23. Anouk
Anouk
Iwake up the day of the meeting, the one I was deemed not even good enough to attend, and stare at the ceiling.
I didn’t sleep well. That doesn’t surprise me. Heartbreak and rest don’t go well together.
I have some decisions to make. Small ones. Just for today. I can go to work, to a place that treated me like shit, or I can take the day off. The latter feels like weakness, like running away.
Anouk, you got hurt. You are still hurting. It’s okay to be weak. It’s okay to run away for a moment and heal.
I sit up and reach for my phone.
I purposefully ignore my work email. No way am I looking at that today. Instead, I go straight to the message app.
Me: I’m taking a sick day, Dot.
Dot: Good. Take as much time as you need.
But for Dot, honestly, I’d have walked out of HelixSphere yesterday and sent a resignation letter today.
I didn’t because I learned a long time ago that you don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
I also learned not to make decisions when I’m sad, depressed, anxious, exhilarated… or any seesaw of emotions, up or down.
“Morning.” Finn sticks an empty coffee cup under the coffee machine and presses a button.
“Morning.” I sit at the kitchen island.
He’s in sweatpants and a tank top. He’s just come back from his morning workout since he has the day off. He tends to work out in the morning on his days off or when he has the night shift, and in the evenings when he has the day shift.
He pushes a coffee cup in front of me and settles next to me on a barstool.
He waits until I’ve finished half the coffee.
“You wanna tell me what you’re doing at home on the day of the board presentation you've been killing yourself for?"
I don’t answer. It’s easier to stick to coffee.
“Annie,” he insists, his tone loaded with warning.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble.
He holds up his phone. “You want me to call your boyfriend?”
I shake my head. Tears prick my eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend any longer.”
“Hmm.”
Finn’s not one to jump to conclusions. He doesn’t judge. He’s patient. He assesses. He gives everyone a fair hearing. After all that, if he thinks you deserve a thumping, well then, according to him, you have it coming.
“You broke up?”
I circle the top of the coffee cup with a finger. “Yes…I think so.”
He arches an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
I lick my lips and finally look him in the eyes. “He didn’t want me to present.”
Finn’s jaw clenches. “Why?”
I shrug, as the humiliation of his words, of Erin’s, washes over me. “Because of the…you know…the stutter.”
“Fuck.” He cups my cheek. “You, okay?”
“No.” I let out a long breath, shaking my head slowly. “But I will be.”
He tips his chin in acknowledgment, like that’s a perfectly acceptable answer.
He kisses my forehead. “Strawberry pancakes?”
I sniffle. “Yes.”
Miss Helen used to make strawberry pancakes when something bad happened—when Finn came home with bruised knuckles, when one of us got yelled at, or when the world felt especially unsafe.
Finn gets the ingredients together, and within minutes, he’s whipping the batter.
He always makes it from scratch just like Miss Helen. At the state home, they used to make it from a box. They never tasted right.
I slowly tell him about what I overheard and then how Luther spoke to me.
“He didn’t even want me to be in the meeting room, Finn.” And that was the cruelest blow of all. I’m so much of a liability that he thought even my presence would harm his career.
He sets the griddle on the gas stove. “Did you want to be in the room?”
I don’t have to think about it. “Yes.”
“Even though he didn’t want you to present?” He turns the stove on and drops a sliver of butter on the griddle.
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you not to attend the meeting?” Finn opens the fridge, pulls out a box of strawberries he bought at the farmer’s market, and sets them on the counter.
“I was disinvited.”
I grab a strawberry and bite into it. I wipe the juice that trickles down my chin with a paper towel.
“By whom?”
“Erin.”
“So…not Luther.”
I hesitate. “He…allowed it.”
“That’s a fuck up for sure.” Finn checks the griddle heat with a wooden skewer, and when he feels the sizzle is right, he pours a ladle full of batter onto it.
“But,” he adds, glancing at me, “that’s not the same as being a villain.”
I give him a quizzical look. “Huh?”
Finn grins. “Annie, he’s like what, twenty-nine-thirty?”
“And?”
“And he’s barely out of the larval stage of executive life.” He flips the first pancake. “He’s under ridiculous pressure. That doesn’t excuse it—but it explains it.”
I pick up another strawberry and look at it critically. Finn washes all the fruit and vegetables we buy at the farmer’s market in water and vinegar, so the berries look Instagram shiny. Not that either of us has a social media account.
“He said I was a liability to his career.”
“If he thinks that because of your stutter, he’s a fucking moron.”
“That’s better,” I mumble, biting into the lush flesh of the glistening berry.
Finn lets out a soft laugh. “Annie, I’m always on your side, you know that. But I don’t hate the guy. He’s trying to show his father he’s ready when he’s not. The fact that he thought your stutter would be a problem shows that he’s got a long way to go when it comes to becoming a good leader.”
Finn starts working on the second pancake.
“He broke my trust, Finn.”
“He screwed up,” Finn says, grabbing a cutting board and a knife. “But the measure of a person isn’t the mistake. It’s whether they stand up, take responsibility, and make it right.”
