Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
I want to lie, but I’m tired, and the weight of the secret is pressing into my chest. “Not any base, actually. We’re doing anal,” I whisper, and immediately wish I could un-say it.
Simone bursts into laughter, half genuine, half horrified. “Oh my god. Who is he? Please tell me it’s not the pizza delivery guy.”
“It’s not the pizza guy,” I say, smiling in spite of myself. “It’s someone older. Much older.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t laugh this time. “Like, professor-old?”
I shake my head, but not fast enough. She reads me anyway. “You’re joking,” she says, but it’s not a question.
“It’s not like that,” I say, desperate to explain. “I don’t even know his last name. Well, I sort of know it. It’s just that he’s there, and then he isn’t. We’re not a thing.”
Simone’s mood flips. She swings her legs off the desk, scoots the chair close to my bed, and gives me a look that’s half-conspirator, half-concerned big sister. “Okay, but why not? I mean, not to be judgey, but you’ve always been, like, the Sweetest Girl in the Midwest, and suddenly, you’re hooking up anally with an older guy? What’s with the sudden craving for depravity?”
The question needles me. I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling, searching for the right words. “Because it makes me feel real,” I say. “Like, I can’t get out of my own head most days. With him, there’s no living. Just existing.”
Simone goes quiet. She leans her chin on her hand, finger absently tracing the bruised patch at her throat. “You know, that’s how it started for me and Liam.”
The admission hangs there, raw and vulnerable. She laughs, once, without humor. “You probably figured it out. I’m in love with Liam. That’s my super secret. Without him, I’m only existing. I’m the cliché now.”
I sit up, surprised. “You’re not a cliché,” I say, and mean it. “He’s lucky to have you.”
She shakes her head, hair catching in the lamplight. “He’s not mine to have. That’s the problem because he’s a professor and like any older dude, he has baggage.”
For a minute, neither of us says anything. There’s a cold breeze from the window, and the heat kicks on with a stuttering clank. Simone draws her knees up to her chest, hugging them.
She finally says, “You know older men have, like, decades of practice, right? They know all the moves. They know how to get in your head. They can be gone in a second, and you’re the one left with the mess.”
“I know,” I whisper.
She sighs. “And yet, here we are.”
“Here we are,” I echo. My hands are shaking, so I bury them in the comforter. I want to ask her if it ever gets easier, if she ever feels like she’s in control. But the look on her face is answer enough.
She reaches over and takes my hand, squeezes it. “For what it’s worth, you can tell me anything. And if you ever need to commit murder, I’ll help you hide the body.”
I smile, for real this time. “Thank you.”
She stands, stretches, and shuffles into her side of the closet. Her pajamas are pink with tiny strawberries, and for a second, she looks five years old again, not the girl with a thousand secrets.
She flicks off her lamp, climbs into bed, and lies on her side, facing away from me. “Good night, Andie,” she says.
“Night, Simone.”
I stay awake for a long time, watching the shadows slide across the ceiling. My body is tired, but my mind is wide awake, replaying every word, every warning, every promise. I want to believe that I can keep my secrets safe, that this won’t end the way Simone predicts.
But I know myself.
I want more with Thomas Moreland.
Even if it destroys me.
Simone’s breathing levels out in less than five minutes. I know her rhythms by now: the way her hair snags on the pillowcase, the faint huff of air whenever she rolls over, the little click her tongue makes as she slides from REM into deeper sleep. She’s got the gift of instant oblivion, which I’ve always admired, even envied. When the world gets too loud, Simone just drops out. Gone, until morning.
I, on the other hand, am a lost cause.
I’m stretched on my back, lamp casting a soft circle over my blankets and the open chaos of my desk. The phone sits on my chest, screen still lit, Thomas’s message burning a hole straight through my sternum. The room feels denser, the air thick with the ghosts of every conversation I’ve ever had. My limbs are heavy and slow, but my brain is a hurricane, looping the last few hours on repeat.
I can’t stop replaying Simone’s words: “You know older men have, like, decades of experience, right? They know all the moves. They know how to get in your head. They can be gone in a second, and you’re the one left with the mess.”