Face-Slapping11 min read
Seeing the Gray Watch
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When I woke at midnight, someone was slipping into bed.
"I thought you'd be back later," he murmured.
"I fell asleep," I said, turning.
His breath was warm. I reached up and slipped my arm around Everett Davis's neck.
He turned his head at the last second and avoided my kiss.
"Did you just—?" My voice trailed off.
He tugged his tie, something small and nervous. "Sorry," he said, and left the room for the bathroom. Water started after that.
I told myself it was nothing. Everett had been working late for weeks. He was exhausted. I found his phone on the pillow and, without thinking too hard, opened his delivery app to order something simple: bone-broth noodles, his favorite he hadn't had since before his childhood.
The app pinged back: "Delivery completed."
My thumb hovered. It showed a small package: brown sugar and a box of pain pills. Then his WeChat popped up on the screen.
"Painkillers really help, thanks."
The last message was thirty minutes ago.
Everett: "You looked pale when you left earlier."
Her reply: a cutesy sticker.
Everett: "I finished the plan."
Her reply: "Great, then I can sleep in tomorrow."
Everett: "Okay."
Then: "Are you okay?" And five minutes of silence. Then: "I bought you something, stay warm these days."
The chat name wasn't labeled. The avatar matched the face in a birthday video—someone laughing as cake smeared across her cheek.
"Soledad Diaz," Everett said later when I asked, like the name itself had weight. He put the phone on my palm and said, "She's a new colleague. I only help her with work."
"She's not just a colleague," I said slowly.
"You really searched my phone?" he asked.
"I found your messages," I answered.
He went quiet. He killed the cigarette in the ashtray and said, flat, "I told you, she's only a colleague. I promised nothing would happen, isn't that enough?"
There was disappointment in his voice that I couldn't place. It sounded like blame.
I didn't recognize the man in front of me.
Weeks earlier, in a movie theater, he'd shown me a video.
"That's Soledad," he had smiled. "She's new. She works hard."
The way he said her name then—soft and careful—had felt like a small betrayal, but it didn't register. I trusted him. I wanted to.
When I found the gray watch, I understood more. I had bought him a simple silver watch for his birthday. He wore it every day. But the night he grabbed my wrist to stop me leaving, a flash of gray peeked from under his cuff—new, expensive, different. He said a friend gave it. I saw him wearing my gift less after that.
"I can't be with someone who keeps secrets," I told him. "I'm leaving."
He grabbed my wrist. "Kaleigh, wait. Don't go."
"Let go." My voice was small.
Conway Beltran came by—my brother, the only person who packed my bag without asking questions.
"When do you need me to move?" he said.
"Now," I said.
Conway held my hands. "You don't have to do this alone."
"Thanks," I said.
At the door, Everett kept calling and texting. I ignored everything. When I finally saw him from the taxi window that night, he stood in the rain, water soaking through his shirt, looking like the boy who once let me into his life when both our homes were empty.
"Come home," he pleaded later outside my office the next week, when I was leaving late.
I opened the umbrella and said, "When the rain stops, go."
"Please," he said. "I didn't do anything. She's only a friend."
He didn't understand why I left. "You only helped her with work," he said. "I've done nothing wrong."
When I asked him why he suddenly loved bone-broth noodles, he had no answer. He simply stopped talking and disappeared into the rain.
A month passed. He left me in silence for a while.
Then, months later, he came back—not the smooth, organized man I'd loved, but empty and worn. He'd sat outside my hospital room that day, bringing a thermos with crab porridge, looking like someone who'd spent days trying to make something right. He hurt. I felt a flicker of old tenderness, but the wound had been opened too many times.
"I'm sorry," Everett said in the hospital doorway. "I was wrong. I—"
"Don't," I said. "You don't get to fix this with porridge."
He stood there, inches from the door, hands empty.
"Please," he said one more time.
I closed the door.
