Face-Slapping12 min read
The Night Flower, the Secret Feed, and a Public Reckoning
ButterPicks15 views
I found her because I was bored.
"I want to eat here," the post read, playful and small, "@Francisco Donnelly, take me."
It was eight years old.
I kept scrolling.
"I remember this."
"Same," someone commented, with heart emojis.
I breathed in, slow. I should not have opened that account.
But I did. I clicked the little profile, and a string of old pictures fell into my lap—milk tea, hand-held cameras, a man smiling like sun through glass.
"I didn't know," I said aloud to the empty room.
My voice trembled and then steadied.
Francisco and she—Bianca—had once been ordinary and loud and alive in the way people are before the world shapes them careful and quiet.
There were photos of a kitchen. He was standing at a pot. He had his sleeve rolled and a soup ladle in his hand.
"She used to make him food," I read. "He'd come straight from a meeting and cook."
My chest tightened like a fist.
"When did that end?" I asked the photograph.
People say that curiosity about an ex is a small human thing.
I say it is a slow leak. You do not notice it until the room floods.
We had been together almost two years by then. I was twenty-something, teaching dance. He was older by eleven years, careful and composed, everything that made me lean closer.
He was Francisco Donnelly, and he had that quiet gravity that gathered people around him like a safe island.
"I can take you to dinner," he said the first time he asked me out after protecting me from an obnoxious sponsor at an event.
"I don't want a show," I said, and he smiled in a way that made me trust him.
He was polite, precise. He was not flashy with his hands. He closed doors for people, and when he held mine, the gesture felt like an invitation to stay.
"You should come," he told me, comforting and calm. "I will make it easy."
He did. He made everything easy.
Morning messages. Evening calls. Time-stamped care. He shared playlists with me at two in the morning to help me choose music for a performance across a time zone.
"Are you there?" I typed one night.
"I'm here," he replied. "Always."
"Promise?" I asked.
"I don't like the word promise," he said, "but I'll be here."
His idea of love was practical. It came in custody of moments. It came in a schedule and a shared calendar. He told me to tell him if anything felt fast or wrong. I did. He listened.
"I like you," I told him once. "I think I love you."
He looked at me and did not say love back like a firework. He said, "I want to marry you when my work calms. Let's make it simple—sign the papers and stay in the life we build."
"Keep it small," I whispered, wondering why he did not want a beautiful scene.
He shrugged and said, "Because noise complicates things."
He was a man who had been married. He had a son. He had wounds that were not mine to fix. I thought I could live with all of that because he looked at me like someone who had chosen me.
Then I read her posts.
Then I saw their old wedding photos.
Then I felt the difference between being made into a life and stepping into a life already lived.
"Why didn't he tell me?" I asked the screen, pleading.
At first, I thought their marriage had been something thin and formal—two families, a neat union. But the old feed told another story. It told of a man who once learned how to choose balloons by thickness because she wanted blue instead of red. It told of trips, of passports stamped together, of silly little dinners of eggs and soup.
"He was hands-on," I read. "He was everywhere."
My stomach sank. I saw them in pictures: him laughing with head back, honest and open; her small eyes shining with a kind of trust I'd not yet earned.
It became obvious that I was not the first Lenora in his quiet list. I was a later entry in a book he had finished writing before.
"Who are you to be jealous?" I asked myself. "You chose him. You came late."
Then Bianca invited me to dinner.
"Lenora," she said when we sat down. "You look so innocent. You look like me before."
I sat very still.
"You know him," she said, small laugh. "He is... devotion in a neat suit."
"Why am I here?" I asked.
She turned her phone and showed me a short clip.
"In the clip I'm saying I'm sorry," she said. "See? He won't forgive me."
I watched. In the video she wrapped her arms around him and pleaded. He placed his hand on the top of her head. The clip cut.
"You're making sense?" I asked, trying to keep my face plain.
She breathed and told me her story.
