My Ex Asked Me to Kiss Her in Front of Everyone, but After My Answer, the Smile Suddenly Disappeared from Her Face

Natalie asked me for a kiss, and at that very moment such silence fell over the room, as if someone had switched off everyone’s breathing at once.

It was Friday evening, in Chicago, in Camden and Brooke’s apartment on the third floor. Twelve people were sitting around on the floor, the smell of birthday cake was coming from the kitchen, and the card lying on the coffee table said: “Truth, Dare, or Drink.”

Natalie was sitting directly opposite me. She was wearing dark jeans, and the sleeves of her blue blouse were rolled up to her elbows. She had cut her hair so short that when I first looked at her, for a moment I thought she was another woman. Her eyes, however, were the same.

I had lost those eyes eight months earlier.

“Dare,” she told me and carefully put her glass on the floor. “Owen, do you dare to kiss me?”

Brooke immediately raised her head.

“Natalie…”

“What? It’s a game.”

Her fingers were trembling. Only slightly, but I knew all her movements. I knew how she touched the rim of the glass with her thumb when she was afraid. I knew how her left shoulder tightened when she was hiding something.

My name is Owen Bennett, and I write people’s voices for work. Commercials, audiobooks, podcasts. From the little cracks in someone else’s voice, I often understand when they are lying.

In my own life, however, I had never used this skill.

Eleven minutes earlier I had been standing in the kitchen, opening a soft drink, when Natalie came in with a box of lemon cake. A little paper sun was drawn on the box, exactly like the ones she used to draw in childhood—three uneven rays and a ridiculously large dot in the middle.

“Hello, Owen,” she said.

“Hey, Nat.”

She looked at my blue shirt.

“You still wear blue when you’re nervous.”

“You still begin conversations with accusations.”

“Eight months and ten feet were enough for observation.”

“Nine feet,” I corrected involuntarily.

A smile appeared on her lips, but quickly disappeared.

“I came back last week,” she told me.

“Congratulations on coming home.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

At that moment, the bottle I was holding made my fingers wet. I had an answer. Far too many answers. But I said none of them, because eight months earlier we had both decided that we would no longer be a burden to each other.

Natalie went to Portland for a job at a design studio. I, after my father’s operation, was taking care of his rehabilitation and running a small recording studio. Neither she said, “Come with me,” nor did I say, “Stay.” We both kept our dignity.

Sometimes dignity is simply a beautiful name for fear.

“Were you going to call me?” I finally asked.

Natalie looked away.

“First I had to figure out why I had returned.”

At that very moment Camden brought cards into the room.

“Everyone on the floor! It’s the birthday rule.”

The game began. We laughed, drank, and asked one another awkward questions. I tried not to look at Natalie, but I heard every one of her breaths.

Then she drew my card.

Natalie looked first at the card, then at me. In her eyes I saw not a dare, but a request.

“Owen,” she said, “do you dare to kiss me?”

Everyone turned toward me.

I rose slowly. Natalie also started to get up, but then I saw something in her hand—a small white envelope clenched between her fingers, with the initial of my name written in the corner.

She moved her hand toward the envelope and said to me quietly:

“Kiss me first. Then you’ll understand why I left you…”

“Kiss me first. Then you’ll understand why I left you…”

Only I heard her words. To the others, Natalie was simply sitting and waiting to see whether I would follow the rules of the game. But I was staring at that little envelope and felt my throat tighten.

“Natalie, is this really necessary?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “Something else is necessary.”

Brooke laughed awkwardly.

“If you both keep looking at each other so dramatically, I’m going to the kitchen.”

“Stay,” Natalie said.

The tone of her voice changed. This was no longer a game.

The small lamp installed in the room was flickering. An ice cube on the coffee table was slowly melting and leaving a round mark of water on the wooden surface. I sat beside Natalie, so close that I could smell her citrus shampoo.

“If I do this, will you tell me the truth afterward?” I whispered.

“If you don’t, I’ll still tell you. It’s just that you may not believe me again.”

That answer frightened me more than the envelope itself.

I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Only for a moment. But in that one moment eight months disappeared. Her lips were warm, and her fingers gripped my shoulder as if she were drowning and I were the only thing she could hold on to.

When we separated, Natalie’s eyes were shining. Then she quickly wiped her cheek.

“This is no longer a game,” I said.

“It never was.”

Camden moved.

“Will someone explain to me what is happening?”

Natalie looked at him.

“I’m sorry, Camden. I shouldn’t have spoiled your birthday.”

“You’ve already spoiled it, so at least tell me everything.”

Natalie put the envelope on the table. The paper made a dry sound against the wooden surface.

“I should have given this to Owen eight months ago.”

