Chapter 12
Claire and I met for coffee two months later.
Not friends.
Not enemies.
Something stranger.
She had filed for divorce.
Mark had moved out.
She looked tired but clearer.
“I keep replaying the slap,” she said.
“Me too.”
“I should never have touched you.”
“No.”
She nodded.
“I was so sure.”
“That’s what scares me,” I said. “Lauren made you sure.”
Claire stared into her coffee.
“She knew exactly where to place the evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And Mark gave her the rest.”
“Yes.”
She looked up.
“I hope you sue her.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
Then she slid an envelope across the table.
“What is this?”
“A written apology. For you. For your employer, if you need it. For any record.”
I opened it later.
Not there.
The apology was precise.
No excuses.
No “but.”
No blaming emotion.
She wrote:
I harmed Hannah Miller because I believed false evidence created by Lauren Avery and enabled by my husband. Hannah was not involved with my marriage, my husband, or the messages sent under her name.
I cried when I read it.
Not because Claire fixed everything.
May you like
Because she gave me something people rarely give after public harm.
A clean correction.
