POV Raegan
"Another rejection email, or are you just staring at your phone for the aesthetic?"
Scarlett's voice cuts through the fog of my living room at seven PM on a Tuesday, and I realize I have been sitting in the same position on my couch for approximately four hours.
The phone screen has long since gone dark.
My fingers forgot to scroll somewhere around rejection number twelve.
"This one said they would keep my resume on file for future opportunities."
I set the phone face-down on the cushion beside me.
"Which is restaurant code for 'we heard you sabotaged a Michelin inspection and would rather hire a raccoon than risk our reputation on you.'"
Scarlett drops onto the couch beside me, shopping bags rustling as she deposits takeout containers and a bottle of red wine on my coffee table.
Her dark curls are windswept from the cold outside, and concern creases the corners of her eyes despite her attempt at casual delivery.
"How many is that now?" she asks, already uncorking the wine with practiced efficiency.
"Fourteen applications. Fourteen polite rejections."
I accept the glass she pours, though the thought of actually drinking it makes my stomach turn.
"Adrian's rumors spread faster than I expected. Apparently I am now known throughout the Manhattan culinary scene as the woman who tried to destroy Lumière from the inside."
"That is complete bullshit, and anyone with half a brain cell knows it."
"Half a brain cell is generous for most executive chefs." I pull my knees to my chest, making myself smaller against the cushions. "I have been blacklisted, Letty. Two weeks of applications, and not a single callback."
Scarlett opens the takeout containers, releasing the smell of pad thai and spring rolls into the apartment. My stomach lurches violently, and I press my hand against my mouth until the nausea passes.
"You need to eat something." She pushes a container toward me. "When was the last time you had an actual meal?"
"I had toast this morning."
"Toast does not count as a meal, Raegan."
"I cannot keep anything down. Everything makes me want to vomit. I think my body has decided that stress is best expressed through my digestive system."
Scarlett's chopsticks pause halfway to her mouth. She studies my face with an intensity that makes me want to hide under the nearest blanket.
"How long has that been going on?"
"A few days. Maybe a week." I shrug. "It is probably just anxiety manifesting physically. My entire career imploded, and three men I thought I loved turned out to be exactly the kind of people who throw women away when believing them becomes inconvenient."
The anger I expected to feel comes out flat, hollow.
I have cried so much over the past two weeks that my tear ducts appear to have gone on strike.
"Speaking of those three." Scarlett sets down her chopsticks. "Jared showed up at my shop yesterday. He looked like someone had run his heart through a meat grinder and served it back to him raw."
"Good." The word carries less satisfaction than I want it to. "He deserves to feel terrible."
"He said they have security footage proving Adrian tampered with your sauces. He said Winnie orchestrated the entire thing."
"That is wonderful for them." I take a sip of wine and immediately regret it when my stomach protests. "They can feel vindicated while I remain unemployable. Problem solved."
"Rae, they know you were innocent. They are trying to make this right."
"Make it right?" The laugh that escapes me sounds unhinged. "Letty, they looked me in the eyes and chose to believe Winnie over me. An apology does not fix that."
The tears I thought were depleted make a sudden reappearance.
They spill down my cheeks in hot, messy streams while Scarlett pulls me into her arms.
"I loved them." The sobs wrack my body with violence that terrifies me. "I loved all three of them, and I know that sounds insane because how can one person love three people at the same time, but I did. I do. And they threw me away like I was nothing."
"You are not nothing." Scarlett's voice cracks against my hair. "You are extraordinary, and they are idiots who will spend the rest of their lives regretting what they did."
"I feel like such a fool."
I pull back, wiping my face with trembling hands.
"I told myself this could work. I convinced myself that I belonged in their world, that love could bridge the gap between who I am and who they are. And the first real test we faced, they failed completely."
"That is on them, not you."
"Is it?" I shake my head, exhaustion pressing down on my shoulders with physical weight. "Maybe I was naive to think men like that would ever choose me over someone from their own world. Maybe Winnie was right, and I was always just a temporary distraction."
"Do not do that." Scarlett grips my shoulders, forcing me to meet her eyes. "Do not let their failure make you question your worth. You are brilliant, talented, and the most loyal person I have ever known. Their inability to see that is not your flaw."
The tears keep falling despite her words.
"And I am so exhausted." The confession comes out barely above a whisper. "I cannot keep food down. Everything makes me nauseous. I have been sleeping twelve hours a day and still waking up feeling like I have not rested at all. I am probably just—"
The sentence dies in my throat.
My brain performs a calculation I have been avoiding for days, maybe longer.
The exhaustion. The nausea. The fact that my period is late, which I attributed to stress because stress does that sometimes, except…
Scarlett's eyes widen slowly as she watches the realization dawn across my face.
"Rae." Her voice comes out strangled. "When was your last period?"
"I do not know." Panic claws at my chest. "I have been so focused on the job search that I lost track. Maybe six weeks ago? Seven?"
Scarlett is on her feet immediately, grabbing her jacket from where she dropped it on the armchair.
"Where are you going?"
"Do not move. I will be back in twenty minutes."
She disappears through the door before I can respond, leaving me alone with the math I cannot stop running.
The dates. The nights.
The three men whose faces I cannot stop seeing every time I close my eyes.
This cannot be happening. This absolutely cannot be happening.
Scarlett returns in exactly eighteen minutes, a pharmacy bag clutched in her hands. She crosses to where I still sit frozen on the couch and presses the bag into my lap.
"You need to take this. Whatever the result is, we handle it together. But you need to know, Rae."
I stare at the box inside the bag. Pink packaging.
"I cannot do this. I cannot be pregnant."
"You can, and you will, because not knowing is worse than any answer that stick can give you." Scarlett pulls me to my feet. "Go. I will be right here when you come out."
My legs carry me to the bathroom on autopilot. The fluorescent light flickers overhead as I close the door and lock it behind me.
The test instructions are simple. Three minutes. Two lines for positive, one line for negative.
I follow the steps with mechanical precision, then set the stick on the counter and slide down until I am sitting on the cold tile floor.
Three minutes.
One hundred and eighty seconds to discover whether my already shattered world is about to fracture into pieces too small to ever reassemble.