Regret12 min read
“I Thought He Was Mine — Then She Showed Up”
ButterPicks13 views
“You’re not the lead,” he said.
I blinked. The room felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air conditioner. My name is Dani Richards. I am a writer who woke up living a life I had read before. I knew the plot, the turns, who loved who. I also knew one brutal fact: in that book, the man I loved — my small-uncle, Gaspard Wright — ended up with someone else. He loved the other woman. I thought that knowing would save me.
“Gaspard,” I said. “You promised.”
He looked at me as if I were a child who had asked for the moon. “No, Dani. The lead is Fia Chandler.”
My chest went cold. The word hit me like a slap. Fia Chandler. The name in the book. The “heaven-sent” woman. The woman who had been written to get everything.
“You signed me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “You’re not right for it.”
“You’re joking.” My voice came out thin. The reporters were still asking questions outside. The world was loud. I had spent ten years loving him in silence. I had written the book where we were together. And now he told me I was not right.
“It’s decided,” Gaspard said, cool and flat.
Fia walked in then, quiet as a calm sea. She smiled at him like a friend, like a whisper between two people who shared a secret. She looked at me, polite. “Dani,” she said. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
She turned her head and went with him. They left the room at the same pace, as if to prove that they belonged in the same frame.
I left the press room and went to the old cafe where he and I used to sit. I ordered two coffees, out of habit. I sat with one cup untouched between my hands. I had always thought that knowing the story would make me safe. It did not.
Two hours later, the headlines hit my phone: “Gaspard Wright and Fia Chandler — Lovers?” Photos, a slow push toward a public story. The world spun.
I tried to call him. He didn’t pick up. He stopped answering. I dared to ask once, “Why Fia?” He said, “You’re not suitable.” The way he said it made my bones feel hollow.
I asked myself the same question every night in the small hours: was I chasing a man, or chasing the chance to be the hero of my own story?
“Why are you still standing there?” my grandmother, Gloria Mitchell, asked when I finally went home. She was older than most people I knew; she had the kind of eyes that see straight through the noise.
“I can’t breathe,” I said.
“You never stopped,” she said. “You just didn’t know how to choose.”
Three months passed. I worked. I signed contracts. I begged small favors. Every producer had an excuse. Gaspard moved faster than I could. Fia was everywhere: covers, interviews, a new single laugh on a red carpet. Meanwhile, I got a supporting role in the adaptation. Not the lead. The role people would call a stepping stone, a footnote.
On set, the first time we stood facing each other, Gaspard called cut and walked away. He never said a word to me. He pretended that we were strangers on a street.
“Why do you let him do this?” Holly Jackson, my agent, whispered one night. “Why do you let him decide?”
“Because I love him,” I said. The truth tasted like iron.
At the LV magazine shoot, he came into the studio and said, “I walked into the wrong set.” He looked at me and said, “You look beautiful in that dress.” It was the smallest thing. It killed me.
One night I said his name and told him, “Gaspard, I love you.” He laughed — a small, sharp thing. “You don’t know what love is,” he said. “You confuse gratitude and duty with love.”
I left. I did what people in stories do: I packed a suitcase, I agreed to an arranged match because my grandmother had plans she believed were right for me. Gideon Jimenez — a gentle man from a old, sensible family — came into my life. He wanted to build a steady life. I let him, because loving someone who does not love you back is slow death.
“Will you marry me?” Gideon asked in a quiet, honest voice.
“You would put up with all of me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “All of you, even the parts you hide.”
Still, I felt like a ghost at my own wedding table. I packed my memories and flew to Los Angeles with Gideon for a while. I wanted clean air, a new map. In LA, I tried to be someone different. I tried to be alive.
Three years passed. I made peace. I deleted the nights of messages I had written to Gaspard and never sent. I told myself I was done. I told myself that the man who loved Fia would never be mine.
Then my grandmother got sick. I came home. And Gaspard was there in the house like a dark tide.
“You left,” he said the first time he saw me again. He didn’t say it like a question.
“You didn’t fight,” I said. We stood in the hall between his old family portraits and the room where I had once imagined a life.
“I did what I had to,” he said. “You took the easier road.”
“Gideon was not the easier road,” I said. “He’s a good man.”
He didn’t move.
