Chapter 6
Eleanor sat at the kitchen island that night, hands wrapped around a mug she wasn’t drinking from, watching Gabriel loosen his tie across the room.
“You went to the meeting,” she said.
“I went to the meeting.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
“I know.” He crossed the kitchen, crouched in front of her chair so they were eye level, the way he always did when he wanted her to actually hear him instead of just listening. “You didn’t have to ask.”
Eleanor looked down at the mug. “I used to work three jobs before I met you. Nobody ever filmed me then either. Nobody cared enough to.” A small, humorless laugh. “Funny what it takes to get noticed.”
“Eleanor.”
“I’m fine, Gabriel.”
“You’re not. And you don’t have to be.” His thumb traced slow circles against her knuckles, patient in a way almost no one who feared him would ever believe he was capable of. “You can be furious. You can be humiliated. You can hate every single second of that video still being online. I need you to stop performing fine for my benefit.”
Something in her chest finally gave.
“They laughed,” she whispered. “The whole restaurant. Nobody stopped it.”
“I know.”
May you like
“I stood there with soda dripping off my face and I thought — this is what twenty years of being invisible finally looks like. Not kindness. Just an audience.”
Gabriel didn’t say anything for a long moment.
