Chapter 18
A year after the slap, Tiffany requested to meet.
I said no.
Then I said yes.
Not for her.
For myself.
We met at Simone’s office.
Tiffany looked different without armor.
No heavy makeup.
No friends.
No father behind her.
She sat across from me and twisted a tissue in her hands.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said.
“Good.”
She nodded, accepting the hit.
“My father raised me to believe attention was currency. If someone else got it, I was losing.”
“That does not explain ordering me to kneel.”
“No,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t.”
I waited.
She looked up.
“I wanted you beneath me because I felt small. That is ugly. I know that now.”
It was the first thing she had said that sounded true.
I studied her.
“Are you sorry because you changed or because your life changed?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Both.”
I appreciated the honesty.
“I don’t forgive you today.”
She nodded.
“I understand.”
“But I hope you become someone who never needs another woman on her knees to feel tall.”
She cried then.
Quietly.
I left before her tears became my responsibility.
Outside, Alexander waited by the elevator.
“How was it?”
“Human.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“It was.”
May you like
He took my hand.
I let him.