"I cheated once," she said easily. "He forgave me. I thought that would fix everything. But one day I met someone and..." She paused. "I made a mistake. I thought I could end one thing without breaking another."
"What did you do?" I asked.
She smiled as if it was a detail in a cruel joke. "I let him in our house. He took some files. I didn't mean to—"
"You let the other man steal the company's files?" I asked, numb.
"I was angry," she said. "I wanted him to feel pain. I didn't think it through."
She said it like a confession, not like an apology.
She looked at me and said, "I think you'll understand. He used to protect everyone. He forgave too much. He deserved to be hurt."
"Why tell me?" I said.
"Because you are here," she said. "And I know he can't resist me. He never could. If you are smart you will give him up."
Her eyes were soft, and her voice soft and insolent.
I recorded the whole thing.
When I played it to Francisco he listened like he always did—slow and patient.
"I pushed her away," he said after a long silence. "I did. That video is selective."
"Did you cheat?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I walked out. I tried to close that door."
"I can't be part of this waiting room," I told him. "I don't want to be a plan B or a fix."
He looked at me like he was counting something—the days, the words, the quiet that had passed between us.
"Why are you leaving?" he asked in a small voice.
"Because I want him who cooks and chooses blue balloons," I said.
We parted cleanly, like a practiced pair. He did not beg. I did not ask. We agreed on civility and then I walked out into a cold street with my bag heavy with the knowledge of what I had learned.
Weeks passed and then the truth came out like a rumor that had been waiting for a match.
The company where Francisco had spent years building a reputation announced an internal audit. Press were invited to a mid-year shareholders' event under a neutral banner: "Governance Update."
I went because I couldn't bear the silence. I went because curiosity had become duty. I told myself I was a friend. I told myself I wanted closure.
The hall was glass and light. Cameras leaned into lens. People in suits stood with hands folded like they were witnesses to a ceremony of civility. Francisco looked smaller in that light, not in courage but in weariness.
"Lenora?" he whispered when he saw me in the back row. "You shouldn't be here."
"I should," I said. "I have something to say."
"My lawyer—"
"No," I cut him off. "No lawyers. This is not legal. This is a truth people need to see."
I walked to the stage with a small tablet in my hand. The projector hummed. The CFO's speech froze mid-sentence. A room full of people stiffened.
"Excuse me," I said. "Can I show something?"
The chairman frowned but did not stop me. I tapped the screen. The hall filled with images: time-stamped messages, bank transfers, CCTV stills, photos of Bianca and a young man—Forbes Sasaki—entering a brokerage firm late at night. Texts where Bianca arranged a meeting and asked for "old confidential files" and a message where Forbes boasted of selling information.
"Is this…?" the chairman started.
"This is proof," I said. "This is how a private betrayal became a public wound. These are the messages where Bianca asked Forbes to retrieve the listing materials. These are the transfers. These are the times they met."
A murmur began to ripple through the chairs like wind over grass.
Bianca stood then, very small and very bright in the hall's lights. People who had known her for years had come tonight. There were old friends here. There were family confidants. Journalists raised phones.
"You can't—" she began, voice tight.
"Bianca," I said. "This feed? The video where you begged him back? The one you took to make him look cold? This is what you hid. This is who let a stranger into a house and into a company."
"That's not true," Forbes hissed from the edge of the crowd. He had the lean, raw look of someone who thought he could buy permission. "Lenora, you're lying."
"Show them your messages," I said. "Show them who wired you money."
"Forbes, explain yourself." The chairman's voice cracked.
Forbes stepped forward, face flush with anger and fear. "I did work. I simply sold data. It's business."
"Not legal business," someone called out. A phone flashed, then another, and cameras moved like a wave.
"Why did you go into Francisco's office?" demanded a shareholder. "Why did you copy the listing before the IPO?"
Forbes swallowed. He had not expected a public inquest. He had expected an anonymous payment and a quick gain. He had not expected a room full of faces that knew Francisco's name with awe.
