Chapter 16
Once.
Twice.
Then constantly.
Gabriel glanced at it.
“Do you want to know?”
“No.”
“That answer was very fast.”
“I have twenty years of experience knowing when a phone contains something unpleasant.”
“Twelve.”
“What?”
“You’re not old enough to have twenty years of adult phone trauma.”
I stared at him.
“Was that an attempt to calm me down?”
“Yes.”
“It was terrible.”
“I’m better with spreadsheets.”
I laughed.
Then the emcee invited Gabriel to the stage.
He stood.
Before leaving, he leaned toward me.
“If you want to go after this, we go.”
“I’m staying.”
He nodded.
Then walked toward the stage.
Applause followed him.
Gabriel spoke for less than ten minutes.
No theatrics.
No carefully staged emotion.
He talked about scholarships as access, not charity.
He talked about how talent was often distributed more fairly than opportunity.
He thanked the foundation’s staff.
He congratulated the students and fellows whose programs the gala funded.
At the end, the emcee asked him to remain for the presentation of a leadership award.
I finally looked at my phone.
Forty-three notifications.
My name was trending.
A video from the corridor had already been posted.
Not the whole confrontation.
The final portion.
My voice:
The public story that I destroyed my marriage because I could not give Julian a child is false.
Then:
I carried your silence for two years.
The clip ended as I walked away.
I felt sick.
Then I read the first headline.
KHLOE DUVAL BREAKS TWO-YEAR SILENCE ON JULIAN DIVORCE
Another.
“I CARRIED YOUR SILENCE”: KHLOE DUVAL CONFRONTS EX-HUSBAND AT GALA
Another.
PREGNANT KHLOE DUVAL RETURNS TO NEW YORK WITH GABRIEL LANCASTER
My fingers went cold.
I locked the screen.
When I looked up, Dalia was staring at me from across the ballroom.
Julian’s chair beside her was empty.
He had probably gone to find his publicist.
Of course he had.
Dalia looked down at her ring.
Then back at me.
I didn’t feel victorious.
That surprised me too.
For years, I had imagined what it would feel like if Julian finally suffered consequences.
I thought it would be satisfying.
Instead, I felt hollow.
Maybe revenge and freedom were not the same thing.
Maybe I had never wanted him destroyed.
Maybe I had only wanted to stop being the person he had destroyed.
After the awards presentation, the ballroom loosened into conversation again.
Gabriel returned to me.
“You looked at your phone.”