Page 42 of A Smile Full of Lies
“I’d give you my trauma on a silver fucking platter,” I said, voice guttural, “if it meant no one ever gets to back you into a corner again.”
Chapter
Eleven
ROS
I stared at Knox,unable to think, much less breathe. He was too close and the room was too damn hot all of a sudden.
“This is too much,” I gasped, shaking my head, “I can’t even process this right now.”
I spun around, giving Knox my back as I scrambled for my laptop and phone, both of which he’d plugged in for me at the kitchen table while I was in the shower. I snatched both chargers out of the wall and clutched my laptop to my chest as I shoved my phone in the pocket of the hoodie I’d stolen from him after my shower.
“Ros, please,” he said, his voice impossibly gentle and coaxing.
“No,” I snapped, “I need to be alone right now. I need to think, and I don’t think straight when I’m this close to you.”
Knox held his hands up, effectively surrendering, and stepped aside, no longer blocking my path to the hall.
The instant he moved, I fled to the guest bedroom and locked the door behind me. My pulse thundered in my ears, too loud,like it was trying to drown out his voice still echoing in my head. Carefully, as if it was the most important thing in the world, I plugged the laptop and phone into their chargers, where the power points were on the bedside table. My palms stung from how tightly I’d clutched the laptop. The guest room smelled faintly of clean linen and cedar, but it wasn’t comforting. No, it was alien, a reminder I was living under Knox’s roof because I couldn’t hold my own goddamn shit show of a life together.
“What the fuck was that?”
My voice came out shaky. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to calm my ragged breathing. Guilt crawled up my spine. I shouldn’t be here. Not in his house, not stealing his hoodie, not letting him shoulder problems that were mine to fix. I felt like I’d conned him, like I was taking advantage of his kindness, even though he was the one who’d insisted that I should stay with him.
I needed to talk to someone, to anyone who wasn’t Knox. I flopped down on the guest bed, flipped my laptop open, and without even stopping to consider what I was doing, opened the anonymous confessional forum and DMed StrayDog777.
GraveyardGirl93
OMG. Please tell me you’re online right now. I really need to talk to someone, and you’re the only lifeline I have right now.
His reply came quicker than I expected.
StrayDog777
Hey, I’m here princess. Breathe. What’s going on?
I bit my lip, my fingers already flying across the keys.
GraveyardGirl93
Okay, so… today was literally the worst. For context: I’m financially between a rock and a hard place. Have been for a while now, honestly. So anyway, my shitty day started with a job interview this afternoon that I thought was going to be my chance to finally turn things around. But the editor interviewing me? He basically told me I could have the job if I changed my voice, wrote fluff pieces, and gave him a blowjob once in a while. I left shaking and humiliated, like I wasn’t even a person to that asshole, just a set of holes he could leverage because I’m obviously broke and desperate for work.
StrayDog777
What the fuck? That’s horrible, Graveyard Girl. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
GraveyardGirl93
Just wait. It gets worse. Then I got home, only to find that my power had been shut off. My fridge and freezer were full of ruined food. The freezer was leaking all over the floor. I just stood there staring at it like maybe if I blinked hard enough, it would all turn back on.
StrayDog777
Damn, princess… I don’t know what to say except I wish I could help somehow.
GraveyardGirl93
It still gets worse! That’s when I realized my phone service was cut off, too. No calls. No texts. The SIM card is dead because I couldn’t pay the bill. (My phone only works right now because it’s hooked up to Wi-Fi.)
