Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 143870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 480(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 480(@300wpm)
She’s in the kitchen drinking a glass of water, and she lingers there while I continue my conversation. I draw it out with unnecessary questions about reports and upcoming events until she walks down the hall and closes her door for the night.
For the rest of the week, we fall into a similar pattern. I’m present every evening, providing her dinner, protection—and solitude.
I don’t engage her in conversation, and I spend my time working from her sofa when I’m not sleeping on it.
By the weekend, she’s restless, and she exerts that energy into extra workouts and deep cleaning her house. Then Sunday arrives, and as I predicted, she returns in a huff after running errands.
“Did you pay my rent for an entire year?”
“Yes.” I don’t bother to glance up at her.
“You need to cancel that check,” she demands.
“No.”
“Cristian, you can’t just go around paying my bills.”
“It’s already done.”
A tense silence settles over the room as she waits for me to look at her, but I don’t. It’s obvious she wants this to be a bigger fight than it is, but she doesn’t know how to keep arguing about it. So in the end, she pads down the hall and slams her door.
I smile for the first time in a week.
24
CHANTEL
“You’ll never guess who came to see me this weekend.” Tiffany fluffs up her hair behind me, using my mirror as I touch up my makeup.
“I’m not interested in hearing about your conquests,” I tell her, the words snappier than I intend them.
I’ve been in a shit mood all week, and I don’t even know why. But being around Cristian, or more accurately—being ignored by him—feels like torture.
“Well, in that case I guess it’s good you don’t care,” Tiffany claps back. “Since it was your not-boyfriend.”
I freeze with the lipstick halfway to my mouth, and she smirks.
“Thought you didn’t care,” she says in a syrupy sweet voice.
“I don’t.” The words scrape up my throat.
Nothing has ever felt like more of a lie. In fact, it feels like someone just punched all the air from my lungs.
Pressure throbs behind my eyes as her mouth curves into her signature I-just-got-fucked smile.
“I guess I must have really left an impression on him,” she says. “Anyway, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. All I can say is that he’s welcome to pay me a visit anytime.”
She saunters off, so content with herself I feel nauseous. My initial thought is that she must be lying because Cristian wouldn’t do that. Then I remember how stupid it is for me to believe otherwise.
This is the reason I don’t do relationships. In the end, people will always disappoint you.
Except this doesn’t feel like disappointment. It feels like the same stomach-churning, god-awful hurt I experienced the first time I learned what betrayal was.
It doesn’t make sense, because what Cristian and I have shouldn’t feel so significant. But maybe it would be easier to dismiss if I hadn’t felt such a connection with him under the veil of anonymity. We had something that was hard to define—something so real it scared me.
Now I can’t help wondering if it was a lie.
After crawling out of that pit of despair, I tell myself I should be glad it happened now. It’s one of many reasons why we never would have worked out.
Usually, I can default to numbness. It’s how I’ve survived. But as I finish getting ready to go on stage, I’m not numb.
I’m hollow.
Regardless, I carry on with the show, because what choice do I have?
Back in the dressing room, I shower and change, taking my time to avoid the other dancers. But when I return to my vanity, I find Kenzie waiting for me.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.
“Of course.” I shrug. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
A beat of silence stretches between us before she sighs. “You might be able to fool everyone else with that act, but you can’t fool me. I was the queen of dissociation when we met. Remember?”
I nod, but when I try to respond, emotion clogs my throat. Kenzie notices, and like a good friend, she doesn’t push.
“Hey, I have an idea,” she says. “We haven’t done this in a while.”
I arch a brow at her, and she smiles.
“Top five craziest things that happened this month.”
A soft laugh escapes me, because as usual, there’s never a shortage of crazy events around here.
“The lipstick thief.” She holds up one finger. “I’d like to know who’s hoarding twenty used tubes of the stuff.”
“When Kelly thought that customer was actually Tom Hardy,” I supply.
Kenzie chokes on her laughter. “You gotta give that guy mad props, though. He committed to the bit all the way to the end. She was hella mad when she realized she slept with a poker player from Tacoma.”
“There was also the week of the possessed mannequin,” I add.