Page 47 of I Do, You Don't
I don’t realize I’ve moved until my knees press against Calvin’s desk. I’m half-leaning over it, the blue light from the phone painting my skin. Drew is up now too, her laptop forgotten, hands braced on her knees. Calvin doesn’t move much, but he leans forward, one elbow on the desk, chin in his hand, eyes narrowed. He’s hard to read. Maybe that’s the point.
Taking initiative, I reach over and mute the video at first. I don’t want to hear Gideon’s voice. not yet. I’m afraid of what it will do to the room. But the image is enough: Gideon’s shoulders squared, his tie cinched too tight, sweat gleaming on his hairline. He looks terrified. His right hand clamps the desk, knuckles white. Every few seconds, he draws a breath that looks painful.
Gideon doesn’t look down. He just blinks, then stares straight into the camera. For a split second, it feels as if he’s looking at me, through the glass and wires, past the years and the distance. My heart jumps. I’m sure the others can hear it too, pounding out of my chest.
Beside me, Calvin is coming apart. Not in any dramatic way, nothing anyone could headline, but the little muscle in his jaw is ticking, and that says everything. The room doesn’t smell much like whiskey anymore, not really. Now it just smells like my sweat.
On the phone, Gideon breathes in, holds it, and then starts talking. There’s no performance here, no practiced cadence or newscaster polish. His voice is raw, almost broken, every word fighting its way out. I nudge the volume up. Everyone in the room hears it. There’s no pretending otherwise.
“Lara Wood did nothing wrong.”
Drew gasps. The reporter, Matthew, flinches as if Gideon had slapped them. Calvin doesn’t move, but his fingers dig into the desk. He actually said my name. I never thought he’d do it, not like this, not in front of everyone. It’s one thing to send clients my way, but another to expose himself on a live stream. He keeps going, each word landing like a blow.
“I’m the man who left her at the altar.” His voice is close to breaking, the syllables splintered and unsteady. “I’m the one who broke her heart.”
Nobody knows what to do. The room freezes, then shudders into a kind of uncertain motion. Some people on stream look away, others stare, and a few are so fascinated they can’t even breathe. A woman beside Matthew, a boss, probably, starts to reach for him, then stops, her hand hovering in the no-man’s-land between pity and self-preservation.
A phone rings on camera. No one answers it.
Gideon squares his shoulders. “I failed her. I believed lies instead of trusting her. I betrayed her trust, and for that, I will spend the rest of my life trying to atone.”
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re glassy and wet, but he’s still holding it together. “I can’t undo the pain I caused. I can’t erase the story that’s been written about Lara, or about myself. But I can choose the truth. I can own what I did. And I can say, to everyone watching, that she is not what you made her out to be. She deserves peace. She deserves forgiveness.”
On the video, it’s dead quiet. The journalists look like they just watched someone slice themselves open on live stream. Someone off-screen mutters, “Shit,” and the mic picks it up, echoing all the way into Calvin’s living room. Drew’s hands cover her mouth. She’s crying.
The feed ends on Gideon’s final, unsteady nod. The silence afterward is sticky, heavier than the smell of whiskey pooling in the corners of the room. Drew is shaking. Calvin sits very still, hands folded, mouth drawn in a flat, unreadable line.
It’s then that I remember.
I remember falling in love with Gideon, his passion, his love for me, his confidence.
In the video, I caught glimpses of the old Gideon, my Gideon. And while I’m not ready, it makes me consider: would I be willing to risk another chance at love? We were both brave once; can we be brave again?
As I’m thinking, someone’s shadow glows against the frosted glass of Calvin’s door. Then there’s a sharp knock, three times, insistent and urgent. Calvin’s jaw clenches even harder. He seems to know who’s there. “Not now.”
But the knocking gets louder, more desperate. Calvin stands and moves toward the door. He’s careful, each step measured, but his hands shake. He yanks the door open.
Delilah. Of course it’s Delilah. She looks like she’s been dragged through every ring of hell and left standing in the hallway. Mascara streaks down her face, hair wild and half-loose, and what I assume is last night’s dress is wrinkled and damp in places that shouldn’t be damp. There’s a cut on her leg, a bruise on her shin, and her eyes are so red it almost hurts to look at them. No one says anything. The moment stretches, thin and sharp, like if you touch it, it might break.
“Calvin, please” She tries to step past him, but he blocks the doorway. “Go away,” he says, flat and brutal.
But Delilah isn’t going anywhere. “I need to talk to you,” she says. The words are shredded, desperate. “I need to make this right.” Her hands flutter, torn between reaching for him and hugging herself. Only then does she notice me, folded behind the desk, trying to look smaller than I am, not because I’m scared of her, but because I’m more focused on moving forward.
She crosses the room in three stumbling strides and drops to her knees beside my chair. Her hands are freezing. “Lara, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, already crying. My name sounds strange coming from her.
Calvin can’t take it. He grabs her arm, hauls her upright. He’s furious, his grip bruising. “No. You don’t get to hurt her anymore. Do you hear me? You’ve done enough.”
Delilah opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She’s shaking so hard I think she might fall apart right there on the rug. My heart is pounding. I can barely breathe.
“Wait.” My voice is steady, somehow. “Let her speak.” Calvin hesitates, but after a second, he lets go, and Delilah almost collapses onto the couch, barely holding herself together.
She’s small, hunched, a shadow of the girl I remember. She sits at the edge of the cushion, not touching me but close enough that I can smell the panic rolling off her.
She knots her hands together. “I know I’ll never deserve your forgiveness,” she says. Even Drew, still crying quietly at her laptop, looks up.
“I just need you to know why.” Delilah’s voice is a whisper. “I was scared. Gideon and I… he was always my person. Even before he was yours. Sowhen I found love with someone else, and that person rejected me, I panicked. I was afraid to lose love and my best friend at the same time.” Selfish. I tell her so.
“So because you lost the chance at love, you wanted your so-called best friend to lose it too?”
