The Boss

This one has a plot, and the plot does half the work. A year-end review. A number that went up. A dinner to mark it, in a restaurant you have driven past but never been inside.

You drove her there. Of course you did. It is a weeknight, parking is bad, and you had no plans. You handed her her purse at the kerb and said you would be around.

Then you were around for four hours.

You were not excluded. You were parked.

What makes the boss scene bite is that everything in it is legitimate. He is not a seducer, he is her employer. The dinner is professional. The raise is earned. There is nothing to object to, and nowhere to put the objection even if you had one, which is why the whole evening happens inside your head rather than in any argument.

The waiting is the scene. Not what happens at the table, but the car. The windows fogging slightly. Your phone at twelve percent. The way you start reading the restaurant's menu online so you know what she is eating. Two hours in, you stop pretending you are doing anything other than waiting.

And underneath it, the comparison you cannot stop running: he decided her salary this year, and you did not. He assessed her, praised her, rewarded her. Status is the fuel in this fantasy, and it is the one kind you cannot argue your way out of.

There is a version of this where she comes out at eleven, gets in, says it was fine, and tells you nothing else. That version is usually the one people keep going back to.

In the app: the restaurant, the car, the two of them inside, you outside. She uploads and approves. The scene comes back with everyone exactly where the evening put them.