“You had to have seen her,” I said to Roman. He’d been close both times I’d spotted her.
Roman shook his head. “Who is this person, and why do we care about her?”
“Why are you all gaslighting me?” I yelled, trembling as my fists balled at my side. “If Wes was who you wanted all along, why are you still fucking withme?”
Maisy and her lover had stopped having sex, now merely sitting together on the bed as they watched me unravel. As theyallwatched me unravel.
“Nova, you literally sound crazy,” Maisy snapped. “There’s no one named Lorelei in The Circle. Are you her stalker or something? Like,girl.”
My eyes darted from Maisy to Jayne to Archer to Roman. I almost met Wes’s eyes, but I still couldn’t. My shoulders dropped.
“Why is she even here?” Maisy asked Jayne. “She’s not one of us. She’s?—”
“Enough,” Jayne hissed.
“No, she’s right. I’m not,” I said with a shaky breath.
I could’ve kept yelling, demanding to know where they were keeping Lorelei, but I wanted to save the dignity I still had. They were never going to help me.
None of them, not even the man who promised me he would take care of it—that he would find my friend and end all of this.
That he would take care ofme.
He just stood there.
“Where’s my bag?” I asked Jayne.
“Across the hall.” She stepped forward, as if to reach for me, but then she thought better of it. “I think if we all sat down together and spoke on the level of the soul, we could figure this out.”
I laughed, and the sound did perhaps come out a little unhinged.
Archer nodded. “Stay, Nova. The weekend has only just started. The drivers are all off duty.”
“I will literally walk back to Brooklyn if I have to,” I snapped.
Roman remained quiet, watching me, calculating as if I was a puzzle to be solved or a chess match he was playing with Wes at my expense.
I left the room, and only one person followed me across the hall. I burst through the door and found my strawberry printed duffel bag immediately.
“I’ll get my phone back and call Marty,” Wes said.
“I’m not getting in a car with you.” I slowly turned toward him.
“Nova, please,” Wes said, desperate. “Let me explain.”
Our eyes finally locked. “You were right,” I spat. “I’m a huge people pleaser who makes other people’s problems her own and puts everyone else’s needs first. Well, I’m done. If Lorelei wants to be here, if she can laugh in my face and run from me like I’m the butt of some huge joke, thenfine.I’ll stop trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.I’m done! You all can have her!” I said loudly so the others could hear me.
Before Wes could respond, I continued. “Because at the end of the day, she’s an addict. And addicts are fuckingliars. Liars who destroy anyone who dares to get close to them.”
Wes reared back. He closed his mouth. His intense, stormy eyes flashed surprise and then hurt before walling off any show of emotions at all.
“And what about you and Roman?” he asked coldly.
“Me and Roman?” I spat incredulously. “That’syour main concern right now? You really think so little of me?” My throat burned. I’d crossed some invisible barrier I’d erected years ago: the walls I’d built around my anger because as a child, anger wasn’t a safe emotion for me to feel. Now, every drop of buried rage filled my veins.
Wes was right. Lorelei and I weren’t in Tennessee anymore, and I was tired of living life without a backbone.
Look where it had gotten me.