Later, the world rearranged itself. Logan Hernandez—who had once sat next to me in class and been the quiet, steady hand at tests—kept appearing. He came when I fainted and stayed when I woke in the hospital. He carried my bags, drove slowly on rainy nights, and said, "I can wait." I told him I needed time.
"I like you, Kaleigh," he said once, quietly, in the car, after I told him I could not love again so fast.
"Logan," I answered, "I haven't forgotten him yet."
"That is fine," he said. "I only ask you be honest."
I wasn't ready to start anything. But Logan didn't pressure me. He made tea, folded my sweater over my shoulders, and watched the way my eyes tracked the world.
One night, I discovered a gray watch in Everett's drawer that I had seen him wearing. I had opened that drawer months ago, looking for a hair tie, and I had seen a ring—small, with J and C engraved inside. Once, I'd dreamed of the day he would say the words. But when I had asked about the ring, he had been distracted and watching a message on his phone from Soledad. It had ended everything I thought we were.
Soledad was not a villain at first. When I first met her, she had a cut on her head and Everett was carefully dabbing at it. She smiled, and I saw a girl who was bright and messy and human.
"Hi, Kaleigh," she said, very direct. "I've heard about you."
"From Everett?" I asked.
"From work," she said, open and smiling. "It's awkward, but I wanted to say hi."
She explained that the watch had been a gift her mother brought from abroad, and that she had given the matching one as a joke. She said Everett knew. She stood at the restaurant that night with Everett and laughed, and he laughed back. When I saw them at the piano restaurant—Soledad onstage, Everett grinning and giving her a tiny charm—I felt the bottom drop out.
"Is that your friend?" Everett demanded when he found me looking at them.
I asked him, "Do you love me?"
"Of course," he said.
He said words. He said that he loved me and that nothing had happened. That didn't make me stay.
The real turning point came the night of the company awards, months later when I had to give a short presentation about a project. I had agreed to go. I did not plan a scene. But Logan had been watching me rebuild my life, and Conway had said something one night about how much the world had watched quietly while Everett and Soledad played a game. Logan's voice had been soft—"You should say something, if you want to"—the sort of small permission that changed everything.
I walked onto the stage with my laptop. The room was full—colleagues, clients, strangers, phones in hands, the clang of cutlery. Everett and Soledad were at a long table a few rows back, smiling and talking to people.
I cleared my throat. "I'd like to show a short message I received," I said.
A few heads turned. Someone laughed; someone murmured. My hands did not shake much.
On the big screen, the chat preview bloomed: "If you didn't have a girlfriend, would you like me?" And one-word reply under it: "Yes."
A quiet hiss ran through the room.
"Soledad," I said. "This is what your message looked like when it went to him."
She looked at Everett. He looked at his phone. The room leaned in.
"Soledad, you messaged my boyfriend, and he replied, 'Yes.' I have other messages showing how he bought you soup, how you two shared a charm from a public event, and how he told you he finished his plan and would pick you up later. All of this happened while I was waiting at home to be loved by him."
"Soledad stepped forward, face changing."
"What is this?" She said at first, as if confused. "I didn't mean—"
"Do you want to explain to everyone why you posted a picture of my living room—my table, my vase—and tagged him in it with a private message that only he could see?" I asked. "Why did you send him painkillers? Why did you message him at night and tell him you liked him?"
Soledad's smile flickered. She tried to laugh. "It's just teasing," she said. "Everett and I—we're friends."
"Friends buy the same model watch and send each other private messages that read 'I would like you'?" I said, voice flat. "Friends write that you two ate together and tag each other with a heart only visible to one another?"
Everett stood, pale. "Kaleigh, I—this is blown out of proportion. She's a colleague—"
"—and you told her you'd like her if you didn't have a girlfriend," I finished.
She tried denial. "You misread it. You misread the context."
