AN: Happy New Year! Hope 2024 is behaving for you all... If you haven't seen my announcement in my facebook group, I'm pulling my full length completed stories in the next few weeks for personal reasons (The Little Things, White Noise and Taste of Ink). PDFs are floating around, if you want to save them please do! Hoping to redraft them as original fiction and publish when time allows.

Chapter 9

•

Reruns

The bathroom light is unforgiving. There's a mottled bruise across my cheekbone, smudges of trauma to my eye, scratches and bruises to my arms and thighs. I look as horrific as I feel. Sighing heavily, I do my best with the makeup I have—pigment correction underneath, blending concealer delicately over the top—until I look vaguely normal. With foundation, contouring and a little blush, it becomes almost unnoticeable.

A soft knock at the door makes me jump.

"Bell, are you okay?"

Rose.

Standing straighter, I sweep dry, clean hair off my face and into a messy bun on top of my head. "Yeah," I tell her, my voice coming out hoarse.

"I got us coffee. I also called Lauren." She pauses. "She says she's very sorry and to take some time away."

It doesn't make me feel much better knowing Lauren is sorry, but at least it's one less call I have to make. Time away is a given.

"Is she going to pay me? Make up for my loss of earnings?"

Opening the bathroom door, I find Rose leaning against the wall with a cardboard tray of coffee in hand and what smells like a bag of bagels in the other. She looks effortless, even with no makeup on and dressed in a sweater set that has seen better days.

Rose's answering shrug makes my stomach lurch uncomfortably. I have some savings—of course I do—but I also have serious expenses; the at-home care my dad receives doesn't come cheap, nor does the payment plan for all his treatment, and neither will my loan repayments when those kick in. The weight of all those things hanging around my neck like a noose.

"She can call me herself and tell me," I state, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice. While I don't really expect Lauren to pay anything, because that's not how this works, the fact she is partially responsible for this situation makes me feel furious.

"I got you bagels," Rose says, raising the bag so it's in my eyeline as a diffuser. "You need to eat, and I'm the worst person in the kitchen, as you know, so … bagels."

She smiles, eyes flickering across my face.

"You can hardly tell," she says as we walk to her beige sofa and I collapse back down onto it with a wince, aching in places I probably shouldn't.

"Good."

Rearranging my legs in front of me, I feel her eyes glued to my every movement. Anticipating her next intake of air and what she's about to expel from her mouth, I intercept. "Please. Don't you dare ask me if I'm okay again," I say. "I'm okay. And I'm not going to waste a second more thinking about what could've happened. Or what did happen. Not today. Or tomorrow. Or maybe for a lifetime."

Rose sighs as she sits down next to me.

"That's totally the opposite of what you should be doing. You're still in shock. I still say we go down to the precinct and report him."

"No," I reply adamantly, shaking my head.

"Bella," she pleads, throwing a hand up in frustration.

"No," I say more firmly. "I'm not a victim. And I'm definitely not prepared to add to the mountain of shit I'm going through right now. I don't need it. I don't want it. I didn't ask for it. And I will not have it getting around all my dad's work-friends—can you imagine?"

Rose gives up, at least for now, placing my bagel in front of me.

"You're the most stubborn person I know. If you're not going to do that, then the bare minimum you can do right now is to eat. And sleep. You've been awake for over thirty-six hours. I've got some Xanny, if you want."

I relent with a small nod, reaching for the bagel, dusted in sesame seeds.

Sleep would be nice. I didn't sleep last night. I kept thinking of James' face—of the feel of his hands and weight on me. I kept thinking of the blur of streets I ran down and the wet sidewalk underneath my feet. I kept thinking about the sound of my heel connecting with his face and wishing I knew how much damage I did. A lot, I hope.

I'm not sure how long I walked in the rain, or how long it took me to be able to think straight; I just know that at some point Rose called again and somehow, despite my cell screen being broken, I could still answer.

A hysterical conversation followed and Rose came to get me, from wherever I was because she's Rose. She talked to me the entire way, until she pulled up and bundled me into the back of her car. I shook violently the entire ride.

Obviously I didn't go home. She took me to her condo, ran me a bath, and washed my hair. Gave me clothes to wear and covered me in blankets, and despite all of that I trembled for hours, unable to sleep for fear of being plagued by snatches of what happened.

"Sleep would be nice," I agree, taking a reluctant first bite.

It could be the most delicious bagel in existence, but right now all it tastes like is cardboard. I put it back down, forcing myself to chew, over and over, even though I want to gag.

"I need to go home," I add, after I finally swallow. "I need to see Dad."