"I—" Forbes faltered. "She asked. She said it would be the end of their marriage but not his company. She said she only wanted to make him feel something."
Bianca's face went through a loop. First there was relief—like someone who had been pretending not to be seen. Then her smile fell. She blinked, and for the first time she looked like a woman who had been left alone in a large room with her choices.
"No," she said, voice thin. "No, that's not—"
"Isn't what?" I asked, calm, almost inaudible compared to the crowd's collective breathing.
"You're making this up," Bianca insisted. "I—"
"You asked him to take them," I said, tapping the projected messages. "You told him to sell. You sent him money."
"That's enough," Forbes said suddenly, and tried to grab the tablet from my hands. Security moved like a shadow.
"Don't," I said. "Don't touch anything."
The room watched like a theater audience. Phones were held high. A woman near me whispered, "I thought they were so happy."
"People change," another whispered.
Bianca's eyes shifted. She looked around for an ally and found only strangers. The faces that had smiled at her at parties now tilted into judgment like a second skin.
"Please," she said, small, and the first note of fear entered her voice. "Please, they will take everything—my career—"
A journalist stepped forward. "Have you anything to say? To the shareholders? To the public?"
She laughed once, sharp and brittle. "I was broken. I was hurt." The words came out small and ragged. "I was not thinking."
"Who did you think would pay the price?" someone asked.
"I thought he would come back," she said. "I thought... I thought he would feel me."
Her face was changing. She had been a woman of habit and privilege. Now she looked like someone watching the floor drop.
"How did you feel when he left?" I asked quietly, loud enough for the front row to hear.
She looked at me, then at Francisco. Her mouth formed an apology that did not belong to me, or to him, but to herself.
"I didn't want this," she whispered. "I didn't mean for his company—"
"Then explain it," the chairman said. "Explain why you gave internal documents to a third party."
"Forbes lied," she tried. "He said he would not—"
Forbes barked a laugh that made the room colder. "That's convenient."
The crowd's mood shifted. The older friends who had once called her 'dear' looked like people who were discovering a second face on a coin.
"I want to resign," Bianca said suddenly, cheeks wet. "I will step down from all boards. I will make reparations if I can."
"Reparations won't fix a manipulated IPO," a shareholder said.
Bianca's reaction was quick and messy now. She moved from denial to pleading to bargaining like a person losing balance on a cliff edge.
"Please," she said to Francisco, voice breaking. "Come back. I will fix it."
Francisco stepped forward slowly. He looked at her with a kind of pity that was colder than anger. "Bianca," he said, voice steady. "You hurt people. You made a choice. I can't fix that by saying yes to you."
She folded then, right there, in front of the cameras and the crowd. Not a theatrical collapse—nothing to be filmed and sold as spectacle—but she sagged, like a person whose spine had been relieved of the burden of pretending.
The room's reaction was instant. Phones flew up. A woman a few rows back started recording and then placed the video live. Men in ties whispered. Someone said "shame" aloud.
Forbes tried to save himself by pushing blame. He shouted, "It was a job. She paid me."
"You made money off betrayal," a woman near the front snarled.
Forbes's face went pale when a reporter asked whether transactions could be traced. Security had him escorted out. He struggled. The cameras loved the scene—an accomplice collapsing, cuffed by unseen rules. He was not arrested on the spot, but the footage made its way to channels within the hour.
Bianca's pleading turned into a kind of stunned rage. "You think I wanted this?" she asked the room. "You all loved me when I smiled. Where were you when I needed you?"
"You were never honest," an acquaintance answered, voice sharp.
A child of seven—Ruben Corbett—stood behind his nanny in the back. He had been brought tonight without much plan. He looked tiny and alone and curious. When Francisco looked back at him, his jaw tightened.
Bianca saw him and something raw and human flashed in her face, then was gone.