The room was now silent. A woman at a nearby table whispered, "Oh my god." Someone clicked a photo. I heard the soft rustle of phone cameras lifting. It felt like being in a fishbowl.
"Soledad, what did you tell people?" I asked.
She tried to keep the edge off, but her voice cracked. "He didn't mean it. He never meant to hurt you."
A hand at another table tapped a fork as if counting. "He did," someone murmured.
I stepped forward, holding my phone like a witness. "He sent that reply. He wrote 'Yes' to you."
Soledad's face changed. She moved from annoyance to shock, then quickly to anger. "You should not bring private chat to a public place," she said, trying to reclaim decorum. "This is harassment."
"No," said a man from the front, the head of the department, his tone flat. "This is evidence."
Some guests began to whisper loudly. A woman said, "He looked like my husband in that, once."
Soledad's breath shortened. She started to deny more, then to cry softly, a practiced tremor. People pulled their phones closer. "She's crying," a woman said. "Is this real?"
Everett went slack; his face lost the practiced calm and folded into confusion. "Kaleigh—please—" he said, alone.
"Please what?" I asked. "Please tell them it was nothing? Please tell them you never shared pictures of my home? Please tell them you didn't buy her soup and write that she'll be warm?"
He opened his mouth and closed it. His face shivered through a dozen expressions—first stunned, then disbelief, then the old arrogance, then sudden panic.
"Soledad is trying to speak," Everett said, voice small.
"Tell us," someone demanded. "Tell everyone why you two were private."
Soledad inhaled. She attempted to regain composure. "We were friends. I liked him; that doesn't mean—"
Someone in the crowd snapped a photo. "Why did you like him?" asked a colleague in a sharp voice.
She snapped back, "Because he made me feel seen." Her voice got louder. "We both were lonely."
"She turned to me, voice small," I remembered. "And you were his girlfriend."
Now the room seemed to take a side. A woman who'd worked with Soledad said, "She's always been flirtatious." Another person shook their head. "That's unfair." Phones hummed as recordings started.
"Soledad, did you ever intend to cause damage?" I asked.
She looked at Everett. He avoided her. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," she said.
This is where the change happened. The patience around her face evaporated. A man from Everett's team stood up.
"You knew he had a girlfriend," he said bluntly. "You knew about her but kept doing things. You are not a victim here."
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. "He loved me," she said sharply, as if that were explanation.
"Love isn't a permission slip for secrecy," someone shouted from the back.
A younger colleague of mine pulled out his phone and played back the messages for the crowd. "Here's where he wrote 'I will like you if you didn't have a girlfriend,'" he said. The chat scrolled, and it was clear. The room leaned in; you could hear the air change like people turning pages.
Soledad looked around at the crowd that minutes before had applauded some award winner. Cameras now flashed in her face. She was no longer the confident newcomer. She sank into a chair. "You all are overreacting," she hissed, but her voice was paper-thin.
Everett was shaking. "Kaleigh—" he tried to come to the front. Hands pinned him back with questioning looks. "Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Meaning doesn't erase what you did," someone said firmly. "You held her hand in private and said you'd like her."
"I didn't—" he protested. Denial gave way to panic. He barked, "She pushed herself on me!"
"Soledad shook her head hard," I saw it. "No, I asked him."
The crowd's mood flipped. Phones recorded every word. People whispered about betrayal. A client who had been laughing twenty minutes before stood up and said, "If you treat your partner like this, you can't come to my table."
I watched their faces—the indignation, the hurt, the way people suddenly saw them differently. Colleagues who had once nodded politely now shook heads in disapproval. Supporters of human decency stepped forward: "You cannot have a casual flirtation that crosses into private messages when you're someone else's partner," said an older woman.
Soledad curled inward. Her denial failed, then metamorphosed into pleading. "Please stop," she said. "I'm leaving. I didn't mean—"
"Apologize in front of everyone," someone demanded. "Apologize to Kaleigh now."
