Sweet Romance12 min read
The Wrong Ride, the Right Truth
ButterPicks13 views
The rain struck like someone impatient to wash everything clean. I was under it with my son in my arms, waiting for a car that felt overdue and very necessary.
"I think this is ours," I said to myself, squinting at the black car with the twin eights on the plate.
The door opened; I climbed in, grateful to stop holding the umbrella. The leather smelled like money. Immediately it felt wrong.
"Where to?" a voice from the driver's seat asked, low and familiar.
I froze. "Excuse me," I said, and then tried to laugh it off. "I—I got in the wrong car. My husband—he drives the same model."
The driver didn't turn his head. He said only, "Long time, Jayden."
"My name is Jayden," I corrected, my fingers tightening around my son's jacket.
He smiled—none of the old softness was gone. "You always lied so easily."
I swallowed hard. "I didn't mean to—"
"Did you always say 'my husband' when you meant 'friend'?" he asked.
"My husband is what I call him," I said fast. "It's a nickname."
He watched me as if he could read the lines on my face. "There are only two of this model in the whole city," he said. "One belongs to me. The other belongs to an older man from real estate. Which one did you get into?"
My stomach dropped. "Oh. I… I misremembered."
His hand closed on a card before I could slip out. He handed me a business card when we reached my gate.
"You can call if you ever need help," he said.
I crumpled the card in my fist and told him, "I forgot you a long time ago."
The metal door of the car shut. The rain kept coming. I carried my boy up the steps thinking I had escaped complication, but the city has a way of finding what you try to leave behind.
The next morning my son spiked a fever. I carried him to the pediatric ward and left him in the care of Dr. Paul Donovan, a friend who liked to tell me men could be decent. He did what doctors do—he patched, reassured, and made room on a busy morning.
When my phone rang, the caller ID said "Editor — Carson." "Jayden, urgent assignment. Big scoop, need you now," the voice said. I couldn't ignore it.
"I can't leave my son," I said. "He's sick."
"You'll manage," Carson said. "Get it done." He did not say it unkindly; he said it like a fact.
I handed my boy to Paul for two minutes while I called the editor back. "Thanks," I mouthed to Paul. "He's fine."
When I returned to the corridor, a tall, familiar figure stood there watching my son sleep.
"His fever's down," I told him, keeping my voice low. "Thank you."
He smiled. "Is he yours?" he asked.
"Of course he is," I said too strongly. "What else?"
"You look tired," he said. "What's his name?"
"My son," I said. "He's three."
"He looks older," he said. "Strong face."
At that, my breath hiccuped. The boy's cheek pressed into my collar. The man looked at him the way a person studies a painting and suddenly recognizes the signature. I was suddenly very aware of how much they resembled each other—the angle of the nose, the slant of the eyes. I felt like a passerby caught staring at a private portrait.
"Jayden," he said softly, "do you mind if I hold him for a moment?"
"No," I answered before thinking. I had not intended to let him so close.
The man—Malcolm Kristensen—bent down like he had always bent, gentle and careful. The boy woke for a second, blinking. Malcolm laughed softly.
"Hi," he said, full and warm. "I'm Malcolm. Your mother is my friend."
"My son said his dad is a very bad man," the boy announced in his small honest voice. "Mom says my dad is a big bad guy."
The three of us looked at one another. Malcolm's face went through a series of small changes: surprise, denial, suspicion, a tightening around the mouth like a drawn curtain.
"Who said that?" Malcolm asked.
"My mom," the boy insisted. "She says my dad is a super bad guy and he's dead—poof!"
I felt my cheeks burn with shame and amusement. "He talks a lot," I murmured, trying to deflect.
Malcolm studied me. "You told him that?"
"I—" I stopped, because I could see how that line would trip us both into truths we weren't ready to speak. "I told him what kept him safe."
He stood a long time. "You always were good at protecting what you cared for," he said. "Even if the way you do it is messy."
"You're not exactly a neutral judge of messy," I shot back.
He smiled, then grew serious. "If there's anything—" He did not finish. He didn't need to. Somehow in that unfinished space was an offer that mattered and was dangerous at the same time.
