“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But it felt like that.”
The words sit on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them down.Given the way she’s avoiding eye contact, admitting I heard her talking about her crush on me wouldn’t go over well.
“Ry—”
Jaw clenching, she pulls her shoulders back. “I need some space, if that’s okay with you.”
I expected her to send me packing or maybe yell at me. Instead, she’s subdued, distant. That might be worse. A wave of regret washes over me once again. “Of course. I understand.”
Exhaling, she focuses on me. “Bye, Hade.”
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest. “See you.”
With that, I turn on my heel and leave. What if she never forgives me?
I’m brewingcoffee the next morning when my phone rings. My heart thumps when Piper’s name flashes across the screen. She never calls this early without a reason.
“Hey, Pip,” I greet her.
“Hi.” The concern in her voice sends shivers down my spine.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t get ahold of Ry. I’ve been calling and texting her all morning, and she’s not answering.”
Panic ignites inside me. With one hand balled into a fist, I dig my nails into my flesh. “Did she go out last night?”
“No. She was home,” Piper counters. “But an apartment on the floor above hers caught fire.”
A jolt of adrenaline shoots through my system. “Is she okay?”
“She was when I talked to her in the middle of the night.” Piper sniffles. “But now she’s not answering, Hade. God, I’m so worried about her.”
“I’ll go check on her,” I say, heading to my bedroom. She might’ve told me she needed some space, but today, I’m going to ignore her wishes. “I’ll call you as soon as I get to her place.”
“Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
11
a very confident color
RILEY
“You knowwhat the worst part is?” I straighten and wipe the sweat from my forehead. “My apartment smells like I tried to roast a tire in the fucking oven.”
The smell inside my apartment is acrid and inescapable. Burnt plastic, scorched drywall, and an ugly chemical tang coats my nostrils, making it harder to breathe. The air is thick, even with the windows open. Already, the smoke has settled deep into the walls, into the furniture, even into my clothes.
In the midst of the chaos, I almost forgot to take my levothyroxine. The last thing I need after all this is to piss off my thyroid.
“Maybe it would’ve been better if your apartment had burned too. At least then, you’d get the insurance payout.” Nastya doesn’t look up from mopping the floor. “Instead, we’ve got pruned fingers from playing Cinderella.”
“That isn’t helpful at all.”
With a bark of a laugh, she looks up. “I’m staying true to myself.” She dunks the mop in the bucket then lifts it, squeezing out dirty water. “And you know nine times out of ten, I’m right.”
“But there’s still that one situation when you aren’t,” I tease her, and she flips me off. “Even if you don’t want to admit you can be wrong on occasion.”
“Nah, I have nothing against the truth.” She drags the mop across the floor. “Maybe I can seem mean sometimes, but it’s not because I want to offend people. I’d just prefer to be honest rather than falsely positive, and I refuse to lie to a person’s face just to make them feel better in the moment. It’s probably a cultural thing. My friends and family are like that too. It never bothers me because they have my best interests at heart, and I treat them the same way.”