She looked at me, shivered, and mumbled, "I'm sorry."
Not a real apology. A tiny survival murmur. The camera in my face captured it.
Everett's face crumpled now. The man who had sounded like the calm center of my life was undone in public. He walked forward, unsteady, voice a strangled whisper, "Kaleigh, I'm sorry. I didn't think—"
"Don't," I said, louder than I intended. "Don't make it louder."
"But I loved you," he said to Soledad, or to me, I couldn't tell.
"I loved you," he repeated. Then he turned to the crowd, "Please don't hate me." The plea sounded childish and desperate.
Phones were recording. The older woman said, "People will remember this."
Soledad began to cry properly. "I loved him," she sobbed into her scarf. "I thought—"
"Thought what?" someone asked.
"I thought maybe he'd leave her for me." She buried her face.
"Public confessions are not a way to fix years of secrecy," Logan said softly, standing by me.
The room had changed. Eyes that had once looked with mild curiosity now looked like jury panels. People whispered about trust. The event that had been for congratulatory toasts turned into small ritual of social judgement. A young woman stood up and walked away. Another man said, "I can't sit here." A couple at the next table started packing.
Soledad tried to stand and face us. "Everett lied to me too," she said. "He said he loved me."
Everett went from pleading to furious to broken in thirty seconds. He cannot keep the story. "I didn't mean—"
"That's what liars say," someone spat.
The party's host, embarrassed, came forward and asked us to stop. But the damage was done. A cluster of clients left the room. People continued to take videos. Someone called Everett's manager; someone else texted a mutual friend. The social penalties were immediate. Even if there was no legal consequence, the public scorn felt like one.
Everett's change was visible: smugness, then surprise, then denial, then collapse, then begging. Soledad's arc had been: confident, then defensive, then frightened, then pleading. The crowd's reactions were a study: at first curiosity, then shock, whispers, some applause when I walked off, many recording, even a young man stepping forward to say, "Thanks, Kaleigh, for making this public."
I left with Logan and Conway. Cameras followed. Everett stood in the center of the room, smaller than I remembered. Soledad had fled. The music had stopped.
After that night, people avoided Everett at work. Clients who had once courted his agency turned polite and distant. His phone slowed to a few notifications from those who were sympathetic enough to text, "Are you okay?" He wasn't. He texted me asking for forgiveness; I blocked him. Soledad left the city not long after. Rumors said she'd moved to another company. She sent one message to me: "I didn't mean to hurt you." I never replied.
Time moved on.
I moved into a small two-bedroom Conway had helped me find. Conway moved boxes and told jokes I didn't want to laugh at at first, but later did. Logan continued to show up with soup and quiet hands. He asked me to be honest about my feelings. I told him I needed to heal.
Months later, the ring I had once found in Everett's drawer arrived in the mail to my new apartment with a note: "Happy birthday, from J&C." I did not keep it on my finger. I kept it in a box, where it was a small secret reminder of what nearly was and what never became.
Logan told me, once, late at night while we watched an old movie: "You don't have to forgive him to let go."
"Some things take time," I said.
He nodded. "I can wait."
I learned to sleep without listening for his keys. I learned to take public transport without scanning for his face. I learned to order bone-broth noodles alone and not feel hollow. Conway married a neighbor's sister, and I went to the wedding as someone who had been broken and was mostly put back together.
Once, in a quiet bakery, Logan looked at me and said, "I like you, Kaleigh. I like the way you say nothing sometimes."
"You make me feel safe," I answered.
We didn't rush. We ate, worked, and moved like someone who had finally learned a better rhythm.
The gray watch stayed a museum piece in my memory. When I passed the store window where similar watches glowed quietly, I always thought of its weight: a small signal that meant more than it was.
The day I finally closed the drawer where the ring lived, I set a small note on top: "Do not open until you love without fear." I didn't write it for Everett. I wrote it for me.
The End
— Thank you for reading —