Page 35 of The Authenticity Clause
He saw a single tear escape from the corner of Leo’s eye and trace a silent path down his cheek. He reached up, his thumb gently wiping it away, mistaking the tear of agonizing guilt for one of overwhelming joy.
He leaned in and kissed him, a kiss full of promise, of future plans, of a love he believed was built on the most honest foundation he had ever known. He was completely, blissfully happy, with no idea that he was kissing a ghost, no idea that the entire, beautiful structure of his newfound certainty was about to be utterly and irrevocably demolished.
Chapter 24: The Unraveling
The weekend was a prolonged exercise in manufactured courage and subsequent collapse. Leo spent forty-eight hours rehearsing a confession. He tried it out on his cactus (the cactus was unimpressed). He wrote it down, a frantic, desperate scrawl, then burned the paper in his sink. He ran the scene in his mind a hundred times, each with a different outcome, ranging from the spectacularly disastrous (Julian throwing him out of his apartment) to the wildly optimistic (Julian, after a moment of surprise, laughing and pulling him into a hug).
No scenario felt right. How could there be a right way to tell the person you loved that the beautiful life you were building together was set on a rotten foundation?
But Maya was right. And Julian, with his declaration of certainty, deserved the truth. His words, “I’ve never felt this certain about anyone,” had become a haunting indictment, a constant, looping refrain against Leo’s conscience. He had taken Julian’s certainty and turned it into a cruel joke. He had to give it back, no matter if it cost him everything.
So, on Monday morning, Leo walked into the V&S office with a heavy, leaden resolve in his gut. His stomach was a knot of anxiety, and each breath felt shallow and tight, but he had a plan. He would wait until the end of the day, when the office wasquiet. He would ask Julian to talk. He would confess everything, with no excuses, no deflections. He would lay his own shattered heart at Julian’s feet and accept whatever judgment was rendered.
He saw Julian across the office, talking to one of the designers, and a sharp, physical ache of love and impending loss nearly took his breath away. Julian looked up, caught his eye, and offered a small, private smile, a smile that saidwe share a secret. The irony almost made Leo buckle.
He walked to his desk feeling like a man on death row taking his final walk. He just had to get through eight more hours before he brought the guillotine down on himself.
He didn't get eight hours. He didn’t even get eight minutes.
“Leo, good morning!”
Sarah’s cheerful voice sounded beside his desk. She was holding a folder and a tablet, her smile bright and completely unaware that she was about to detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of his life.
“Hey, Sarah,” Leo managed, forcing a smile that felt like cracking plaster.
“Fantastic news,” she said, waving the folder. “HR has completed the preliminary background check for your new position. Everything’s in order, so we can get the final paperwork started.”
Leo’s body went rigid.Background check.A simple, standard procedure that he, in his love-drunk haze, had completely forgotten about.
“Oh,” he said, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. “Great.”
“Just one tiny little thing,” Sarah said, swiping a finger across her tablet, her tone casual. “They couldn’t find any record of the ‘Scrimshaw Institute’ you listed for your project management certification. Must be a typo, right? HR just needs you to clarify the name so they can finalize the file.”
Time stopped.
The ambient noise of the office—the quiet clatter of keyboards, the soft chime of a phone, David’s laugh from the marketing corner—all faded into a high-pitched, deafening buzz in Leo’s ears. He looked at Sarah, but her face was blurry, out of focus. All he could see were the words on his fake resume, projected on the back of his eyelids:Certified Agile Project Management, Scrimshaw Institute, 2022.A name he had invented in ten seconds because it sounded stately. A small, stupid, insignificant detail.
A time bomb he had set and forgotten.
“Leo?” Sarah asked, her smile faltering slightly. “You there? Scrimshaw?”
Leo opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His throat was a desert. He could feel the blood draining from his face, a cold, sickening sensation of pure, abject panic. This was it. This was the end. Not on his terms, not with a quiet, private confession, but here, in the middle of the office, under the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent lights.
“It might be… an online program,” he stammered, the words weak and useless.
Sarah frowned. “Maybe, but they usually still have a website or some kind of registration record. Are you sure it wasn’t, like, ‘Shawshank’ or something?”
“What’s going on here?”
Julian’s voice.
It cut through the fog of Leo’s panic like a razor. He turned his head slowly, mechanically. Julian was standing a few feet away, a cup of coffee in his hand. He had been on his way over to start their day with a secret smile, a quiet good morning. Instead, he had walked into the blast radius. His expression was one of calm curiosity, but his eyes, those sharp, intelligent gray eyes, already knew something was wrong. They were darting between Leo’s ashen face and Sarah’s confusion, and they were starting to connect the dots.
“Oh, Julian! Perfect,” Sarah said, turning to him cheerfully. “You can help. We’re just trying to clear up a tiny detail on Leo’s file for the new position. HR can’t seem to verify the Scrimshaw Institute.”
Leo looked at Julian, a silent, desperate plea in his eyes.Don’t. Please, don’t. Not here. Not like this.
The name “Scrimshaw” hung in the air. And Leo saw the flicker of recognition in Julian’s eyes. A memory. He remembered. The non-existent name, the non-existent certification. The tiny detail he had noticed and dismissed weeks ago.