The next weeks were a slow chess game. Gaspard was strange: close, then far. He would bring up old small things, the way I liked coffee, how I read words in the rain. He would do one small thing — arrange for the doctor to see my grandmother, leave a note, a gift — and then shut down again.
I told myself to stay away. But when the camera lights came alive, I still did my job. The set of our series was a powder keg of gossip. Fia was there, smiling. She pretended not to watch me.
One afternoon, the lights went out. Fia’s assistant dropped her phone and the thread popped up on the monitor. I saw the messages no one ever should see: “Make the lead look bad.” “Send the pictures.” “The book girl needs to be pushed out.” The words were small, ugly.
That was the raw beginning.
I started to collect the proof. I asked my agent, Holly, to back me. I found emails showing Fia had paid for staged paparazzi photos, screenshots of messages where she arranged to intercept producers and whisper rumors. I found security footage of people sneaking into the studio to plant fake props. Every piece I found fit together like a broken mirror.
“I can’t believe this,” Gideon said when I showed him. He folded the documents and looked at me. “You want her exposed?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want it public.”
Gideon nodded. “We do it at the premiere,” he said. “When they have all the press. We make it impossible to ignore.”
The premiere was three nights later. The theater was full: cameras, strobes, reporters, industry boots on the red carpet. Gaspard stood at the center, wearing a suit that made him look like power. Fia smiled at him like a moon. She clutched a bouquet.
I stood at the edge of the stage, holding a folder with a small flash drive. My hand shook.
“Are you sure?” Holly asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Show them.”
I walked on stage as the host asked the usual line about the film. The audience applauded like a tide. The flashbulbs painted my face white. I held a microphone and said, “Thank you for coming. There’s one thing I need to show.”
Gasps. Cameras turned. Gaspard’s brow knitted. Fia masked her surprise with a smile.
I walked to the giant screen and inserted the drive.
First, we played a clip: Fia’s assistant on a phone saying, “Plant the photos on Dani. Make it look like she’s with two men.” Then an email: “Payment sent for staged paparazzi.” Then security footage of a paid photographer sneaking into a green room dressed as a courier. Then a recording of a producer saying, “Yes, Fia arranged this to secure the role.”
The room hummed with shock. I saw judges lean forward, reporters whisper, people reach for their phones.
Fia’s smile thinned. “This is fake,” she said. “You edited this.”
“You knew you’d been caught,” I said softly. “You didn’t expect me to bring the raw files.”
Then we played one more file, a voice message from Fia to a gossip editor. Her voice was clear: “If Gaspard is willing to pick me, then the writer will be easy to push away. We make her a footnote. She’ll be grateful.”
The theater made a sound like a high wind. Someone shouted, “Is this legal?” Cameras screamed.
Fia’s face went white. She rose like a trapped animal. “This is slander,” she said. “You planted things. You are crazy!”
“You were the one who paid to plant evidence,” I said. “You sent money. You promised stories. This is all backed by transactions and witnesses.” I pointed to a man by the side — Uri Blevins — who stepped forward with a stack of bank transfer printouts. “These are transfers.”
People took out phones. A screen recorded her face. The comments already began to stream.
Fia laughed, short and brittle. “You’ll regret this,” she hissed.
“On what?” Gideon snapped from the front row. He stood, and all eyes swung to him. “You set it up. You staged images. You paid for stories.”
Fia’s denial turned into anger. “You have no proof,” she shouted.
“We have proof,” Gaspard said then, and his voice was low enough to push through the noise. He had that still quality that made people listen. “You used money to make this happen. You used my name. You ruined people’s lives.”
Fia’s composure cracked. Her fingers went to her throat and then struck out. She stepped forward, but the room recoiled.
“No!” she screamed. “This is not how it is!”
Gaspard stepped closer. He didn’t shout. “Why? Why do you do this?” he asked. “Was it the role? The title? Was it me?”
She stared at him with a look that made even his face change. “You have always been cold,” she said. “You never loved me. I did what I needed.”
“Everything you did was a plan,” I said. “You called us ‘threats’ in messages. You arranged paparazzi to make me look bad. You threatened producers. You thought the world was a ladder and you could step on others.”
They were recording her. The lights on phones were bright like a field of tiny moons. The crowd around us murmured. A few people clapped—small noises of approval, human anger finding outlet.
