Page 89 of Falling Off Script

I lean forward, elbows on the table. “You don’t get it. I’ve had people confess crushes, obsessions, kinks—on camera, in DMs, live Q&As. This wasn’t like that. It wasn’t flirty or clever or asking for anything. It was honest.”

“So you backed away.”

“No,” I say quickly. Then, slower, “Yes. But not in the way you think.”

She tilts her head, therapist mode fully engaged.

“I didn’t ghost her,” I say. “We... slept together. After I heard it. She didn’t know I’d heard it, but I thought—I’ll give her what she wants. Me.”

“What version of you did you give her?” she asks quietly.

I swallow. “The one she wanted. Or... the one I thought she did.”

Her eyes are too calm. Too knowing.

“I gave her the fantasy,” I say. “Smooth. Confident. Attentive. I made it look like I meant every touch. Every pause. Which I had. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything real. I just... gave her what she’d imagined. And then I left before the silence could turn into truth.”

“You played the role.”

“It was a good role,” I say bitterly. “Oscar-worthy. Until she realized there was no real person behind it.”

She nods slowly. “And when the leak happened?”

“I thought she’d never talk to me again. So I stayed out of it. I didn’t post, didn’t comment, didn’t defend her, didn’t use it for PR—even when people begged me to. Tyler wanted to capitalize on it. I told him to drop it. I fired him later.”

“That was the right call.”

“It didn’t feel like enough.”

“Because it wasn’t.”

I look at her. She holds my gaze.

“You didn’t hurt her by walking away from the scandal,” she says. “You hurt her by walking away from her. Before the scandal even hit.”

“I was scared,” I admit.

“That she’d want more from you than you knew how to give?”

I exhale. “No. That she’d see what I didn’t have to give.”

She nods once. “And now?”

“Now I think I’m in love with someone who probably doesn’t even like me.”

“Do you want her to?”

I almost laugh. “You’re supposed to ask why, not if.”

“I’m not your therapist,” she says gently. “I’m your mom.”

That word lands harder than expected. I feel it in the back of my throat.

“You always knew how to read a room,” she says. “But reading a person? That takes more than strategy.”

“You’re a really annoying therapist,” I mutter.

She sips. “One of my clients once said, ‘He always knows what I need. But I never know what he needs. And that’s why I can’t trust him.’”

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