Chapter 163: 163. Trying To Make A Positive Impression? Nah, It’ll Only Make It Worse!

They walked out of the cabin and into the wet park, and Marc pulled the door shut behind them and said, "The revision..."

"When you treat something as a revision opportunity."

"What’s the difference between that and just changing your mind because the new situation is more convenient?"

"The difference," Mike said, "is whether you understand why you were mistaken before."

"If you just update because the new thing works better, you haven’t learned anything about the original error." Mike raised his finger. "You’ve just swapped one framework for another."

"The revision is when you go back and find the point at which the original framework was already wrong, and you fix it there."

Marc was quiet for a moment, walking.

"That’s more specific than I expected," he said.

"Most people give me the version about staying flexible," Marc said. "That’s not what you said."

"Flexible is a way to avoid committing to being wrong," Mike said. "Being actually wrong means you have to go back and look at the specific error and decide what it cost you."

"And then?"

"And then you move forward," Mike said. "But you don’t tell yourself it was fine."

Marc looked at Maya.

"That’s the third option," he said to her.

"Yes," Maya said. "It is..."

She was walking with her hands in her jacket pockets and her eyes on the path ahead, and she had the relaxed posture of someone who was comfortable and present, which she performed so naturally that Mike was certain Marc was reading it exactly as she intended.

He made a note.

’I’m sorry, Marc... but promise me that you will not leave me if one day you find out.’

’That man you’re talking to... he’s a monster... and I can’t backstab him because he’ll know right away...’

...

They walked for another minute. The park was emptying steadily, the last of the storm stragglers heading for the exits.

Marc had the look of someone who had one more thing to ask and was deciding whether to ask it now or later.

He asked it now. "By the way..."

"Where did you study?" he said to Mike.

"Various places," Mike said. "I can’t study in just one place because my eyes needed something refreshing to look at."

"That’s not an answer I was expecting.."

"Well, it is the accurate one," Mike said. "The formal credentials are from one institution."

"Most of what I actually know came from somewhere else."

Marc looked at him sideways. "What kind of somewhere else are we talking about here?"

"The kind you don’t put on a transcript." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Marc processed this and filed it. He was the kind of person who knew when to push and when to leave something for later.

"Interesting... The theory," he said. "The one about postgrads."

"Do you want to know which category you fit?"

"Nope," Mike said.

Marc glanced at Maya. She was still looking at the path ahead and the corner of her mouth had moved.

"He said no," she said.

"I heard," Marc said. "Interesting answer from a guy like you, Mike."

"It’s a reasonable answer," Mike said. "You’ll tell me eventually regardless of what I say."

"So saying yes just makes me look eager."

Marc stopped walking for half a step, then resumed.

"Which category is it?" he said to Maya.

"I haven’t decided," she said. "I’m still revising."

...

Dinner was at their apartment in District 6, which was on the third floor of a building that had been renovated from its original function into residential units, resulting in higher ceilings than apartments of its size usually had and large industrial windows that looked out over the commercial block below.

It was a space that had clearly been assembled with attention, not expensive exactly but considered, the kind of place that reflected who the people living in it were rather than what they could afford.

Marc cooked, which he did in the efficient and unself-conscious way of someone who cooked regularly and treated it as a practical task rather than a performance. He had ordered ahead as promised, produce and protein from a place two streets over that delivered within twenty minutes, and by the time they had changed into dry clothes, he was already in the kitchen making decisions.

Maya had come back out in a different shirt and her hair tied back, the slightly different version of herself that she moved into at home, which was warmer and slightly less processed than the public-facing version.

But beneath the soft cotton of her shirt, her skin still felt hypersensitive, almost bruised, as if the ghost of Mike’s hands were still gripping her waist. Every time she shifted on the stool, a dull, heavy ache in her pelvis reminded her of the sheer volume of him she was still carrying inside her.

She sat at the kitchen counter while Marc worked, forcing a lightness into her voice that felt like a mask made of glass. She had to be careful; one wrong movement, one too much laughter, and she feared the "real" Maya, the one who had screamed and begged in the cabin, would shatter through the surface.

"The rain really came down hard by the time we got back," Maya said, her voice steady, though she gripped the edge of the counter a little too tightly.

She forced a small, pleasant smile toward Mike. "I think we caught the worst of it..."

"It’s so much quieter here in the city, isn’t it? It’s a nice change of pace from the woods."

Mike took a seat across the counter, entering the particular mode of someone who was listening and contributing and making himself entirely comfortable in a space that was not his. He sat with a relaxed, predatory ease, his eyes occasionally flicking to Maya with a knowing, dark glint that made her heart hammer against her ribs.

"It is," Mike replied smoothly, his voice casual, though there was an edge of satisfaction in his tone that only Maya could truly decode. "The city has its own kind of rhythm."

"A bit more... controlled. Less wild than the mountains."

"Exactly," Maya chimed in, her eyes darting to Marc, who was humming a low tune as he chopped vegetables.

She felt a sudden, sharp pang of guilt so intense it nearly made her nauseous. "Controlled. That’s the perfect word for it."

"You okay, babe?" Marc asked, glancing up from the cutting board, his expression full of genuine, sweet concern. "You seem a little quiet..."

"Did the drive back tire you out?"

Maya felt a bead of sweat prickle at her hairline. She forced a laugh, the sound bright and artificial. "Just a little sleepy, Marc."

"The storm was... a lot to take in, but the food smells amazing." Maya giggled. "You’re saving the day as usual."

"Just doing my part," Marc smiled, turning back to the stove.

As the conversation drifted toward the upcoming week and the logistics of their schedules, Maya kept her eyes focused on her glass of water, and watched the ripples. She played the part of the perfect partner, the warm and grounded woman Marc loved, while her mind was a frantic battlefield.

Every time Mike shifted in his seat, she felt a phantom sensation of his weight pressing her into the floor, and every time she swallowed, she could almost taste the salt of the encounter. She was a master of the lie, performing the most difficult role of her life: acting like a woman who hadn’t just been utterly, beautifully broken.

’God... the guilt... it’s much worse than I thought...’

’And why... do I have to keep talking with this brute...?!’

Mike noticed that Maya is trying to act like she was in a vlog to make a good impression. ’Nice try, Maya...’

’The guilt will slowly change you into someone that’ll fell into my arms...’

The clinking of Marc’s knife against the cutting board and the low hum of the refrigerator felt like a rhythmic torture to Maya. To anyone else, she looked like the picture of domestic tranquility, but inside, her mind was a screaming, chaotic mess of contradictions.

’Just keep smiling... Just keep talking,’ she commanded herself, her inner voice a frantic whisper. ’If you look too long at Mike, he’ll see.’

’If you look too long at Marc, you’ll start crying.’