Michael turns slightly toward him. “You want reality?” he asks. “Here’s reality. Emily sabotaged her.”
Emily’s face flashes with rage. “You are insane.”
Michael reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out his phone. The movement is slow, deliberate, like he’s pulling a document from a briefcase. He taps the screen and slides it across the table, not to you, but to Emily’s mother.
“Read it,” he says.
Emily’s mother squints. Her lips move as she reads, and then her face drains as if the words are leeching the color out of her.
“What is it?” your mother asks, voice trembling.
Emily’s mother doesn’t answer. She just stares at Emily, and there’s a new expression there, something raw and stunned.
Emily lunges for the phone, but Michael pulls it back before she can grab it.
“No,” he says, firm. “You don’t get to snatch evidence the way you’ve been snatching narratives.”
He looks at the table again. “Six years ago, when she found out she was pregnant,” Michael says, nodding toward you, “she was scared. She told Brandon. Brandon panicked. He was about to do the right thing, the bare minimum, and show up.”
Your mouth goes dry. Aiden’s hand is warm in yours, grounding you.
Michael’s voice stays calm, but it sharpens at the edges. “Emily found out. And Emily did what Emily always does. She got involved.”
Emily’s eyes blaze. “You don’t know me.”
Michael nods. “I do now.”
He turns to the family. “Emily called Brandon from a blocked number,” he says. “She told him she was you. She told him you were lying. She told him the baby wasn’t his and that you’d ‘trap’ him for money.”
Your vision blurs.
No, you think. No, no, no.
Michael continues, and the restaurant seems to shrink around his words. “Then she sent him a fake email thread,” he says, “screenshots that made it look like you were talking to another guy about using Brandon.”
Your mother’s hand flies to her mouth. “Emily…”
Emily shakes her head hard, like she can shake the truth loose. “That’s not true,” she whispers, but it sounds thin.
Michael’s gaze moves to you. “Brandon believed it,” he says, quieter now. “He ghosted you because he thought you were playing him. And Emily… you watched her fall apart.”
You feel heat in your face, not embarrassment now, but fury. You remember the weeks you waited for a reply. The messages left on read. The calls that went straight to voicemail. The way you blamed yourself for being too much, too needy, too hopeful.
All that time, it wasn’t you.
It was her.
Emily’s voice rises. “He’s twisting things! Brandon is trash. He would’ve left anyway.”
Michael nods once, as if conceding the point. “Maybe,” he says. “But you made sure. Because you didn’t want her to have what you wanted.”
Emily’s laugh comes out brittle. “And what is that? A broke guy who panics?”
Michael’s eyes don’t blink. “Attention,” he says. “And the family’s approval. You needed to be the winner.”
Your uncle Greg finally stops pretending this is entertainment. “Emily,” he says, stern, “is this true?”
Emily’s gaze darts around the table, looking for someone to save her with a joke. No one laughs. The room has turned into a courtroom without meaning to.
Emily’s mother’s voice cracks. “Tell me the truth.”
Emily’s chin lifts. “Fine,” she says, too loud. “Fine. I called him. So what? I was protecting the family!”
You feel the blood drain from your face. Protecting the family. As if you were a disease.
“Protecting,” Michael repeats softly, like he’s tasting poison. “From what? From her being loved?”
Emily points at you, furious. “She was always the ‘sweet one.’ Always the ‘strong one.’ Everyone felt sorry for her. I was tired of it.”