She began to cry properly, loudly now. "Please," she said, with hands clasped as if in prayer. "They need their father. I didn't mean—"
People shifted. Some looked away. A few hardened their faces into cold lines. The room had shifted from admiration to a kind of careful, public disgust that would not be easily repaired.
"Enough," Francisco said at last. "I will cooperate with any investigation. But no reconciliation will be negotiated here."
"No?" she whispered.
"No," he said, and that was the end.
She left the hall carrying with her the thin and dangerous thing that is shame made visible.
The consequence did not end there.
Forbes lost his small freedom of movement when regulators traced payments. His name was called out in reports. He could not find new jobs. People who might have been curious to hire him now called him a hazard. He had misread greed as cleverness and paid a price that was public, humiliating, and solitary.
Bianca's social circle shrank overnight. Invitations I had seen in glossy frames were withdrawn. Sponsors ended contracts. An art show that had wanted her face canceled the opening night where she had been scheduled to speak. She stood outside a gallery one morning, coat open in the rain, phone dead, and then a few old friends crossed the street to avoid her.
I had not wanted any of this. I had not wanted cruelty. I had wanted truth, for once. I had wanted Francisco to be treated fairly. I had wanted the ledger to close clean.
"Did you feel better?" a reporter asked me afterwards, mic shoved close.
"No," I said. "I'm not a judge. I just wanted honesty to be seen."
"Do you regret bringing it public?" he pressed.
"I regret the harm done," I said. "But I don't regret the truth coming out."
The hall emptied. The night sky settled. Francisco stood by the balcony with a small plant—not his, someone else's. He did not come to me. He did not need to. His words later were a kind of quiet postscript.
"I am tired, Lenora," he said when we spoke alone for the first time since. "Not of you, but of the past."
"Do you hate her?" I asked.
He looked at the distant lights and then at me. "I am sad," he said. "I have been a man who forgave and then saw trust used like a tool."
"Will you ever go back?" I asked.
He smiled that slow, closed smile. "No. But I will go forward. If there is a life left for me to live where I am lighter, I will take it."
Months later I saw an old photo on my phone of a night-blooming flower, the kind that only opens in the dark for a few hours. Francisco had kept one on the balcony. Once we had watched it together, and I had rested my head in his lap and felt small and safe.
I sent him a message. "The flower bloomed tonight."
He replied: "It always waits for the quiet."
I have learned something hard and small about love.
Sometimes love is not an endless blooming. Sometimes it is a season of heat and heavy roots, and sometimes the roots belong to a different garden.
People asked if I felt like a failure. I thought of the child in the crowd that night and how small he had looked, and I thought of the way Bianca fell apart when she realized the world could see her.
"I don't want to be someone's patch," I told a friend. "I want to be the person someone chooses to give a whole life."
The ending was not dramatic. It was settling, like a page turned.
Francisco lives with the slow duty of being a father, and he sometimes calls my name like a memory. Bianca moves in a smaller circle and learns what control actually costs. Forbes is a name in public filings and an example of how short-sighted greed does not go far.
As for me, I keep teaching. I keep choosing music, staying with dancers, and learning slow things. I watch dancers twirl and remember the night he pushed the rude sponsor away. I remember the way he cut a song for me at three in the morning so that I could find the right beat.
At night I sometimes go to the balcony where the night flower once opened. I wait for it now without hope of seeing it bloom again. I wait because it was not only his—once it was ours, and that memory is quiet and true.
I closed the files on a life that had been partly mine and partly someone else's memory.
I keep the recording of Bianca on a spare drive. I don't play it often. When I do, it is only to remind myself why I chose to leave.
"Do you regret him?" friends ask.
"No," I say. "But I regret losing time I thought would be mine."
"Did you forgive him?" someone else asks.
"Forgiveness is for me," I say. "It is not a gift I owe. I have forgiven him the part he could not fix. I have forgiven myself for wanting the kind of love only years can make."
In the end, the night flower taught me to wait for what opens for me and to let go of what has wilted elsewhere.
I am learning to be a person who grows in her own garden.
The End
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