I did not put my hand on the envelope.

“Why didn’t you give it to me?”

“Because I thought it would destroy your life.”

“You already destroyed my life when you left.”

Her face changed. For the first time I saw that those words had truly hurt her.

“I didn’t leave because I no longer loved you.”

Someone in the room put down a glass. The sound turned out to be excessively loud.

“Then why?” I asked.

Natalie looked toward the envelope.

“Because someone convinced me that staying beside you would ruin your father and close your studio.”

“Someone? Who?”

She did not answer. She only took a small memory card from her pocket and showed it to me in her palm.

“I found this in your old recording room. The night before I left.”

I remembered it immediately. Our last evening. A half-empty apartment. Packed suitcases. A black folder lying on Natalie’s bed, which I thought was simply work material.

“Why now?” I asked.

“Because they called me again yesterday.”

“Who?”

Natalie bit her lip.

“The same man who called me eight months ago. He told me that if I told you the truth, he would not only take your studio, but would send your father to prison too.”

A chill passed through my back.

“Your father recovered from the operation,” Brooke said quietly.

“I know. But something happened with the accounts of his company during that period.”

Natalie opened the envelope. Inside lay one sheet of paper and a small key.

“This key belongs to the same room where I found this card. We have to go there tomorrow morning.”

“What if I don’t go?”

“Then that man will come to you himself.”

At that moment my phone lit up. A message came from an unknown number: “Don’t open what your ex is bringing.”

Natalie looked at the screen and turned completely pale.

“Owen,” she said, “this message was sent to me not now, but eight months ago too…”

“Owen,” she said, “this message was sent to me not now, but eight months ago too…”

She did not finish the word, because someone knocked three times on the room door. Camden stood up, but Natalie held his hand.

“Don’t open it.”

They knocked on the door a second time. This time more heavily.

My hands froze. The memory card was still in Natalie’s hand, and beside the envelope the small key was shining. Everything seemed connected to one another, but one main piece was still missing.

“Who is it?” Camden called.

A man’s voice came from outside.

“I have documents brought for Owen Bennett.”

Natalie lowered her eyes.

“That’s him.”

“Who?”

“Victor Haley. Your father’s lawyer. The man who called me first.”

We did not open the door. After several seconds, the sound of footsteps went down the stairs.

The next morning I went with Natalie to her old studio, which was located on the second floor of an abandoned warehouse in the southern part of the city. At nine in the morning there was only the smell of dust, extinguished pipes, and the sound of our footsteps.

I turned the key in the lock of the back door. The door opened.

Inside I found a small recording room. Soundproofing foam had sagged from the walls, and my old microphone stood on the table. Beside it, exactly where Natalie had left the black folder eight months earlier, lay a small digital recorder.

“Did you find this?” I asked.

“No. I found only the card here. Victor sent the recorder to me yesterday.”

“Why did he send it to you?”

Natalie smiled bitterly.

“Because he thought I would never reach you.”

I turned on the recorder. From the very first second I heard my own voice.

“Natalie, if you are hearing this, don’t come back. My father’s affairs are on my shoulders. I can’t have another problem because of you.”

I froze in place.

“I didn’t say this,” I said.

Natalie leaned against the wall.

In the recording, my voice continued again.

“Your door is closed forever. Don’t call me. Don’t write to me. I don’t want this relationship anymore.”

Blood was roaring in my ears. The voice was mine, but the words were not. I was a vocal professional. I knew how breathing was cut, how the tone changed when phrases were glued together.

“This recording has been assembled,” I said. “They cut words out of the text of my old commercial.”

Natalie took the recorder from my hand.

“I believed it.”

“Why?”

“Because that same night Victor called me and told me your father had debts. He told me that if I stayed with you, creditors would take your studio. Then he sent me this recording.”

“Did my father have debts?”

Victor suddenly appeared in the doorway. He was over sixty, wearing an expensive coat and holding a leather folder.

“No,” he said. “I created the debts.”

Natalie turned around.

Victor placed documents on the table.

“Leonard Bennett signed only one loan. The rest of the signatures are forged. The money went not to your studio, but to my account.”

“Did my father know?” I asked.

“He has known for the last two weeks. That is why he asked me to fix everything.”

He took another sheet of paper from the folder.

“But there is a problem. Your father was taken to the hospital this morning. He has already told the police that you are responsible for the crime.”

Natalie covered her mouth with her hand.

“Why would he say that?”

Victor looked toward me.

“Because someone told him that Owen was meanwhile testifying against me.”

My phone rang. My father’s name appeared on the screen, but no one answered the call.

After the third call, a message came: “If you do not come by evening, everything will be published with Owen’s signatures…”