Chương 8
She waited.
Howard scrolled slowly.
"This continues."
Brandon nodded.
"Yeah."
Howard's mouth tightened.
He read aloud.
"If she runs, she was never serious."
My father became very still.
Howard continued.
"If she stays, Brandon may finally have made one useful decision."
I stared at Brandon.
He stared back at me.
The humiliation shifted shape.
It had not been simple class cruelty.
At least not all of it.
Clarissa had known exactly who I was while calling me trash.
She had staged contempt to see what I would tolerate.
My father said, "She intended to provoke my daughter."
Brandon shook his head.
"I don't think she intended it to go that far."
"She tore her dress."
"I know."
"She struck her."
"I know."
"You keep saying that as though repetition improves you."
Brandon pushed back from the table.
"I came down here to help."
My father stepped forward.
"So far, you have demonstrated that your family surveilled my daughter, discussed manipulating her, and then assaulted her in a room full of witnesses."
"Dad."
He stopped.
I looked at Brandon.
"Did you know any of this before tonight?"
"No."
He answered too quickly.
I heard it.
So did Howard.
Officer Ramirez's pen paused.
Brandon saw all three reactions.
"I mean, I knew my mother didn't like you."
"That isn't what I asked."
"No, I didn't know about the messages."
"What did you know?"
He stood up.
"I knew she was going to push you."
The words came out quietly.
My chest tightened.
"Push me how?"
"I don't know."
"Stop saying that."
"I don't."
He dragged one hand through his hair.
"She asked questions about you last week."
"What questions?"
"Whether you cared about money."
"And?"
"Whether you'd leave if things got uncomfortable."
I stared at him.
"What did you tell her?"
He looked away.
"Brandon."
"I told her you weren't like that."
"Then what?"
He swallowed.
"She said tonight would prove it."
The room went completely silent.
A dull pressure formed behind my eyes.
"You knew she was planning to test me."
"Not like this."
"You knew."
"I thought she'd be rude."
"And that was acceptable?"
"No."
"But you brought me."
He looked at me.
"I thought if you handled her, she'd back off."
My laugh came out before I could stop it.
It sounded ugly.
"Handled her."
"That's not what I meant."
"It's exactly what you meant."
"No, Emma."
"You brought me into that ballroom knowing your mother intended to humiliate me enough to see whether I'd stay."
"I didn't know she'd humiliate you."
"What did you think pushing me meant?"
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
I stood.
My chair scraped hard against the floor.
Officer Ramirez shifted but did not intervene.
Brandon reached toward me, then stopped himself.
"I was trying to make things easier."
"For who?"
"For us."
"No."
My voice shook.
"For you."
He stared at me.
"You wanted me to absorb her cruelty so you wouldn't have to choose."
"That's not fair."
"There it is again."
He looked down.
I took one step back from the table.
For some reason, the thing I pictured was not the slap.
It was the morning three weeks earlier when Brandon had been in my kitchen eating cereal directly from the box because I had forgotten to buy milk.
He had been barefoot.
He had kissed the top of my head while I answered a client email.
That memory felt more fraudulent than anything Clarissa had done.
"Did you tell her I was coming tonight?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her what I was wearing?"
His expression changed.
That was enough.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
Howard looked sharply at him.
My father said, "What?"
Brandon rubbed the back of his neck.
"She asked."
"When?"
"This afternoon."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
I almost shouted.
Instead, my voice dropped.
"What did you tell her?"
"Yellow dress."
"And?"
"That it was simple."
Natasha's theater-intern comment flashed through my mind.
Clarissa asking whether nobody had told me it was formal.
They had known exactly what I would wear before I arrived.
"Did she ask you to encourage me to wear it?"
Brandon hesitated.
My father swore under his breath.
Brandon looked at me.
"She said not to tell you to change."
I shut my eyes.
That afternoon, I had held up two dresses over a video call.
The yellow one and a dark blue cocktail dress my mother had bought me years ago.
Brandon had said yellow.
Definitely yellow.
"You picked it."
He said nothing.
"You told me the blue one looked too formal."
"I thought—"
"You picked the dress they mocked."
"I didn't know they were going to mock it."
"You knew she wanted me underdressed."
"No."
"You just said she told you not to let me change."
"I thought she wanted to see whether you cared about appearances."
I stared at him.
The distinction apparently still made sense inside his head.
Howard placed Brandon's phone flat on the table.
"Officer."
Ramirez looked at him.
"I think you should see these messages."
Brandon turned.
"They're private."
"They may be relevant."
"My mother's going to say I stole them."
"You did not steal the device, correct?"
"No."
"Then we'll document how you accessed them."
Brandon looked panicked.
"Can she get in trouble for those texts?"
Ramirez's expression stayed neutral.
"I'm not giving you a legal conclusion in a hotel conference room."
He nodded.
That answer seemed to disappoint him.
My father watched him carefully.
"You're afraid of your mother."
Brandon stiffened.
"You don't know me."
"No."
My father glanced at me.
"But I'm starting to understand what my daughter was dating."
I expected Brandon to lash out.
Instead, he sat back down.
For the first time that night, anger left his face.
What replaced it looked smaller.
"I've been afraid of her since I was twelve."
Nobody spoke.
He gave a short laugh.
"That's pathetic, right?"
I did not answer.
May you like
He stared at his hands.
"When my dad left the first time, she made me call him every night and report where he was."
