My Birthday Night Turned To Hell

"What you have on me?"

I didn't lower my phone. The red dot kept blinking in the corner of the screen.

"You heard me." Ethan wiped a streak of pink frosting off his eyebrow with his thumb. "Keep recording, Nora. See how that works out for you."

Ten minutes ago, I would have believed anything he told me.

Ten minutes ago, I was still hoping.

---

The corner table wasn't really a table. It was a private room tucked behind the window, with a frosted glass door and a little brass plaque that said *Salon Rose*. The door hadn't latched. A thin line of candlelight leaked through the gap.

I pressed two fingers against the glass. It swung open without a sound.

Ethan had his head turned to the side, his hand cupping Kiara's jaw. He was kissing her slowly, like he had all night.

Kiara. The girl who'd spent three weekends on her knees in my living room, gluing fake ivy to our filming wall. The girl who'd held my hair back when I threw up after my grandmother's funeral. The girl who knew every single thing I was scared of.

In the middle of the round table sat the cake. Pink frosting. White roses. Gold script.

**Happy Birthday, Nora.**

I'd shown her that exact cake on my phone two weeks ago. *If anyone ever gets me this,* I'd said, *I'll marry them on the spot.*

She'd laughed. "Noted."

My heel scuffed the floor.

They broke apart like someone had fired a gun. Kiara shot to her feet so fast her napkin slid off her lap. Her eyes darted everywhere. The wall. The cake. The floor. Anywhere but me.

Ethan didn't stand.

He just sighed. Long and heavy, like I was a delivery he hadn't ordered.

"How did you even find this place?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Aren't you supposed to be home doing your live thing?"

My *live thing*.

Four years. Four years, and the first thing out of his mouth wasn't *I'm sorry*. It wasn't *Nora, wait*. It was a complaint. I had interrupted him.

Something inside me went very quiet. The last little piece of me that had been making excuses on the cab ride over, *maybe it's a business dinner, maybe she's helping him plan, maybe*... it just switched off.

"My live thing," I repeated.

"Yeah. You said you'd be streaming till midnight." He checked his watch. "It's not midnight."

"You're right." I stepped up to the table. "It's not."

"Nora." Kiara's voice wobbled. "Babe, I..."

I picked up the cake.

Then I threw it.

It wasn't graceful. It hit Ethan square in the chest and exploded upward, and the rest of it caught Kiara across the cheek and neck. Sponge and pink cream smeared down her collarbone and into the neckline of her silk dress. A rose slid off her chin and landed on the tablecloth with a wet little *plop*.

Kiara shrieked. Ethan swore and shoved his chair back, clawing cream out of his eyes.

I already had my phone up.

"Don't move."

My voice came out flat. Calm. I didn't recognize it.

"Are you out of your mind?" Ethan spat out a chunk of cake. "Turn that off."

"No. I'm recording everything you two did tonight." I steadied the frame on both of their faces. "Every second of it."

---

And now here we were.

Ethan held his phone like a weapon. Kiara stood beside him, dripping frosting onto the carpet, her shoulders shaking.

"Go on," I said. "Show me what you've got."

"Ethan, don't." Kiara caught his wrist. "Please. Not like this."

She turned to me. With the back of her hand she scraped a thick smear of cream off her cheek, and underneath, her eyes were already turning red. Her lower lip trembled. I'd seen that lip tremble a hundred times on camera. Sponsor apologies. Breakup storytimes. It always worked.

"Nora, I know how this looks." Her voice cracked right on cue. "I know. And you have every right to hate me. But you don't know the whole story."

"Then tell me the whole story."

"Ethan called me last week." She sniffed hard. "He was panicking about tonight. He wanted everything perfect for you. The cake, the room, the speech. He asked me to help because I know you better than anyone."

"So you helped him by kissing him."

"It wasn't..." She pressed her frosting-covered hand to her chest. "He was nervous. I was nervous. We had a glass of wine, and he started talking about how scared he was of losing you, and I got emotional, and it just *happened*. Once. It happened once, Nora. Two seconds before you walked in."

I almost laughed.

It bubbled up out of nowhere, and I swallowed it down. My grip on the phone stayed steady.

"Two seconds," I said.

"I swear on our channel."

"On our channel." I tilted my head. "Not on your mother. Not on your life. On our *channel*."

Her face flickered. Just for a second. Then the tears came back, faster.

"That's not fair. You're twisting my words."

"I'm recording your words. There's a difference."

Ethan stepped in front of her, like he was the one who needed protecting. "She's telling the truth. You burst in here before we could explain anything, and you went psycho with a cake. On camera. You think people are going to side with you after this?"

"I think people are going to see exactly what happened."

"Yeah?" A slow smile spread under the frosting on his mouth. "Ask Kiara what she saw."

I shifted the lens to her.

Kiara wiped her eyes, and this time when she looked up, she didn't look scared at all.

"I'm sorry, Nora," she whispered. "I didn't want it to come to this. But if you post that video..."

She glanced at Ethan. He turned his phone around so the screen faced me.

"...then everyone gets to see yours too."