2 am I wake up to the sound of my phone pinging. I reach out for it in the dark and open my eyes and see Olive’s name on the screen. I tap the text and open my eyes wider to see it. Hey. I know it’s late but I need your help. Something happened (Don’t freak out, no one got hurt.) Knox and I are on our way to your place. I really need a place to sleep and you were the first person that came to mind. I hope you don’t mind. And I hope you see this text before we get there. I don’t want to wake you up in the middle of the night. Olive I read the text over and over trying to make sense of it. What could have happened that they need to come here? Her message gave no detail and that is making me freak out. I have all sorts of scenarios running in my head. I sit up in bed and look up at the text one more time. I hope they’re okay and nothing really terrible happened. I have at least an hour wait before they get here. I get out of bed and head to the kitchen. I call the front

“Good morning.” Olive says peaking through my bedroom door. I open my eyes and flip around to look at her. She looks so much better than she did last night, her sweet spirit is restored. Her soul was crushed when she walked through my door last night. Both she and Knox looked like they saw the devil. But this morning she seems a lot more settled. She smiles at me and I wink at her. “Do you mind if I come in?” She says smiling at me shyly. I wish I could protect her from the cruelties of this world but, I’m afraid to get involved too deeply. Her family lives by different rules; I might get burned if I poke my head in their business. “Come in.” I say and she walks in slowly, looking around my room. She gets on my bed, looking at me. “This is a very beautiful room.” She says touching my cover softly. She avoids eye contact, I know she feels bad for getting me involved with everything but what she doesn’t know is that I have been a part of this way before she was aware it was happening

“How are you this evening?” Phil says when I get to the door of the car. I look back at my office building and there are people from my office staring at me. I see them pointing at ne and talking amongst themselves. I’m pretty sure they are not talking about me but I feel self conscious about being picked up by a car. I’m very uncomfortable with displays of money. And having a all black, blacked out windows and a chauffeur in an all black outfit. Is the ultimate show of money and power. Whatever happened to a regular Uber? All Knox had to do was give me the address and I would have showed up. But no, he has to have me picked up. Phil opens the back passenger door and I get in. I try to shake off the feeling hovering over me. I know I’m over thinking this because I’m nervous. I don’t know what’s going to happen. “I’m good and how are you?” I ask him when he gets in the front door. “I’m well thank you for asking.” He says starting the car and we leave. “I thought Knox was the one

I open my eyes and look to my left and then to my right, the bed is empty. My heart beats fast when I realize I’m in bed alone and Knox is not in the room. “Knox.” I call out and wait for him to answer but he doesn’t. I sit up on the bed and look out the window. It’s still relatively dark outside; I can tell its early morning. “Knox.” I call out again. I wait a few more seconds for him to answer, the door opens just as I was about to get out of bed. I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. My heart is beating so fast I can hear it in my ears. I had a flash of the night I woke up in my bed and he wasn’t there. I need to learn to not freak out when I wake up and he’s not there. I don’t want to die young of a heart attack. “Hey.” He says walking to the bed. He smiles at me and I master a smile even though I feel like shit. This is an emotional experience for me and I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it all. “Hey.” I say looking at him get under the covers. He looks at me c

“Hi Mel.” Samantha says staring at me when I open the door. The smile on my face slowly fades; I go from excitement to shock. How did she get up to my apartment? Why wasn’t I told she was coming up? The front desk should have let me know when she arrived. I look at her on alert. I look into her eyes trying to figure out if she has any animosity. The second I saw her at y door, the word murder pops into my head. Why else would she be here? Surely she came to kill me for taking her love from her. I have so many questions right now. The one that’s nagging me the most is; how does she know where I live? I look behind her expecting to see Knox. He’s supposed to be here instead of her. Maybe they are playing a sick game on me. Knox wouldn’t tell her where I live; he believes Samantha would never bother us. So much for his promises. “How are you here?” I ask looking at her suspiciously. I don’t know what’s going on here, I feel ambushed. I hate when people show up unannounced at my door. T