“Were they misunderstood?”
Direct pressure.
He hesitated.
Longer than before.
“No.”
Clear.
First correction under pressure.
“Then why say that?” she asked.
He exhaled.
“I didn’t want them to see me the way things actually happened.”
That exposed the conflict.
Internal accountability.
External image control.
Two parallel strategies.
She responded once.
“You can’t run both.”
Statement.
