Chapter 8: The Comment That Changes Everything
The silver-draped chair held the ghost of his shape. Dee slumped onto the floor beside it, her back against its cool metal base, and scrolled.
The video was already trending. Comments piled up, a cascade of pixels repeating the same themes in different fonts. OMG he’s taken! Who is she?? Dee’s fake fainting was iconic lol. She scrolled faster, her thumb a numb metronome. Then she slowed.
The observations were sharper here, nestled in the algorithmic undergrowth. Did you see how he looked at her after the camera cut? That wasn’t acting. That was a whole documentary. He touched her waist for way too long to just be friends.
Her breath felt shallow. This was the price of their authenticity. They’d crafted a friendship so believable, so tactile and warm, that people could smell the truth they were both ignoring. It was unnerving.
Then she saw it.
A comment from a user named @cinemascope: They’re clearly in love and it’s sad they can’t admit it. This whole ‘mystery woman’ thing is PR 101. Watch his eyes. He only looks real when he’s looking at her.
It had 42 likes. One of them was a tiny, blue checkmark.
A verified account. MatthewBomer.
Her heart didn’t stop. It did something worse. It gave one colossal, painful squeeze, a feeling so intense it blurred her vision for a second. She stared at the tiny icon next to his name, a miniature version of his famous profile picture. He’d liked it. He’d seen this. He’d read those words—clearly in love—and instead of dismissing it, instead of being annoyed or amused, he’d tapped the like button.
The floor beneath her seemed to tilt. The soft lavender scent in the air turned cloying. This wasn’t part of the bit. This wasn’t playful banter for the cameras. This was a data point, a digital footprint left in a moment of… what? Carelessness? Honesty?
Her finger trembled as she refreshed the page.
The blue checkmark was gone.
The like from his account had vanished. The count was back to 41.
Dee sat perfectly still. The hum of the refrigerator in the back room was suddenly a roar. She refreshed again. Still gone. She closed the app, counted to five, opened it. Gone.
He’d undone it.
He’d seen it, liked it, then unlike it.
Why? Had someone on his team seen it? Had he realized the firestorm it could cause? Or had he, in a private, unguarded second, agreed with the sentiment, only to panic and retract it?
She dropped her phone into her lap as if it had burned her. It clattered against the tile. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The studio, usually her sanctuary, felt like a glass box. She was exposed. Seen.
Her mind raced, a frantic edit of a decade’s worth of moments. The hugs that lasted a beat too long. The way he’d call her sometimes late at night, voice soft, just to talk about nothing. The trust he placed in her hands, literally, every time he sat in that chair. Was it all just friendship? Or had she been reading a secret language he’d never intended to speak?
The phone vibrated in her lap. A text notification lit up the screen.
Matt: Forgot my jacket.
Her eyes snapped to the coat rack. A simple, charcoal grey bomber jacket was slung over the hook by the door. He’d walked out without it.
Dee: It’s here.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
Matt: Mind if I swing back? I’m just around the corner.
Around the corner. He’d been driving. Or sitting in his car. Or walking. For ten minutes. Had he been scrolling through the comments too?
Dee: It’s open.
She didn’t move from the floor. She heard the soft click of the door, the sigh of the hinges. His footsteps were quiet on the polished concrete.
He came into view, stopping a few feet away. He looked at her, crumpled on the floor, then at the phone face-up in her lap. His expression was unreadable.
“You okay?” he asked. His voice was careful.
“Yeah.” Her own voice sounded thin. “Just… decompressing. The comments are a lot.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes not leaving her face. He knew. He had to know what she’d seen. It was there, humming in the space between them, louder than any camera.
“Anything interesting?” he asked. A test.
A test.
Dee looked up from her phone, her honey-brown eyes meeting his. The glow of the screen lit her face from below, carving shadows under her cheeks. She gave a small, lifeless laugh.
“Interesting?” Not really. Just funny, I guess,” she replied, her voice carefully flat. She tapped her screen, bringing up the comment in question, and held the phone out toward him without getting up. “Your fan club has some theories.”
Matt took two steps forward and accepted the phone. His fingers brushed hers. He stared at the comment, his expression not changing. The studio lights reflected in the blue of his eyes, turning them opaque. He stood there, a statue holding her most dangerous piece of evidence.
“Ah,” he said finally. The single syllable was dry, empty. He handed the phone back. “The internet.”
“The internet,” she echoed, dropping the device into her lap again. It was a non-answer, a masterclass in deflection. She pushed herself up from the floor, her joints protesting. “Your jacket’s over there.”
She walked to the coat rack, needing to move, to break the stifling proximity. She lifted the bomber jacket from the hook. The material was soft, worn-in cotton, and it smelled overwhelmingly of him. She held it out, an arm’s length between them.
He didn’t take it immediately. He was watching her, that unreadable mask still in place. “Dee.”
“Matt.” She kept the jacket extended, a fabric barrier.
“That like…” he began, then stopped. He ran a hand through his freshly cut hair, a frustrated gesture. “It was a mistake. My thumb slipped. You know how those feeds are, just scrolling. My publicist would have an aneurysm.”
The explanation was clean, logical, rehearsed. It was the one she expected. It made perfect, professional sense. So why did it feel like ash in her mouth?
“Sure,” she said, nodding too quickly. “Makes sense. Thumb slips happen.” She forced a smile, the same one she gave the camera. “Especially when you’re dodging questions about your mystery woman. Gotta keep those thumbs busy.”
He flinched. It was minute, a tiny recoil in his shoulders, but she saw it. Her words had landed, sharp and intended to wound. The playful sarcasm had a new, bitter edge.
“Right,” he said, his voice tighter now. He finally closed the distance and took the jacket from her hands. Their fingers didn’t touch this time. He shrugged it on. “I should go.”
He turned toward the door. The moment was collapsing, sealing over with the same familiar concrete of their routine. He would leave. She would clean her shears. They would text tomorrow about scheduling. The crack in the world would vanish.
“Matt, wait—”