LOGINChapter Thirty — FiledRoseanne's POVDoyle's office smelled like old coffee and carpet cleaner.I had been in it twice before. Once in sophomore year for a scheduling issue, once in junior year when Becca and I got caught leaving campus early. Both times it had felt minor. A formality. This did not feel like a formality.Doyle was behind his desk when they brought me in first. Mid-fifties, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, the expression of a man who had started his Friday with something he had not anticipated. The lawyer's letter was open on his desk. I could see my father's name in the header from across the room.He asked me to sit."I want to start by saying that what's been distributed is not the full picture," I said before he could open.He looked at me over his glasses. "Your father's letter covers that.""I know. I just wanted to say it myself first."He nodded once. "The recording that was sent to me last night. You're aware of it.""Yes.""And you're aware that th
Chapter Twenty-Nine — FridayElle's POVI drove home with the windows down despite the cold.I needed the air. The evening had run through too many versions of itself and my head was full in a way that sleep would not immediately fix. Paul Calvert's voice through the study door. Roseanne's arm against mine at the kitchen table. The recording playing back through the speaker, my own voice in that Sunday morning doorway, sounding younger than I remembered feeling.I checked my phone at a red light. Nothing from Jake. Nothing from Richard. Either they did not know about the lawyer yet or they were deciding how to respond to it. Both possibilities required watching.My mother was back from Aunt Karen's when I got home. She was awake, which was unusual past ten, sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of water and the specific posture of someone who had been waiting and was trying to look like they had not been."Vince?" she said."Handled. For now." I put my keys on the counter. "Twenty
Chapter Twenty-Eight — PlayedElle's POVThe kitchen went completely still.Paul looked at me. My mother looked at me. Roseanne looked at me with an expression that was somewhere between surprise and something that might have been relief."You recorded it," Paul said."When I went to his house Sunday morning I had my phone in my jacket pocket. I hit record before I knocked." I pulled my phone out and set it on the table. "I did the same thing before I called him the night the link went up. I had no way of knowing then that he was doing the same thing. I just knew I needed something real if it ever came to this."Paul looked at the phone. Then at me. "You've had this since Sunday.""Yes.""And you didn't use it.""I didn't need to. Until now."He was quiet for a moment. His hands were still folded on the table. My mother had turned the radio off at some point without me noticing and the kitchen was very quiet."Play it," he said.I opened the file. The recording was forty-three minutes
Chapter Twenty-Seven — BeccaRoseanne's POVI took my phone from my mother and looked at the screen.Four messages from Becca. The first three were texts, sent two minutes apart. The fourth was a voice note.The texts said: Call me. Seriously call me. Rose please pick up.I played the voice note with the phone pressed to my ear. Becca's voice came through fast and slightly breathless, the way she got when something had already happened and she was catching up to it.Jake threw a party tonight. Like an actual party, his parents' house, and he played the recording again but this time it wasn't just fifteen people it was everyone. And he added to it. He had someone edit it or something because there's new stuff in it that wasn't there Monday and it sounds worse and people are filming it off the speaker and sending it around. I'm outside right now. Call me.I lowered the phone.Elle was still on the porch. She read my face and held out her hand for the phone. I gave it to her. She played
Chapter Twenty-Six — BrunchRoseanne's POVMy mother had made three things by the time I got home from school.A lemon cake, a tray of roasted vegetables nobody had asked for, and the particular atmosphere that filled our kitchen when she was anxious and had decided that productivity was the solution. She moved between the counter and the stove with that focused energy she got at dinner parties when she was managing twelve people and two dietary restrictions. There were four of us eating tonight."She called me this morning," my mother said without turning around. "Sandra Harlan. About Easter. I didn't know what to say so I said we'd have to check the calendar.""That's fine, Mom.""It's not fine. We've had Easter plans for six weeks." She turned around. Her expression was the careful one, the one that meant she had a lot of feelings organized into a line and was releasing them one at a time. "I've known Sandra for four years. Book club, the school fundraiser. She brought us soup when
Chapter Twenty-Five — MeridianElle's POVThursday came faster than I was ready for.I spent Wednesday clean. No contact with Richard, no contact with Jake, no drama. I picked up Tony's wages in the morning, three weeks at once, nine hundred and change in an envelope he handed me without making it a thing. Roseanne's transfer landed in my account by noon. By two o'clock I had twenty-seven hundred in cash and an appointment with Vince set for three.Vince's guy met me in the parking lot of a laundromat on Crescent, which was apparently how these things worked. I handed over the envelope. He counted it without looking at me. Texted someone. Looked up."Remainder by the thirty-first," he said."That's the arrangement."He nodded and walked back to his car and that was it. No drama, no threat, nothing cinematic. Just a transaction. The remaining fifteen hundred sat in my account as a number I would figure out before the month ended.I drove home and stood in the shower for ten minutes and
Chapter Sixteen — MinePaul Calvert's POVShe said it so simply.Not defensively, not carefully, not wrapped in the soft language I might have expected from my daughter who had always known exactly how to manage me. Just two words, flat and certain, like she was identifying something that had alway
Chapter Thirteen — ProxyElle's POVI read the text twice."You think you're protecting her. You're just making it worse. Back off or the rest of the pictures go to her father."Different number from the first unknown text. Same energy. Same goal. Jake was not done — he had just stopped using his o
Chapter Nine — SeenRoseanne's POVThe text was from Becca.Three words. "Everyone's talking, Rose."That was all. No explanation, no details, no softening. Just that, sitting on my screen at midnight like a hand around my throat.I put the phone down. Picked it up again. Put it down."What does it
Chapter FiveElle's POVI sat in the principal's office, my heart still racing from that kiss. Roseanne's lips on mine, soft and warm, her tongue shy but eager. Fuck, I could still taste her, feel her tits pressed against me, her pussy grinding on my thigh through our clothes. She was wet—I knew it







