My brain went white with static.
“Nora, table eight's up! Hurry, get off the phone!”
A voice barked from the other end of the line.
“Coming, I'm coming.”
She answered quickly, her voice small and frantic.
“Nora, take care of yourself. Don't lose sight of what matters.”
The line went dead.
I stood where I was, cold all the way through.
Five years from now, I was a waitress.
Cedric had destroyed my career, destroyed my body, destroyed my life.
My nails dug into my palms, and the sting pulled me back.
My phone rang again.
This time it was Cedric.
“Norie, where are you? Are you at home?”
His voice was urgent, threaded with a tension he was trying to hide.
He was worried about the laptop.
Worried I'd seen everything on it.
I forced my voice steady.
“No, I'm almost there.”
He exhaled, and the strain drained out of his tone instantly.
“I'm craving rice noodles. Can you go grab some for me? That place from last time.”
That place was two bus stops away.
He was sending me on an errand to get me out of the apartment.
I made a sound of agreement.
“Sure.”
I ducked into the stairwell alcove on the first floor.
Five minutes later, Cedric climbed out of a cab.
He sprinted for the elevator and disappeared inside.
I turned around and went to buy the noodles.
Now wasn't the time to blow things up.
I had the bag in hand and was heading back when my phone rang again.
“Norie, Judy came in third. She's really upset, she won't stop crying……”
“I'm going to go be with her for a bit. You eat without me, okay? I'll take you out to celebrate tomorrow.”
His voice was gentle, careful.
I kept mine flat.
“Okay.”
He didn't catch anything off, and hung up.
I looked down at the rice noodles.
After all this time, he still hadn't remembered: he loved these noodles, but I didn't touch the stuff.
I was about to toss the bag when something across the street caught my eye. A bakery.
Judy Galloway was walking out the door, a boxed cake swinging from one hand.
She was on the phone, laughing so hard her eyes crinkled into crescents. Not exactly the picture of someone “really upset.”
I stepped back to stay out of her line of sight.
She was too excited to notice me, still talking.
“You can't put all your eggs in one basket. What if his complaint against Nora doesn't go through? Then I'd have nothing.”
Whoever was on the other end said something, and she let out a smug little hum.
“I've got dirt on Cedric. His thesis was ghostwritten. I already have the complaint letter drafted.”
Everything went sharp.
Judy was going to report Cedric.
She'd pushed him to report me, and all along she'd been preparing to report him too.
No matter which one of us went down, she'd fill the vacancy.
If both of us went down, she'd be sitting pretty.
“Mad at me?”
Judy laughed out loud.
“His family's loaded. He doesn't need a civil-service job to land on his feet. Besides, he's so obsessed with me he'd never stay angry.”
She glanced at a notification on her phone.
“Gotta go. Cedric's coming over to cook for me. I need to get home.”
She hung up, humming a song as she walked away.
My head was still buzzing.
So Cedric could cook.
Three years together, and he had never once cooked a meal for me.
It wasn't that he couldn't. He just didn't want to. Not for me.
I looked down at the rice noodles in my hand, then dropped the whole bag into the trash can beside me.
Back at the apartment, the laptop in the study was already shut.
Of course.
He'd come back for one reason: to close that laptop.
