“Open up, Little Thief.”
The knock comes again, slower this time and only once. My hand hovers over the handle, fingers tingling, but I stay perfectly still. If I don’t move, if I don’t breathe, maybe he’ll think I’m not here. Or that I’m sleeping since I’m supposedly sick.
If I’m lucky he’ll… what? Go away? Kick it in? I don’t even know which one I’m rooting for.
After an eternity—maybe thirty seconds, maybe three hours—the hallway goes quiet. No kicked-in door. No rattling handle.Just the distant hum of the elevator and the echo of my own heartbeat in my ears. He’s gone.
But when I reach the door, I can’t make myself turn the handle. Outside is Cleveland. Outside is a world where I might run into him, where I’d have to see his face and remember how it felt to be looked at like I mattered.
“I love you.”
Nope, I can’t handle that. Inside is safer, even if inside is slowly suffocating me.
I end up on the bathroom floor by evening, back against the cool wall, knees drawn to my chest. The wine bottle in my hand is nearly empty. Is it my first? Third? I’ve lost count. The room spins pleasantly, dulling the edges of thoughts I don’t want to have.
My makeup from Saturday night is still on, mascara tracks down my cheeks like war paint. I try to wipe them away with my thumb, but it only smears the black further, making me look like I’ve been crying oil.
“God, stop it,” I mutter to myself, watching my mouth form the words in the mirror cabinet across from me. “Just stop it.”
But I can’t. The tears keep coming, hot and humiliating, plopping onto my bare legs. Cleveland was supposed to be my fresh start. New city, new job, new me. Instead, I’m the same old me. Just with a different scenery.
I watch myself like it’s someone else falling apart—this blonde girl with raccoon eyes and wine-stained lips, hugging her knees on a bathroom floor. She looks pathetic. She looks small. She looks exactly like what I’ve always been terrified of becoming.
I lift the bottle to my mouth, tipping it back for the last swallow. Wine dribbles down my chin in a murky, pinkish streak. My hand drops, the empty bottle clattering against the tile.
“Pin it,” I whisper to my reflection, but we both know it’s too late for that. “Please.”
Hours later, the floor still feels like the only honest place left in the world. My phone is in my hand, and I can’t remember when I picked it up or why I’m squinting at Piper’s name in my contacts like it’s written in a language I barely understand.
What matters is that my finger is hovering over the call button while some tiny, still-sober part of my brain screams that this is a terrible idea. I call anyway.
The phone trembles against my ear, my hand shaking so badly I nearly drop it twice before Piper answers on the fourth ring.
“Lee?” Her voice is thick with sleep. “It’s two in the morning. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say automatically, then laugh, a wet, ugly sound that catches in my throat. “Everything. I don’t know.”
There’s rustling on her end; sheets being pushed aside, a lamp clicking on. I picture her sitting up in bed, her hair perfectly tousled even in sleep because Piper doesn’t know how to be messy. Not like me.
“Are you drunk?” she asks, fully awake now.
“Spectacularly,” I confirm, my eyes welling up again for no reason at all. “Piper, I fucked up.”
“Are you hurt? Do you need me to come get you?”
“No, not hurt.” I press my palm against my sternum where something aches, sharp and insistent. “I mean, yes. But not like that.”
“Come on, Lee, you’re not making sense.” There’s an edge of worry in her voice now. “Take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”
The beginning. When was that? The night at Parkview, when I stolehislighter? The dayhetracked me down and demanded a favor? Or Saturday night, when I let myself believe, just fora moment, that I was more than just a convenient pawn in whatever game he’s playing?
It all comes out in a messy rush that probably makes no sense. But I explain I stole something and that I now belong to him, and that I’d started to think maybe, just maybe, something real was happening.
Taking a deep breath, I launch myself into the Tony of it all. “Like, why wouldn’t he just say Antonia? Answer me that, Pipes. Is that so hard? I don’t think so.”
“Lee,” Piper sighs emphatically. “Your explanation isn’t making any sense. Who is he? What did he want from you?”
Didn’t I just explain all of this? Huh, maybe my drunken slurs only made sense to me.
