Chapter 20: Footage leave
1515 Words
Dominic wasn’t seeing it.
He wasn’t listening.
And the same heat I had felt in the hospital—raw, humiliating, uncontrollable—rose up my spine again.
“Dominic,” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it, “who you want is not me. Men like you don’t end up with women like me. You end up with women like the one my ex married.”
For a split second, his eyes went dark.
Not figuratively.
Literally.
Black swallowed the brown so fast I had to blink, my heart stuttering as I told myself it was just the lighting, just the alcohol, just my imagination spiraling again.
“Payton,” he said coldly, “is nothing but a w***e, Thumper. Your ex-husband is a pig. And you are nothing like her.”
His words landed like a slap.
“She wishes she had half your worth.”
I stared at him, stunned—not comforted, not reassured. Just… confused. Disoriented.
What was wrong with him?
Dominic was everything society rewarded. Strong. Handsome. Intelligent. Secure. A man with a future that didn’t hinge on luck or survival. Men like him didn’t choose women like me and mean it.
So how did I explain that to him?
How did I make him understand without sounding bitter, broken, or ungrateful?
“Dom—” I started.
He raised one finger.
The movement was small, but final.
And then the room changed.
The sound dulled. The edges of the space felt closed in, like something heavy had dropped behind him—dark, unseen, pressing us into a pocket of air that suddenly felt too tight to breathe.
“Thumper,” he said sharply, “stop thinking like this.”
There was irritation now. Real irritation.
“I’m getting tired of you clinging to this idea that I should want someone like Payton. Like those girls from that night.” His jaw tightened. “You need to stop that train of thought.”
The words weren’t cruel.
But they were dismissive.
And that hurt more than cruelty ever could.
Because it felt like he wasn’t hearing what I was actually saying—that I wasn’t competing with those women, wasn’t jealous of them.
I was afraid.
Afraid of the gap between us.
Afraid of the world I didn’t belong to.
Afraid that no matter how kind he tried to be, I would always be the wrong choice in the end.
It felt like I had wasted my courage on him.
Like I had finally spoken a truth that mattered—and he had stepped right over it.
That hurt more than any insult my ex-husband had ever thrown at me.
Because Dominic wasn’t trying to tear me down.
He just didn’t seem to understand that I already was.
“Dominic,” I said quietly, my voice rough at the edges, “you haven’t dated. Not really. So how would you even know if someone as broken as me is worth this kind of time?”
I expected hesitation.
Doubt.
Something human.
Instead, he didn’t move an inch.
“Oh, now you’ve finally said it,” he replied, his tone sharp but controlled, like steel wrapped in calm. “Now your voice is out in the open. And since words clearly aren’t doing much after everything you’ve thrown at me tonight, I’m done trying to soften this.”
His eyes locked onto mine.
“You are entitled to your opinion about yourself,” he continued. “But you do not get authority over mine, Thumper. Not over what I see. Not over what I choose.”
The words weren’t yelled.
That somehow made them heavier.
Before I could respond, he stood. The scrape of his chair against the floor felt loud, final. He came around the table and held his hand out to me—not tentative, not demanding, but expectant.
I hesitated only a second before taking it.
His grip was warm, grounding, and far too steady for how unsteady I felt inside.
As we walked toward the exit, the same waitress appeared, holding two CD cases in her hands. I hadn’t even noticed Dominic paying the bill. Of course he had. Of course he handled it quietly, efficiently—like everything else in his life.
He took the cases from her without breaking stride.
No receipt.
No pause.
No conversation.
Just motion.
Just momentum.
And suddenly I was outside, walking beside a man who seemed entirely certain of himself… while I was falling apart in ways I didn’t know how to explain, carrying doubts that felt heavier than my own body as we headed toward his car.
Entering his car felt the same as before—and yet completely different.
Dominic moved to his side as soon as I was good on my seat, closed doors, he started the engine, and pulled us onto the road without a word. I didn’t need to ask where we were going. The turns he took, the familiar stretch of road, the way my stomach tightened with every passing minute told me everything.
Home.
His home.
My body felt heavy—full in a way I wasn’t used to, warm from the food, dulled by the liquor still buzzing in my veins. The alcohol made everything slower, softer around the edges, but it didn’t quiet my thoughts. If anything, it made them louder, harder to ignore.
By the time we reached the house, exhaustion had settled into my bones.
Dominic pulled into the garage and cut the engine. Before I could even unbuckle, he was already out of the car. The speed of it startled me—like he couldn’t wait, like standing still would make something crack.
A second later my door opened.
The sudden rush of cooler air made me sway, and I hadn’t realized how unsteady I was until his hand was already on me, firm at my waist, steadying me as I tried to stand.
“Careful,” he murmured.
I must have been more tipsy than I thought. My legs didn’t listen right away, and I had to lean into him for a brief, humiliating moment. His presence was solid—too solid—and that made my chest ache in a way I didn’t know how to explain.
I hated how much I needed the support.
I hated how natural it felt.
And as he helped me out of the car, guiding me toward the house, all I could think was how dangerous it was to feel this tired, this vulnerable, in a place that already held too many doubts.
Entering the house, I wasn’t prepared for what—or who—was waiting.
She stood there.
The same woman from the hospital. The one who had been beside Dominic’s mother. The one who had watched me like she already knew too much about me.
My chest tightened instantly.
Did Dominic call her while he was driving?
Had he decided I was too much to handle on his own?
Was I drunk enough that I missed him pulling out his phone, quietly asking for backup?
The thought made my stomach twist.
She looked a little nervous herself, like she wasn’t sure how this moment was supposed to go. Still, she didn’t hesitate. She helped me down the hall, her presence gentle but unavoidable, until we reached my room.
The door closed behind us with a soft click.
That sound—small, harmless—made something inside me finally crack.
Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them. Fear crawled up my throat, thick and suffocating, because suddenly everything felt too familiar. Too much like the beginning of another ending I didn’t survive the first time.
I turned to her, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it steady.
“Are you and Dominic in a relationship?”
The words felt humiliating the second they left my mouth. Small. Desperate. Like I was already bracing myself for the answer I thought I deserved.
She froze.
For a fraction of a second, she just stared at me—then she turned away, grabbed the clothes she had brought for me, and faced me again. Her expression hardened, not cruel, but firm. Protective.
“No,” she said immediately. Clearly. “Absolutely not.”
Her certainty startled me more than if she’d hesitated.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice as if grounding both of us.
“I’m here because Dominic asked me to help you—not because of him, and not because of me. You are not being replaced. You are not being managed. And you are not a problem that needs fixing.”
My breath hitched.
“I wouldn’t be here,” she continued, softer now, “if this was anything other than concern.”
The tears I’d been holding back finally spilled over, silent and hot. Not because of her answer—but because for the first time that night, someone had spoken to me without judgment, without pity, without expectation.
And that scared me more than being alone ever had.
- Writer
