Which version was real? The one he'd mocked publicly for two years, or the one he'd captured in these photos? How could thesame man who had treated her as a joke see her with such... reverence?
Her chest felt tight.
She selected her favorite—a shot of her kneeling beside a student's desk, both of them bent over a math problem. The child’s face was turned away, out of frame for privacy, but Fiona’s was lit up with the joy of discovery. She looked like she was exactly where she belonged.
Fiona opened the app and uploaded the photo, then started typing before she could lose her nerve:
I'm scared.
I'm scared that I'm the kind of person who gets made fun of behind her back without knowing it. I'm scared that I'm the woman other women pity and men condescend to.
I'm scared that I'll never be sophisticated enough, sharp enough, cool enough to belong anywhere that matters. That I'll always be the small-town girl who doesn't get the references, doesn't understand the subtext, doesn't realize she's being laughed at.
Most of all, I'm scared that the person who was supposed to love me, saw me as a joke.
I'm scared that love isn't enough to make someone think you're worth protecting.
I don't know how to fix any of this. I don't know how to rebuild confidence that got demolished.
But I’m trying. And this photo helps.
Fiona looked at the photo one more time—at the woman who looked so confident, so sure of herself.
Her finger hovered over the post button.
"Fuck it," she whispered, and hit share.
Almost immediately,her phone buzzed against the nightstand.
She stared at Dean’s name on the caller ID, the familiar shape of it.
She answered, voice carefully neutral. “Hello?”
“You are not a joke. You were never a joke.”
His voice was rough, desperate.
"Dean—"
"I saw your post." The words tumbled out in a rush. "Christ, Fi, I saw your post and I—I can't let you think that for one more second. You are not the entertainment. You are not naive or stupid or any of the things I made you feel."
Fiona's chest tightened. He'd been following her. Had been watching her rebuild herself, post by vulnerable post.
"The person who was supposed to love you did see you as a joke," Dean continued, his voice breaking. "But that person was a fucking sociopath who didn't deserve you. That person was me, and I hate him. I hate who I was."
"Dean, you shouldn’t?—“
"I do." His voice was fierce now. “You're sitting there thinking you're not sophisticated enough, not sharp enough, not cool enough. But Fi, you're doing the most important work in the world. You're shaping human beings. You're teaching kids to think, to question, to believe in themselves."
Fiona's breath caught.
"I thought my job mattered because it paid more. Because it impressed people at dinner parties. Because it got me invited to the right events." His laugh was bitter. "But what the fuck was I actually doing? Convincing people to buy things they didn't need. Making rich companies richer. Creating meaningless content for meaningless lives."
"Your work isn't meaningless?—"
"It is!" The words exploded out of him. "It absolutely is, compared to what you do. You take kids and show them they're brilliant. You take kids who feel invisible and make them seen. You change lives, Fiona. Every single day, you change lives."
Fiona's eyes filled with tears.