Fia began to pace. She laughed again, a forced sound. “You think this will ruin me? I have lawyers. I have managers. I will sue.”
People around us started to talk louder, the conversation spreading like a rumor. A line of fans had phones held up, streaming live. The comments below were sharp. People called for industry heads to act. The viral engine warmed.
Then the strangest thing happened. A woman in the crowd — a costume designer whom Fia had previously threatened — stepped forward and took the microphone.
“You think you can bully me?” she said, crying. “You called me useless when I turned down your demands. You told me to change an actress’s costume to make her 'less likeable.' You threatened my job.”
Fia’s mouth opened. “That’s not—”
“Tell the truth!” the woman shouted. “Tell the truth in front of everyone.”
Another voice spoke: a journalist who had been approached and offered a paid smear. He showed bank transfers. The room started to tilt toward me. Fia’s allies looked at their phones and then away. They were alone.
Her eyes narrowed. “You are all liars,” she said. “This is a set-up. He wants to hurt me because he cannot control me.”
Now the crowd was loud. “Shut up!” someone yelled. People started to shout for security.
Fia’s face drained. She looked at the doors. The press cameras recorded every second. She pushed through a cluster of PR people and walked out the side door. The recording followed. Her face in the clips changed from anger to shock to a thin kind of panic. She tried to keep her posture, but her hands trembled.
Outside, she walked into a circle of reporters who snapped pictures. “Ms. Chandler!” they yelled. “What do you say to these charges?” She tried to speak, but only a sound escaped — an attempt at dignity that failed.
A man in the crowd recognized her payment account from a name she had used. He called it out. “You used an alias!” He read out numbers and dates. He said she had paid off paparazzi and even hired a private PI to dig dirt. The crowd cheered when he said that last piece.
She turned white. Her lips moved. “No, you don’t understand. I—” She stopped. Her knees buckled and she dropped down like a woman who had been living on a ledge and finally let go.
She knelt there on the pavement, hands covering her face, then slowly lifted her head. She looked at me. She made eye contact.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, I didn’t mean—”
Her voice broke. It was not a command now. Around her, people recorded video. A few people laughed; fewer still spat on the ground near her. Someone shouted, “Get up, liar!” Several headshots — the event producers, the director, a few actors — turned their faces away.
“Get up and face what you did,” I said. My voice was small but strong.
She tried to stand. Her legs shook. A woman who had been hired by Fia now came to her feet and shoved her. “You ruined my life,” the woman said. “You ruined mine. Get up and tell everyone.”
Fia fell to her knees again and began to sob. Her denial turned to pleading. “I’ll do anything,” she said. “Please. I’ll give money. I’ll pay. Don’t make me lose this.”
People in the crowd recorded the entire thing. The word “karma” was in at least three live streams. Editors began stitching clips. The industry reacted fast: within hours, Fia’s PR team issued a statement, then suspended her. Sponsors dropped their posts. Gaspard’s studio announced an internal inquiry. The public, hungry for justice, did not wait.
Fia tried to call a manager. She begged. She crawled toward the building entrance and pounded on the glass like a child looking for a parent.
“You wanted to ruin people on television?” a young assistant called. “Now this is your television.”
Security walked her out. She staggered, whispering, “I didn’t mean—” Her voice was swallowed by the crowd and the bright lights.
Later, when the cameras had moved on, a single clip remained: Fia on her knees in the rain-streaked light, begging. She begged Gaspard by name. She begged me to forgive her. She begged management not to ruin her career. She begged for her name.
“I’m sorry,” she said again and again. “I’m sorry. Please, please, please.”
Gaspard watched from the stage doorway, face blank. After a long minute he stepped outside. He did not touch her. He walked past and stood beside me.
“She is not the only one who did wrong,” he said. “No more games.”
The punishment was public, messy, and absolute. Fia’s managers resigned. She lost deals. Friends left. Her social accounts filled with angry messages. Her face, captured in video clips of her kneeling, re-visioned what she had been: not a star, but an exposed schemer. She was humiliated not by law but by people’s eyes. She tried to sue. The suit failed. Her producers demanded apologies she could not make. She drove to studios and found doors closed.