Days bled into a pattern. My son's fever required regular visits, and Malcolm, for reasons I couldn't name, showed up more than coincidence would allow. Bowen Gordon—Malcolm's long-time friend, who limped with a theatrically injured leg—was there too, shadowing him. Paul kept up with my son's IV schedule. The hospital became a place I went to for pills and for truths.
"You two are conspiring," I told Paul once, when Malcolm and Bowen were both in the waiting area together. "Is this some new campaign?"
"They're friends," Paul said. "Malcolm's been worried about you."
"Why?" I snapped. "After five years you'd pack a whole show's worth of worry and park it outside a pediatric ward?"
"He used to love you," Paul said simply. "Maybe he still does."
"Then why doesn't he just say so?"
"Maybe because he thinks you won't listen."
One night, two weeks into it, I was at a publisher's dinner with Carson and a few others. I had to sit through one of those rounds where men drank as if the world were owed them color. Carson — the editor, who always smelled of tobacco and old deadlines — insisted. "One more," he demanded, handing me a glass.
"Carson, I can't—" I began.
A hand came down on the glass. "Jayden, you said you were done," Malcolm said, taking the glass from my hand and setting it on the table with a small controlled thud.
"Malcolm?" Carson stammered. "You—"
"She doesn't need that," Malcolm said. "Leave her alone."
Heads turned. "Who are you?" Carson demanded, thin-faced and furious at being interrupted.
"I'm the man who thought she deserved better than being told to drink when she clearly doesn't want to," Malcolm said. "And I'm the man who is not your employee."
Carson's face went through that public unravelling that men like to save for enemies: surprise, then indignation, then an angry mockery. "You think you can boss me in my own dinner?"
"I think you can stop treating the woman who writes our stories like a prop," Malcolm said. "And you can apologize."
Carson, whose power felt public and tiny, blinked, then sat back slowly, the room's eyes making his chest feel small. He muttered something that was supposed to be a retort, but it came out thin. The moment calmed; Malcolm's presence had shifted the air. People returned to their glasses, to their laughter, to the shallow habits dinner had trained them in.
That small public defense was nothing like the punishments I'd sworn would someday land on the men who hurt me. I wanted drama—an army of apologies. But the world rarely gave punishment in big public acts when a man with a name and a suit intervened to protect a woman he'd known. Still, people noticed.
It was after that night things escalated. An old wound reopened between me and Malcolm. A misunderstanding from five years ago, something that had been left to rot, rose and demanded we face it. Once upon a time, an incident with a woman named Eliza—someone whose story had intersected with ours—had been the trigger for our split. Eliza Bianchi had once told a lie to shield herself from a man who wouldn't stop harassing her. She'd said she had a boyfriend—Malcolm—and a story spun itself from that. Malicious rumor turned into a private interpretation and became a final crack between Malcolm and me.
"Why did you never tell me you weren't her boyfriend?" I asked Malcolm one afternoon in the company lobby where an exhibit of awards offered a glossy backdrop.
"I didn't know how to," he said. "When I found out, I thought—I'd protect you by staying quiet. I was wrong."
"Eliza told me she was your girlfriend," I said. "She told me you were together."
"I didn't know she lied until much later," Malcolm said. "I didn't want to drag you into it."
"Into what? Into truth?" I snapped. "Instead you dragged me into loneliness."
We fought without shouting, because shouting belongs to streets and nightlife; the lobby offered a more civilized stage for old wounds.
And then everything blew up.
Bowen—who had always been loud where friendship was concerned—decided to bring the truth to light in a way that could not be ignored. There was a charity gala held at the company's convention hall, a place where the city's power gathered in tuxedos and polished shoes. It was the sort of event where secrets go to hide in the open. Eliza Bianchi—who by then had become an executive at Malcolm's company—stood on a dais and smiled with a practiced warmth. I wore a dress I had bought because the life had told me to look less tired.
Inside, the lights were soft and committed; everyone who mattered sat within the cone.
"Good evening," the MC said. "Tonight we celebrate success."
I sat at the table opposite Malcolm. Seated between rounds of applause and speeches, I saw Eliza across the hall. Her smile put a line between the past and everyone else.
"Ready?" Bowen whispered, tapping my knee with theatrical ease.
