Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I almost laugh at the phrasing, but there’s no humor in it.
“It’s not about that. It’s just work, Mom. Again, I keep my face out of it, I keep my real name out of it. I’m careful. No one will ever know.”
Her eyes narrow, skepticism bordering on anger. “You really think secrets stay secret? You think the internet forgets? One day, this will all come back and bite you in the ass. You’ll regret it.”
I sip my coffee, hands shaking. “Maybe. But at least it’s my choice. Not yours. Not Dad’s. Mine.”
The conversation sours from there, both of us flinging the same words back and forth, neither able to hear the other. But underneath, I can feel the old gravity reasserting itself—her hopelessness, mixed with my exhaustion.
We circle back to silence, both drained.
Then, Nancy stands, parka zipped, and hesitates before saying, “Will you call again? Even if your father doesn’t want to speak to you—I do. Despite all this, you’re my daughter, and I miss you, Eliza. Even if I don’t understand your choices.”
My throat closes, but I manage to nod. “I’ll call.”
She reaches out, squeezes my hand just once, then turns and walks out. I watch her cross the parking lot, her steps slow but deliberate, and I wonder if she’s crying behind her sunglasses.
When she’s gone, I sit at the table for a long time, the coffee gone cold, the residue bitter on my tongue. My hands are steady now, but I feel hollowed out, scraped raw.
I text Jack: “It’s done. She misses me. She hates me. Both, I think.”
He writes back, “That’s progress, sweetheart. Come home.”
I gather my things, leave a tip for the barista, and step into the cold, not sure if I’m coming home to a victory or a loss. All I know is that I hurt … and I have no idea if any real reconciliation is possible.
Jack’s house—our house now, though I still trip over the words—is a fortress of comfort. As soon as I open the door, the scent of coffee and old paperbacks washes over me. But today, something new crowds the air: the plastic-and-metal tang of freshly unboxed Amazon loot.
The living room is a war zone of tech: tripods, ring lights, cables coiled like snakes on the coffee table. A stack of shipping boxes leans against the sofa, and in the middle of it all sits Jack, sleeves rolled up, squinting at a camcorder manual with the single-mindedness of a bomb tech defusing a live shell.
The huge man looks up when I come in, and the whole world narrows to just the two of us. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
I drop my purse by the door, kick off my boots, and collapse onto the couch beside him. I’m still shivering from the cold outside, or maybe from the emotional hangover.
“Bad,” I admit. “But it wasn’t as horrible as I thought. Nancy misses me, even though she doesn’t get me at all.” I pause, staring at a blue LED blinking on the table. “She thinks I’m blowing up my life on purpose. She thinks—”
Jack slides closer, his palm resting solidly on my knee. “She loves you,” he says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. “She’ll come around. Or at least, she’ll learn to let go because you’re your own person, Eliza. You make decisions for your life, and your parents have to accept that.”
I nod, then trace my finger along the seam of my jeans. “I guess Nancy’s mostly worried about people finding out about the camming. Even though I told her I’m careful and always blur my face, she says there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, not really.”
Jack leans back, grins, and waves his arm at the mountain of gear. “That’s why we have state of the art equipment, Eliza. We pixelate, we mask, we use burner accounts and a VPN that even the NSA couldn’t crack. No one’s ever going to know it’s us. I promise.”
He pulls me in, tucks my head against his shoulder. I listen to his heart, the steady thump thump that’s become my baseline for “safe.”
“You’re really okay with it?” I say, tilting my head up. “With me, with this life? The camming?”
My man looks down, and his face is so handsome, the features so straight, that I can barely hold his gaze. “Are you kidding? I love it. I never thought I would, but…” He shrugs, lips twitching into a smile. “There’s something about watching you perform. The confidence, the power. I get off just being part of it. And you, Eliza—you light up the whole fucking screen.”
My cheeks go pink, but I nuzzle closer, soaking up every word. He’s not humoring me. He means it.
He picks up a mask from the table—black leather, covers the upper half of his face, makes him look like a supervillain on casual Friday. “I got this for our live show,” he says, eyes glinting. “You want to help me try it on?”