn’t match the person I knew, nor did it match the reason for that level of rage.
I remember staring at him, trying to understand where that anger could have come from.
After days of giving him space because I was so hurt, he came to me crying.
He apologized. Said he didn’t mean it. Said he was damaged—messed up—by his ex. Told me she’d hurt him in ways I couldn’t understand yet. That she’d broken something in him.
He made it sound like a wound. And somehow, I became responsible for healing it.
He told me the pain his words caused was nothing compared to what he’d experienced. That I was strong. That I was different. That loving him meant patience. Understanding. Forgiveness.
He made me sound noble and that I was the only person to understand and accept the challenge of healing him.
I was too young to understand that love doesn’t come with a debt attached.
Too young to recognize the red flag waving right before my eyes—that when someone calls all their exes crazy, it’s usually not the exes.
But at sixteen, I didn’t question it. I internalized it. I told myself his pain mattered more than mine. That if I could only love him better—be gentler, quieter, more understanding—he’d stop hurting, and stop hurting me.
I didn’t get that apologies without change aren’t remorse; they’re fucking rehearsal.
And once the door opened for words like that, it never fully closed again. Over time, it got much, much worse.
Even years of therapy didn’t help. Every time I reached my breaking point, Cole would cry, promise he’d change, swear this time would be different.
And for a while, I believed him because he made it easy to believe.
Three months. Sometimes four. He’d become the husband I’d fallen in love with—or at least the man pretending to be him.
The yelling stopped. The manipulation faded.
He’d buy me gifts, hold my hand, tell me I was his whole world.
Then little cracks appeared. A sarcastic comment. A slammed door. A night where I somehow became the problem again. Before long, I found myself tiptoeing, weighing every word, apologizing for things I didn’t do, and questioning how we returned to the same place.
I know now it wasn’t change. It was maintenance. Just good enough behavior to convince me to stay before his true self came back. Then, each time the real Cole came back, he was worse than before.
Val glances up at me now, eyes soft but steady. “Fuck him!” she says. “He’s not fooling any of us ever again.”
She sees it, and God, I’m so grateful. I have her, my family, and friends who know the truth. And this town—this place we poured ourselves into—showed up in ways I didn’t know I needed.
They don’t ask for details. They don’t demand explanations. They decide, collectively, that we’re worth defending.
The shop settles by late morning. The hum of ovens, the murmur of customers, the comforting normalcy I’d been craving.