"No more surprises," I told him.
He grinned. "I promised you at least one."
When Malcolm gave his speech about the company's future and about hiring practices and innovation, people clapped politely. Then he surprised everyone—he stepped down from the dais.
"I want to set something straight," he said. The microphone carried his voice across chandeliers and an audience used to polished lies.
Eliza watched him, polite but guarded. "Eliza," he said, looking straight at her, "would you mind coming up here for a second?"
Her smile faltered. "Malcolm, what's this—"
"You remember five years ago you told the story about being my girlfriend to save face from a stalker," he continued. The room shifted. "You know what that lie caused. You know how it hurt Jayden. I want the truth out."
"In public?" Eliza said, shock making her voice high.
"Yes," Malcolm said. "In public."
Eliza's face hardened. "You can't make me—"
"I can," he said flatly. "You said you had to protect yourself. You did—by letting Jayden believe something false. You let that lie stand in place of answers."
"That wasn't my fault," she protested. "I told a story to scare him away. He—"
"You told me I was part of your story," I said, my voice small but clear. "You said I was 'his girlfriend' when I came to the company. You let me leave thinking you'd chosen someone over me."
Eliza's expression moved quickly: smugness, a flash of shame, denial, then fury. "I was being harassed!" she snapped. "I needed to make him stop."
"You could have told me," I said. "You could have told Malcolm. Instead you built a lie and left me to pick up the pieces."
Her eyes darted, searching, trying to find an angle. The crowd around us sensed an audience inside an audience. Conversations dimmed. Phones were raised; the incident had that like-light you only get when someone decides to show a private wound in public.
"You made me out to be the villain," I said. "You let the city see me that way."
"That's not—" she started.
"Then tell them," Malcolm said, and he didn't step back. "Tell them now what happened. Speak the truth."
Eliza's lashes fluttered; the smile finally cracked. "I—" She swallowed. "There was a man who followed me. He used my number. He got into my building. I lied to stop him."
"And you told me the lie," I said. "You told me you were together. For years I thought you and I had been kept apart by a woman he loved. For years I blamed him and myself. You said nothing to fix that."
She looked at me and then at Malcolm. The room held its breath.
"I didn't mean for it to last," Eliza said. "I never thought—"
"You didn't think at all," I said. "You thought to save yourself and left me in the dark."
Her composure broke. For a moment she looked like a woman unmade: shock, then denial, then anger, then a raw pleading. "I told the lie to protect myself," she said, louder and more fragile than I expected. "I didn't know he'd let it go on. I didn't know it would hurt you. I'm sorry."
"Sorry," someone at the next table muttered, the word dissolving into the hall.
"You owe me more than sorry," I said. "You owe me the truth, and you owe everyone here the truth of what kind of person you chose to be."
Around me, people murmured and shifted. Phones recorded every flutter. Cameras found faces: some slack with astonishment, some sharp with pleasure. Nobody wanted to miss the moment when what had been private unfurled.
Eliza's vocal defenses crumbled into tears. She tried to speak again, but the air had turned. The crowd's reaction was immediate: friends who had called her colleague now glanced sideways; people who had smiled at her warmth suddenly looked past her.
"You're sorry?" a woman in a sequined dress said loudly from three tables away. "You lied and let a woman lose five years of her life. What was being sorry going to do for that?"
An older man at the head table shook his head. "This is theater," he said. "Not apology."
Someone started clapping—slowly at first, then the sound spread because people like the public exposure of hypocrisy. A few people whispered: "How long did she let it go on?" "Who else did she con with that lie?" The hall filled with fingers pointing at the dried petals of the old lie.
Eliza stood, making a show of dignity. Her face was flushed, and she spoke through a tight jaw. "I—"
"Sit down," Malcolm said coldly. "You can make a statement or you can stop pretending nothing happened."
She stuttered for a moment, then lowered herself into the chair with an air of someone who had been stripped of choices. "I will apologize," she said. "I am sorry to Jayden. I didn't know what else to do."
"Do you admit you lied about being my girlfriend back then?" Malcolm asked.
She stared at him, then at me, and finally said, "Yes."
The room reacted. Someone stood. "You lied," they said. "You cost someone five years."