"You need to rest," Rose insists. "For today at least. Go home tomorrow. I'll let Sue know you lost your cell and are staying over." She gets up, disappearing into her bedroom and retrieving an orange pill bottle, shaking one white rectangular pill onto her hand and offering it to me.

I've never had Xanax before so I take it tentatively.

"It's just going to take the edge off," Rose tells me, handing me a glass of water from the coffee table. "Twenty to thirty minutes and you'll start to feel it kicking in. It works wonders for anxiety."

"I'm not anxious," I say tiredly.

"Liar."

With a stomach half full, I lay my head down in Rose's lap, watching as she flicks around Netflix, her other hand smoothing down my hair as she searches for something mindless to put on.

In the end she settles on Love Is Blind. I focus on the first fifteen minutes, listening to the contestants talking about the connections they feel with people they've never even seen. Slowly I feel a shift, the adrenaline that's been keeping me on edge and awake ebbing away.

I breathe deeply, my eyes closing.

And I sleep.

•

I doze for the whole day, staying at Rose's until the next morning, when she insists on driving me home.

Idling outside the house, she reaches to hug me, squeezing me tightly and running her hands down my arms.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," I repeat tiredly. "Thanks for helping me out. I guess this is … this is a wake-up call."

"It shouldn't have to be," she says, shaking her head. "It should never have happened. Lauren should have kicked him off the books, and I should've told you not to even go there. I'll help you, if you need money, or anything—"

"I make my own decisions, Rose," I remind her with a wave of my hand. "We all know the risks. And you absolutely do not have to help me with money—it's fine."

"It's not fine. And of course we know the risks but it doesn't mean—I still feel so, so fucking bad about it. It could have been so much worse."

"But it wasn't," I say, opening the door and sliding out.

"No. It wasn't, thank God." She chews her lip. "Please call me later. And give Charlie a kiss from me. Anything you need, I'm here. Anything."

"I know." I swallow the lump in my throat down. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Rose looks like she might cry, her eyes watering. It occurs to me that she might feel guilty for involving me in this lifestyle, but that's not her fault either.

"My choice," I remind her, pressing my fingers to my lips and blowing her a kiss. "I love you."

"Love you too, Bell."

She only pulls away once I'm in the confines of the house.

And maybe I'm not completely okay right now, maybe that is a lie, but I know I will be. I have to be.

Heading straight for my dad's room, I peek around the door to find him half-sleep, watching his mouth moving to words that ghost on his lips, of memories and stories he still wants to tell. Opening the door wider, I step closer, bending down to kiss his forehead. My emotions rage, anger and devastation gathering behind my eyes.

"I love you, Dad," I tell him, kissing his cheek. "I'd do anything to stop this from happening."

Shifting the armchair closer to him, I lay my head next to his so we're touching. Breathing him in, I try to find the same comfort I did as a little girl, when my mom took off without a backward glance. Dad was my rock, and now I've been his for all this time, never wavering in the commitment to do as much as possible for him, by any means.

It hasn't paid off, but at least I know I've tried. That I've done everything I possibly could.

Sometime later, I make my way gingerly upstairs, dumping my bag on my bed, pausing as I look toward my desk to the bouquet still blooming. In two strides, I'm grabbing the handle of the drawer and yanking it out, searching for his card. It's exactly where I left it—untouched. Snatching it up from where it's been hidden for the past five days, I turn it over and over, until my fingers are still and I read Edward's words again and again.

No regrets but for your situation. Call this number if you change your mind.

Once isn't enough. You have to know that.

And if I do change my mind? If I do call the number, then what? I apologize for not accepting in the first place? I was so sure at the time, it was for the best. But if it means not putting myself at greater risk of harm … if it means giving my dad the peace of mind he told me he wanted.

I wait until Tuesday.

The house is quiet and Sue has left for work. I've been avoiding her by lying and saying I need to focus on my thesis, sneaking in to see my dad whenever she leaves. The bruising has darkened, and putting on excessive layers of makeup isn't something I want to do unless I absolutely have to—explaining its presence isn't something I can bring myself to do, either. Not to Sue or Leah, and especially not to my dad.

It's a choice to put the number Edward gave me into an old cellphone and call it—to put faith in whatever Edward is wanting to offer.

A one-eighty from my decision just last week when I told him so resolutely 'no.'

Deep down I've always known crossing paths with someone like James was a possibility. I've known the statistics relating to sex workers and the crimes they're victims of. But the more clients I've seen, the safer I felt—like things like that couldn't happen to me because of the types of clients that used the agency. It's lulled me into a false sense of security. Because he truth is I've never been safe, not from any of them.

The number rings for what feels like an eternity before it's answered.

"Senator Cullen's office, Kate speaking."