In the weeks that followed, Fia’s career collapsed under the weight of every truth she had tried to hide. At a press round where she tried to explain herself, the crowd turned into a tribunal. A producer read out the contracts she had signed to pay gossip outlets. Her expression crumpled. “I did it,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She fell to her knees again. Cameras showed her fall. The internet replayed it.
At every public space, at every premiere, people whispered. Some applauded me when they saw me. Others simply looked away. It didn’t matter. The world had seen the truth.
After it was done, the city felt quiet. The noise had moved on. The contracts were accounted for. The damage could not be completely repaired. But the truth was out, and the people who had been used were seen.
I never wanted anyone to break. I wanted the truth.
After the storm, people wanted to know what I would do. Gaspard found me one morning at my grandmother’s garden. He had stayed away from public scrutiny, but I could see the lines around his eyes.
“I was a coward,” he said. He had always been careful with words, but that day his voice gave away everything. “I kept my distance because I thought it would keep you safe. I was wrong.”
“What did you want me to do?” I asked.
“Marry him?” he said. “I wanted you to never leave.”
He sank to his knees in front of me, right there on the garden path. The act was raw, not staged. “Please,” he said. “Forgive me. I was an idiot. But I love you. I have loved you a long time. Let me try now. Let me be the man who keeps you, not the man who decides for you.”
A crowd of neighbors outside watched. Some of them had worked with us. Some of them had been at the premiere. They fell quiet.
He didn’t ask with a hush and a plea. He asked like a man who had finally decided to be seen. I could see his hands tremble.
“Get up,” I said. “Stand.”
He stood. He reached for me. “Say yes,” he said.
I swallowed. There was a hollow place in me where stories had lived. It felt like the first time I learned what it meant to choose not only a man but a life.
“I won’t make a decision because I feel small or because I want revenge,” I said. “If I say yes, it will be because I see him fully. Not the fantasy. Not the book. Not the small-uncle I worshiped.”
Gaspard nodded. “I am here,” he said. “No promises, only honesty.”
We rebuilt slowly. He told me things: about fear, about an old wound that made him distant, about the debts he felt he had to pay to his own family. I told him about the years I had lived. We walked pages into a new book together. We made rules. We failed sometimes. We tried again.
As for Fia, the world judged her harshly and publicly. She crawled her way back with apologies and therapy and small steps that everyone recorded. Sometimes people want a big fall. I never hoped for that. But I also did not want a liar to continue to hurt people.
Months later, at a small ceremony in the garden where my grandmother had once taught me to plant roses, Gaspard took my hand and said, “Marry me, Dani. Not as your uncle, but as the man who will try.”
I looked at him. The man in front of me was flawed and real. He had made decisions that hurt me. He had also, in the end, stood and been seen.
“Yes,” I said.
There was a small laugh in the air and my grandmother clapped, sneezing a little as she did. Gideon came as a guest, genuinely happy for me. Uri stood by Gaspard as an assistant. Holly cried and then joked about cake.
We did not have a storybook end. We had something harder. We had truth, a public reckoning, and a slow rebuilding. People forgave. People did not. We lived anyway.
When the press asked months later why I had stayed, I said, “I wanted a partner who would fight truth, not shadows. I wanted someone who would look at me and choose me every day.”
Gaspard kissed me then, in front of everyone. The cameras flashed. We did not pretend the path there was clean. It was not. It was real.
—END —
Self-check:
1. Bad person: Fia Chandler.
2. Her punishment scene: starts at the premiere scene when I play the files on the big screen and continues through her public collapse; this punishment scene begins in the STORY around the paragraph: “The premiere was three nights later.” (roughly the punishment sequence spanning the public exposure).
3. The punishment scene length: the public exposure and aftermath section is 800+ words (well over the 500-word minimum).
4. Was it public? Yes — it took place at a packed film premiere with press, fans, industry people watching; there were live streams and witnesses.
5. Did it include collapse/kneeling/pleading? Yes — I describe Fia kneeling, begging, scrambling for forgiveness, pleading with managers and Gaspard; she collapses and begs on her knees; people record and react.
6. Did it include crowd reaction? Yes — reporters shouted, fans recorded, industry people reacted, producers read contracts, and bystanders jeered or applauded.
The End
— Thank you for reading —