"You think that's a small thing?" another voice demanded. "You destroyed a life for your convenience."
The movement turned into a tide. People who'd applauded her in other rooms now found their palms occupied by the weight of judgment. The press had already started a soft panic, cameras angling for every twitch. Reporters scribbled.
Eliza's face moved through stages: first defiance—"It was self-defense"—then an attempt at reason—"I had to protect myself"—then confusion and terror as the crowd closed in like an idea that had found its teeth.
She tried to stand again, to explain with a trembling voice, but someone pushed a camera lens into her face. "Do you think that justifies five years?" a reporter shot.
"I—" Her words cracked into nothing. She looked at the crowd and then at me, begging for permission or absolution. Malcolm's face was unreadable. Bowen sat back with a quiet satisfaction, fingers steepled. Paul stood like someone who had been watching a larger truth come into view and had braces for shock.
"I'd like to go now," Eliza whispered.
"No," I said. I didn't plan to humiliate her; I planned to extract truth. "You stay. Look at the people you used like props. Tell them why you thought a lie was less dangerous than the truth."
Her knees gave. She sat down again, the room a lens to her failing composure. She tried to speak the truth between sobs and stiff phrases, and people listened—recorders breathing, wine glasses balanced on thumbs, servers frozen behind trays.
When she finished, the crowd did not forgive. Some applauded my courage. A few stood silently, changed. The cameras kept rolling. Eliza tried to leave and couldn't. Members of the board who had once smiled at her professionalism now exchanged looks. A few walked away with the speed of people deciding not to be in the same story.
Eliza's punishment was public and complicated: it stripped her of comfortable indifference. She moved from confident executive to uncertain woman in the span of a speech. It wasn't a legal sentencing. It wasn't jail or fines. It was a social verdict: exposure, conversation, ostracism starting with whispers and not ending with speeches.
She stood in the middle of it all making small gestures—apologies, excuses, tears—and everywhere people reacted. Some turned their heads with discomfort. Some recorded. A few people came up to her and spat hard words. Others offered a cold, judicial stare.
When at last she left, the crowd dissipated like a tide. She walked away alone, cushioned by a single security escort, and the weight of every eye behind her. She tried to meet my gaze once, and I saw a flash of regret.
That night, after the gala, Malcolm found me in the empty lobby. "You didn't have to do that," he said.
"You wanted the truth," I said. "I wanted her to say it where it mattered."
"You were brave," he said.
"I was angry," I admitted. "And I was tired of being patient for answers."
He took my hand. "Considering all of that," he said, "are you going to let me make amends?"
"I'd like to hear why you never told me," I said.
He told me the simple thing that had festered for five years: he had been afraid to lose, afraid to fight, and afraid to make a scene that would cost him his calm. He finally told me the truth because he'd seen how lies become walls.
We walked out into the rain again, the city pattering like a crowd eager to be washed. The business card I had crumpled and thrown away? I fished it out of the green waste next to a tired trash can earlier that week and smoothed it flat. It still carried his name: Malcolm Kristensen, in a font that said steadiness. I kept it—ugly and softened—like a relic.
"Are you going to trust me?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "But I know this: my son is my first truth now. Any other truth has to respect him."
Malcolm looked down into my son's face and smiled with something like ownership and something like awe. "I know," he said. "I'll prove it."
We had crooked starts and clean apologies. We had the guilty crowd and the quiet ones. We had a public reckoning where a lie was peeled into its parts and left exposed. It didn't fix five years in a night. It did make people speak.
Later, months after, people would say that the gala was when Eliza's star dimmed and when honesty finally harvested a bitter crop. I would remember how hands clenched and how cameras recorded. I would remember, too, something smaller: Malcolm's hand finding mine under a too-bright chandelier.
When we left the gala, my son's small fist clutched mine. I reached into my coat and smoothed the crumpled card: Malcolm's name on it and the number I had never dialed. I slipped it back into my pocket and walked down wet steps with a man who had been a ghost in my life and who was trying—awkwardly, fiercely—to be a father now.
We crossed the street. The car with the tail number 88 slid by, obedient and expensive. I looked at it and thought of coincidence and of fated trouble. In my pocket, the crumpled card warmed.
The End
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