"No," I said, already turning away to grab my bag. He gave me this look, like a kicked puppy, and left alone. That's when Mora, our stage manager, slid up beside me. "You know he's not going to wait for you forever."
I froze. "Excuse me?"
She sighed like I was being deliberately obtuse. "I mean, he's trying. He's really trying, and you're completely cold to him."
I blinked at her. "How is this any of your business?"
"It's not," she said without hesitation, "but I was with him and Leo last night." She crossed her arms, hip pressed to the wall like she'd just claimed moral authority over the entire room,"He looked... in pain, June. Not just guilty—wrecked. He kept circling back to you in every conversation, like he couldn't stop himself. Talking about how much he loves you, how much he regrets what he did, how he wishes he could undo it."
Her voice softened for a second, almost conspiratorial. "He wasn't drunk. He wasn't trying to make excuses. He looked like someone who'd lost the air in his lungs and didn't know how to breathe without you."
Then, with a sharp tilt of her head, the softness vanished. "My god June! have you never made a mistake before?" she said, "Never been so confused, or so scared, or so desperate that you did something you didn't even recognize yourself for? Never wanted to rewind time, take back one second, one sentence, one choice that ruined everything?"
She took a step closer, closing the space between us, "Have you really never woken up in the middle of the night thinking,if I could just go back to that moment, I'd fix it? Because that's where he's living right now. That's all he talks about—how much he'd give to erase it." She tilted her head, her gaze drilling into me. "Do you even realize how many women would kill for someone to love them the way he loves you? To have someone so broken up over losing them that it physically hurts to watch?"
The audacity stunned me. "You are not my friend, Mora. You're not even close enough to me to say these things. You don't know what happened, or how it's affected me."
"Yes, I do," she snapped, eyes flashing. "Because he won't shut up about it. Because he's hurting." She jabbed a finger toward the floor like it was some invisible proof. "I know he hurt you,and yes, he did something stupid but come on! It was one mistake!"
"One mistake?" I laughed—sharp, humorless. "You call that a mistake? That wasn't forgetting my birthday or missing a dinner. That was a choice. A calculated, selfish, deliberate choice."
"Oh, come on," she shot back, her tone riding the edge between pleading and scolding. "It wasn't calculated—he didn't sit there plotting how to hurt you. He was confused. He's human, for god's sake."
"No," I cut in, heat rising in my voice. "Being human doesn't excuse betraying someone you claim to love. I trusted him witheverythingand he didn't just drop it, Mora. He smashed it. On purpose."
Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn't back down. "On purpose? You think he woke up one day and said, 'How can I destroy the best thing in my life'? You're rewriting this to make it easier to hate him. You're going to throw away six years over this?"
"HE threw them away!" I yelled, my voice bouncing off the mirrors like shrapnel. "He left me. He chose someone else."
"For two minutes—" she cut in.
"It doesn't matter if it was two minutes or two years—"
"—and then he came crawling back to you!" she finished over me, her tone triumphant, like she'd just scored some grand checkmate. "Begging you to take him back, and you're still acting like you're the only one bleeding here."
"Oh, I'm sorry—am I supposed to feel bad forhimnow?" I shot back, disbelief dripping from every word. "Am I supposed to patch up his wounds when he's the one who stabbed me?"
"He stabbed himself too," she snapped. "You think he's walking around fine? You think it doesn't eat him alive every single day? You think you're the only one who lost something? HE lost you!" she fired back, stepping closer, her chin lifting like she'd just delivered the final blow.
"Why are you even talking to me about this? This is NONE of your business."
Leo walked in just then, eyes darting between us. "What's going on? Why are you both yelling?"
I turned to him, my voice tight enough to cut glass. "You tell this woman to leave me alone and stop meddling in my business."
Mora let out a short, dismissive laugh and rolled her eyes like I'd just said something childish.
"My god, get off your high horse," she scoffed. "You think you're some noble victim in all this, but I think youenjoywatching him suffer. It feeds you, doesn't it? Makes you feel powerful having him at your feet, begging for scraps of your attention."
She jabbed a finger toward me, her tone sharp and unrelenting. "Because that's the kind of person you are—selfish, arrogant, everyone's little princess who thinks the world owes her something just for breathing, but underneath all that sweet, perfect exterior? You're cold. You're vindictive, and one day, when you've pushed away the only man who ever truly loved you, you're going to regret it."
She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "And by then, it'll be too late." and then she left.
I just stared at her. Utterly stunned. Turning to Leo, I said, "I want her out."
He hesitated. "I wish I could, but we're too close to the deadline and she's good at her job."
I knew he was right so I left without another word, my chest tight, my hands trembling like I'd just touched live wires. Every step felt heavy, weighted with things I didn't want to admit—things I didn't even fully understand.
