5

The bathroom door clicked shut and the sound hit me right in the center of my chest.

"Ethan?" I called into the quiet room. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

"Practice makes perfect." His voice floated back through the door. Dry. Unhurried. Like I was a task he had already checked off his list.

I sat there on the edge of his massive bed. Something inside my chest turned itself into very fine powder. Not a crack. Not a break. Just a slow, silent collapse, the kind you feel in your bones but can't name out loud. My fingers curled tight into the expensive sheets. My throat burned.

I picked up my clothes from the floor and put them on without looking back at the bathroom door.

The cab ride home was a blur. The apartment was cold. The bath was too hot. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and told myself I was fine. Sleep was close, so close I could almost taste it on my tongue. My eyes were finally getting heavy.

Then the phone rang.

"Miss Clarke, your mother has been admitted to the emergency room. Please come immediately."

Every warm, soft thing inside my body went ice cold. I was off the bed before the nurse finished her sentence. I changed into whatever my hands touched first. I grabbed my keys. I hit the street at 2 AM, the worst possible hour to find a taxi in this city.

I opened the ride app. Request sent. Declined. Declined. Declined. Three drivers in a row looked at the pickup location and said no.

A yellow cab came down the wet road. I raised my hand and stepped forward. The cab didn't slow down. It drove straight through the biggest puddle on the curb at the exact angle required to throw a wave of filthy brown water across my legs and skirt. The dirty spray hit my stomach, my chest, my chin. I stood on the pavement dripping like a stray dog that had just been kicked out of someone's yard.

I wiped my face with one shaking hand.

My eyes burned. My chest was so tight I could barely pull air. My mother was dying in a hospital bed and I was standing alone on a dark street covered in mud, and nobody in this entire city would stop for me.

Then headlights. A sleek black sports car pulled up right in front of me. The door opened and Nathan Reid stepped out.

He was tall, well built, dressed in a dark jacket that probably cost more than my rent. His face was doing something very specific. It was trying extremely hard not to react to what he was seeing.

"Vivian?" His eyebrows pulled together. His eyes moved over the mud on my clothes, my wet hair, the mess running down my legs.

"Don't ask." I held up one hand. "I just crawled out of a mud pit."

His mouth twitched. Not a laugh. He held it back. "Where do you need to go?"

"The hospital. My mom." My voice cracked on the second word and I bit down on my lower lip until it hurt.

"Get in." He pulled the passenger door open.

I looked at his pristine leather seats. "Your car. I'll ruin it."

"I was literally about to get it washed." He tilted his head toward the open door. "Get in, Vivian."

I didn't have time to figure out if that was true or kind. I got in.

Nathan drove fast but smooth. He handed me a pack of tissue paper from the glove box without saying a word. I wiped the mud off my arms and my neck. The silence in the car was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of someone who understood that talking was not what I needed right now.

I stared out the window. My hands were still shaking in my lap. Every red light felt like a knife twisting in my gut.

He glanced at me once. I didn't look back. He stopped talking completely after that.

The hospital hallway was the worst kind of quiet. The kind where people hold their breath and pray to whatever god they believe in. The emergency room door was shut. The red light above it glowed like a warning. I stood in front of it with mud drying on my skin and my heart sitting somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

I couldn't sit down. I couldn't move. I just looked at that light and told myself she was strong. She was a fighter. She would come out the other side. My nails dug into my palms until I felt the sharp sting of skin breaking.

Then fast footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Sophie came around the corner carrying a bag of clothes and wearing the panicked expression of a best friend dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour. Her hair was messy. Her jacket was inside out. She didn't care.

She took one look at me and her face fell completely. "Oh my God, Viv." She shoved the bag into my arms. "Change. Right now. Before your mom sees you looking like this."

"Soph, I'm fine."

"You are covered in actual mud." Her hands grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward the bathroom. "Go. Change. Wash your face. I will stand right here and watch that door."

I didn't argue. I went into the small hospital bathroom, peeled off the dirty clothes, and pulled on the clean ones Sophie had brought. I splashed cold water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red. My skin was pale. But I looked human again. That was enough.

I came back to the hallway. The red light was still on.

Sophie looked me up and down. Her eyes moved over my face, my arms, my clean shirt. She nodded once, approving.

Then her eyes stopped. Completely stopped. Right at my collarbone.

The color drained out of her face. Her mouth fell open. Her voice came out three full registers higher than normal.

"Viv." She grabbed my shoulder. "Who did this to you?"

I could see the math running behind her eyes at full speed. She knew Derek and I never went that far. She knew I had kept him at a distance the whole time we were together. She knew we had barely been broken up at all. The marks on my collarbone were fresh and deep and very, very real, and they did not come from nowhere.

I glanced down at the dark bruises scattered across my skin. I looked back up at Sophie. My face didn't change at all.

"I slept with Ethan Blackwell."

Sophie's mouth opened. Then closed. Her eyes went so wide I could see the whites all the way around. She blinked once. Twice.

Then she slowly raised one thumb in complete, stunned, silent tribute.