I chew my lower lip, feeling a wave of sadness. “It won’t matter, Finn.”
Finn stops chopping the strawberries and gives me a measured look. “Annie, love, just because he fucked up doesn’t mean you give up on him.”
Theoretically, logically, I can see what he’s saying, but emotionally—no way, José, that man is toast!
“I can’t…won’t trust him again.”
When you grow up not being able to trust your own parents—my mother, who was an addict, and my father, who was a good man but flaky in his own way—you learn to take care of yourself because you know no one else will.
I made a mistake with Luther. I leaned on him. I let him in. I surrendered to him, and look what happened? My insides feel like they’ve been ripped apart with a machete.
“I fell in love, Finn.”
Finn sighs. “I know.” Then he grins and winks at me. “But, Annie, I’m a lover of Hallmark Movies. I believe in redemption arcs. They require effort, but they lead to a happy ending.”
I roll my eyes.
When we were teenagers, Finn fell sick, spent a week battling the flu on the couch, and ended up watching holiday Hallmark movies. He concluded, and maybe it was because he was high on a virus, that they were the perfect remedy for sadness. It’s been a go-to for us since then.
“I can’t afford redemption arcs,” I tell him honestly as I rub a hand over my heart. “This pain is….” I trail off because I don’t have the words.
I’m still raw from what happened. I spent the night alone, crying until there was nothing left inside of me. I didn’t want Finn or anyone else. I needed to sit with it by myself, to let it exist without being softened or explained away.
In the light of day, the pain has changed. It’s no longer sharp—it’s a dull, relentless ache that lives everywhere at once, crowding my thoughts, pressing against my ribs, settling way under my skin.
I fell in love with a man who is embarrassed by me. By my stutter. By something I can’t control.
The damage of his words is still moving through me, like a delayed shockwave.
I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I don’t have any experience with heartbreak—no map for how to survive the moment when the person you love betrays you so completely.
All I know is that right now, the agony seems endless.
“You know what Miss Helen always said?” He slides a plate of pancakes in front of me. “There’s nothing so bad that a pancake with whipped cream and strawberries can’t make better.”
She wasn’t wrong.
We end up going out later to meet up with Finn’s shift mates.
Kezar Pub is a short walk from our place and is popular with first responders. The bartenders there know the firehouse schedules, and no one blinks at soot-stained boots or turnout jackets tossed over chairs.
I know Finn’s colleagues well, as they’ve been working together for several years now. They’re all close; they have to be to walk into burning buildings, trusting each other with their lives.
Today, they’re being protective, and they’re being obvious about it. They know I’m upset about something, and they’ve decided that I need cheering.
Luis is the big brother everyone should have. “Milk. That’s what you drink when you’re having a shit day.”
I frown. “I thought you drank alcohol.” I raise my bottle of Modelo.
He shakes his head. “That’s where people go wrong.”
Kieran, who has four dogs and shows pictures of them constantly, shakes his head. “I’m lactose intolerant, milk is gonna fuck me up.”
“Then, you drink oat milk,” Luis offers patiently.
“Ugh!” Tamsin shakes her head. She’s one of two women on the team. She’s from Memphis and sounds like a Southern belle, even when she’s cussing you out. “Just let her drink beer, alright? You drink up, darlin’, and don’t listen to Luis, who’s crazier than a two-dollar bill.”
None of them asks me what happened.
They don’t ask why my eyes are red-rimmed or why I look like I haven’t slept in days.
They don’t ask where Luther is.
They’ve met him—a couple of times—at Finn’s and my place, when they were over, and Luther stopped by to pick me up for dinner.
They simply comfort me without being intrusive. They crack jokes, so I’ll laugh even if it’s only for the moment. They give me respite from the hurt.
Finn doesn’t hover, but he squeezes my hand occasionally, just checking in to make sure I’m alright. I know he’s super worried when he turns a woman down at the bar to get with her at her place because he doesn’t want me to be alone.
Messy and imperfect Finn might be, but his unconditional love is the reason I’m still standing.
For a moment there, I thought that Luther and I would build a new constellation—a relationship that is just as strong.
Now I feel foolish for all those castles I built in the air, especially since I know better.
Except for Finn and Miss Helen, no one else has loved me.
Sure, Dot and Mila at work are my friends, and they’re supportive, but they’re not my middle-of-the-night people. That’s what I thought Luther would be. He couldn’t even treat me with decency and professionalism, forget love and loyalty.
He kicked me out of a meeting because I stuttered.
I can’t wait for the grief to pass so I can become angry and stay angry.
I can’t wait for my love for Luther to die because I know it can.
My love for my mother died. Hell, even my hate for her died. Now, all that remains is a distant grief and a trauma response.
I want to feel that way about Luther—so he can’t touch me again, can’t hurt me again, can’t make me feel small again.
Love isn’t worth it, I decide as I drink my third Modelo.
You should’ve known better, Anouk. Cristina said she loved Papa and you—and look where that got you.