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CHAPTER 8: ONE WORD
publish date:
2026-04-04 17:52:05
Latest chapter
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 10: ZERO FOOTPRINT
The check sat on the counter between them like a third person in the room.Jasmine counted the zeros. Looked at Elena. Counted them again."Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.""Yeah.""Not eight-fifty. Not nine hundred.""I know.""Exactly eight hundred and forty-seven.""Jasmine.""I'm just saying it out loud because it needs to be said out loud."Elena understood that. Sometimes horror needed naming before you could decide what to do with it. Her mother used to say that too. Name the thing, baby. You can't fight what you won't look at.She looked at it.Someone had been counting her money.Jasmine squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, planted her hands on her hips. She did this when something scared her but she refused to let the fear sit down and get comfortable."We're not cashing that.""We have four hours.""Elena.""I know it's wrong. I know someone is watching me. I know this is not a good situation. But I can't lose the apartment." She pressed her palms flat on the coun
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 9: EXACTLY
"Soon. Just that one word?" Jasmine held Elena's phone with two fingers, like it might bite her. "That's it. That's the whole message.""That's the whole message."Jasmine set it down on the kitchen counter. Stepped back from it. Looked at it the way you looked at something you didn't want to touch again.They were in her apartment, which was really one room pretending to be two. The kitchen was a corner. The bedroom was wherever the air mattress happened to be inflated. Jasmine's actual bed lived behind a curtain rod with a bedsheet hung over it, which was the most dignified thing either of them had agreed to pretend was a wall."So someone knows where you perform, has your number, and is counting down to something.""That's what I'm trying to figure out.""The tuition money. The reporter. Now this.""All connected. Probably."Jasmine pulled her hair into a knot on top of her head. She did that when she was thinking hard or panicking. Usually both at the same time."Who spends money
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 8: ONE WORD
She showed him the text.She didn't plan to. She walked off stage fully intending to handle this herself, the same way she handled everything. Alone and quietly and without asking for help. But Danny was standing by the hallway door when she came off stage and something about his expression made her stop.She held the phone out without a word.He read it. Once, then again. His jaw tightened in that specific way she'd noticed, like he was controlling a reaction instead of having one."When did this come in?""While I was on stage. Unknown number."He looked up. His eyes moved across what was left of the crowd. Three people at the bar, Tommy wiping glasses, two college kids sharing something fried and laughing about something that had nothing to do with any of this."Someone in here sent this.""Or someone outside with a view through the window." She took the phone back. "Either way, they have my number. They know what I look like. They know where I perform." She shoved the phone into h
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 7: THE CAMERA
The camera light was blinding.Elena stepped through the back door into the alley behind The Hollow, Jasmine right beside her, and immediately threw her hand up to block the glare. A woman stood next to a cameraman, microphone in hand, professional smile locked in place."Elena Cross?""Who's asking?""Miranda Chen, City Arts Weekly." The woman extended her hand. Elena didn't take it. "I'm doing a piece on undiscovered talent in local venues. Someone tipped us off about you."The words landed wrong. Tipped us off. Like Elena was a story instead of a person."Someone who?""Anonymous source. Said your voice was extraordinary and you deserved a wider audience." Miranda's smile didn't waver. "I listened to a recording. They weren't wrong."Jasmine stepped forward, positioning herself between Elena and the camera. "What recording? She doesn't have anything online.""Someone sent it to our tip line. Just a phone recording from one of your performances here." Miranda looked past Jasmine to
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 6: THE WRONG QUESTION
She found him in the sound booth before her set.Danny was adjusting something on the board, headphones around his neck, focused in a way that made him look younger. Softer. Like someone who hadn't learned yet that the world would take everything you loved and break it just because it could.Elena killed that thought before it could settle."We need to talk."He looked up. Saw her face. Whatever softness had been there vanished, replaced by something careful."Okay.""Not here."She turned and walked toward the back hallway without checking if he followed. He would follow. She knew it the way she knew the words to songs she'd written at three AM. Some things you just felt in your bones.The hallway was empty. Same flickering light. Same smell of mop water and regret. She spun to face him the second she heard his footsteps stop."Did you pay my brother's tuition?"The question hit the air like a slap. Danny blinked. Once. Twice. His face did something she couldn't read."What?""Marcus
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 5: GRILLED CHEESE AND LANDMINES
He stayed for an hour.Elena kept working. Refilled coffees. Cleared plates. Pretended her entire nervous system wasn't tracking Danny Miller's location in her peripheral vision like he was a threat she needed to monitor.Jasmine stayed too. Asking questions Elena wished she'd thought of. Where did he grow up. What kind of music did he listen to. Had he always been into sound engineering or was that new.Danny answered everything. Grew up on the East Coast. Listened to everything but had a weakness for old blues recordings, the kind where you could hear the room in the track. Fell in love with sound in college, took a detour into the family business, came back to what he actually cared about.All reasonable. All plausible. All delivered with that same calm patience that made Elena want to shake him until something real fell out.But then Jasmine asked about his family and something shifted."Parents still around?"Danny's hand paused on his coffee cup. Just for a second. A micro-hesit
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