Page 54 of Make Them Cry
He doesn’t speak.
But somehow, it’s the silence that feels most protective.
We end up in a little corner coffee shop tucked under an overhang—one of those hole-in-the-wall places with just enough weird to be comforting. The Bean Flicker. There are board games on the tables and indie music overhead and mismatched mugs that don’t match the plates.
Gage orders for both of us. Doesn’t even ask.
Somehow, he knows I like lavender syrup.
We sit in a booth near the window, and I finally breathe.
“I feel like my skin is wrong,” I say.
Gage nods slowly. “Like you want to crawl out of it and find a new one?”
“Yes.”
He looks down at his mug. “You shouldn’t have to feel that way.”
My laugh is bitter. “Tell that to the trolls.”
We sit like that for a while. He doesn’t force me to talk. Doesn’t ask how I’m holding up. Justlets me exist,like he knows that’s all I can manage right now.
Eventually, I ask, “Do you think Mason did it?”
He flinches.
Then recovers.
“Maybe. He’d know how to access those files. But if he’s smart, he didn’t do it himself. He’d have used a proxy. Something messy to trace.”
“Right,” I mutter. “A perfect smear campaign and deniability all in one.”
I close my eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m going to cry. I just feel…tired.
Later, we go for a walk. Just two coworkers. Totally casual. Definitely not hiding from a humiliating PR meltdown of epic proportions.
He buys me a sandwich from a food truck.
Points out a dog with a mohawk.
Tells me a story about the time someone tripped a fire alarm during a demo day at his last job and flooded the entire server closet. I laugh—genuinely laugh—for the first time all day.
It’s weird.
He’s weird.
But being around Gage feels like a reprieve from all the noise. No expectations. No judgment. Just… space.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask him later, when we’re sitting on a bench near the park and the sun’s starting to set.
He lifts a shoulder. “Because you deserve it.”
I turn toward him. “Even though I’ve been kind of… prickly?”
“Especially because of that,” he says with a small grin. “Prickly people are usually the ones worth knowing.”
