After My Boyfriend Framed Me With an AI Recording

For three weeks, Leif kept his phone face-down.

On the kitchen counter. On the couch. On the nightstand, screen pressed to the wood. In four years, he had never done that.

I didn't ask. I just noticed.

My name is Ember Weaver. I'm the person behind *Leif's Table*, a food channel with 1.2 million subscribers. You've probably never seen my face. I write the recipes. I style the plates. I edit every frame. Leif smiles for the camera. That was our deal, and I thought it was a good one.

Then came the perfume. It clung to his denim jacket when I hung it up. Vanilla and expensive flowers. I don't wear perfume. It ruins your sense of taste.

Then came the turtleneck. Black wool, in August. It was ninety-four degrees in Los Angeles.

“Aren't you hot?” I asked.

“It's a look,” he said. He tugged the collar up. He wasn't fast enough. I saw the purple mark under his jaw.

I said nothing. I filed it away the way I file everything. Labeled. Dated. Backed up twice.

Thursday night, I was editing at the kitchen table. Our dumpling video. Two hundred clips, color-coded. My coffee had gone cold hours ago.

I took a break and opened a fan subreddit. Sometimes I read it to see which recipes people loved.

Someone had posted a photo. *Is this Leif?? Spotted outside a restaurant in WeHo last night.*

It was blurry, but it was him. His gray jacket. His perfect hair. Next to him stood a tall blonde in a cream dress. I knew her. Macie Pierce. His college classmate. She had liked every single post we made for six months.

They were holding hands.

I zoomed in. On his left hand, between the thumb and index finger, was a pale, shiny scar.

I knew that scar. Four years ago, in our tiny Koreatown studio, he grabbed a cast-iron pan without a towel. He yelled so loud the neighbor banged on the wall. I sat on the floor with him and rubbed ointment into the burn. I wrapped it in gauze. He kissed my forehead. “What would I do without you?” he said.

Now that hand was wrapped around her fingers.

The screen dimmed. I tapped it awake. It dimmed again. I tapped it again. I didn't move otherwise.

Leif came home at nine, buzzing. He didn't even take off his shoes.

“Em, huge news. A supplement brand wants us. Detox gummies. Six figures for three videos.”

“Detox gummies don't work,” I said.

“Who cares? People buy them.” He grabbed a beer. “And we're pivoting. No more slow braises. Spicy challenges. Reactions. That's where the money is.”

“Our audience comes for the cooking.”

“Our audience comes for *me*.” He grinned. “Honestly, babe? Your recipes are dead weight now.”

Dead weight.

I set my phone on the table, screen up. The photo glowed between us.

He looked down. His face didn't change. But his right thumb drifted to the scar on his left hand and rubbed it.

He always did that when he lied.

“That's not what it looks like,” he said.

“It looks like you holding Macie's hand.”

“She tripped. I caught her.”

“For a whole block?”

“Em, come on.” His voice went soft and warm. His camera voice. “You know how much you mean to me. Macie gets marketing. She can help us scale.”

“Is that what the hickey was? Scaling?”

The smile dropped. “You've been spying on me?”

“I've been living with you.”

His jaw went tight. “Fine. You want the truth? You're boring, Ember. You hide behind the camera and act like a saint. Macie actually wants to grow.”

“Then go grow with her.” I stood. I kept my hands flat on the table so they wouldn't shake. “My name is on this lease. Get out.”

“You can't run the channel without me.”

“Get out, Leif.”

The door slammed. Through the peephole, I watched him wait for the elevator. He was already texting. He was smiling.

That night I drove to my parents' house in Pasadena. I slept in my childhood bedroom, under my old debate trophies. For four days I barely ate. My dad, Hector, left tea outside my door. He never knocked. On the fourth morning, there was a note under the cup in his neat teacher's handwriting.

*You were never small, Ember.*

On the fifth day, I opened my laptop.

I wrote to our community. I thanked them for four years. I told them I was the one behind the recipes and the edits, and that I was stepping away. I didn't name Leif. I didn't name Macie. I didn't need to.

By morning, there were forty thousand comments.

*I KNEW it was her. The editing has a soul.*

*Your garlic noodles got me through chemo. Thank you, Ember.*

*First the editor guy vanishes last spring, now this? What is going on over there?*

I read that last one twice. Benson Tucker. The quiet editor who stopped answering my texts. Leif had said he “just quit.” I hadn't thought about him in months.

Six days later, Leif posted: *Cooking With My New Co-Host!*

Macie stood in my kitchen setup in a white blouse. She held the knife like it might bite her. She called the cilantro parsley. Her laugh sounded rehearsed. The lighting was flat. The cuts were sloppy. The audio hummed.

Within three hours, the dislikes outnumbered the likes four to one.

*Where's Ember?*

*This is painful.*

*Bring back the person who actually cooked.*

I watched the subscriber count tick down. 1,214,000. 1,209,000. 1,201,000.

I didn't feel happy. I felt something colder.

Somewhere in this city, Leif was refreshing the same number. I knew him better than anyone.

He wouldn't take this quietly.