Page 5 of A Smile Full of Lies
And she wasn’t wrong.
God, it would be so fucking easy to get Knox to open up to me. He already did in the quiet, in the little things. In the way he brought groceries to my door without asking because he knew how little I had to spend on them. In the way he still checked the mail for me like it was second nature. In the way he looked at me like I mattered, even now, when I felt like I was fallingapart from the inside out. He talked to me more than he talked to anyone else in Stonewood, at least that I knew of. He trusted me.
And I was staring at an email asking me to burn that trust to the ground for profit.
A wave of nausea curled through me. Just the thought of Knox’s face if he ever found out made my skin crawl.
Could I fucking do something like that?
I swallowed hard. My bank account was low. Dangerously low. The kind of low that made you start doing mental math at the grocery store, wondering how many more days you could stretch a box of ramen because my stubborn pride wouldn’t allow me to call Knox when things got too sparse. So low it made my hands shake every time I opened my banking app.
And here was Nina’s voice in my inbox — sharp, shameless, and so fucking sure she’d finally found the story that would make my writing career blow up. Not because I wrote it, but because I lived next door to the perfect subject.
Because I had a front-row seat to someone else’s suffering.
It wasn’t fiction. It wasn’t mine.
And even if it could make me rich, even if it could solve all my fucking problems? It still wouldn’t be worth what I’d lose if I wrote the story.
Because if I did this? I’d lose Knox, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive that.
I sucked in a shaking breath and clicked reply, my fingers trembling as I typed out my response.
Nina,I can see why you’d think this would be a good idea, but I’m really not comfortable using Knox like that. He’s a dear friend, and I respect his privacy. If he wanted me to know details about his family’s murder, he’d have discussed it with me already. I don’t want to profit off his trauma and tragedy. It wouldn’t be right, no matter how profitable you think it might be, and I’m not that kind of girl.
Respectfully,
Rosalind
I hovered my mouse over the send button, my chest aching as my breath snagged on the edge of panic. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, heat prickling down my spine. Then I hit send and leaned back, my nerves still crawling under my skin. Oppressive silence buzzed in my ears. I stared at the screen, half-expecting an immediate reply, but nothing came.
I had done the right thing. Hadn’t I?
The metallic scrape of a key in the deadbolt at my front door made my heart stutter. My spine snapped straight, every muscle locked, and I reached out, half-closing my laptop like I’d been caught looking at something I shouldn’t. I knew exactly who it was before the door even opened: Knox.
He’s been my neighbor since we were eighteen, when he bought the house next door to me and Gran to be close to the Stonewood University campus, a mere two blocks away from our street. He’s been kind and attentive ever since, but after Gran died three weeks ago, he’s been more than that — solid, unwavering, and always there for me.
And somehow — despite everything that happened that fall four years ago, when everything else changed — we never stopped doing our Wednesday horror movie nights. Not after his family was murdered days before my twenty-first birthday. Not after the frat party less than a month later, when Thayer shattered what was left of me on purpose and laughed in my face while doing it. Not even after I looked Knox in the eye and asked if he knew — and he didn’t answer me.
I took his silence as a yes, confirmation that he’d been covering for his best friend all along. I guessed he’d been adhering to bro code or some bullshit like that. I got pissed and slammed drink after drink like I could drown the betrayal in vodka and spite. And that’s when I got roofied… when things went from bad to almost unspeakable.
But Knox found me and dragged me out of that party before anything worse could happen.
And then? Knox beat the shit out of the guy who dosed me.
After that, he let the cop who’d forced the issue drive me to the ER, then went to get Gran and brought her to meet me. He sat with us in that freezing fluorescent ER bay all night until I was finally discharged.
And maybe I should’ve pushed him away after that.
Maybe I should’ve changed the locks, slammed the door on him for good, drawn a line. But his whole goddamn family had just been murdered, and he still showed up for me, still took care of me, stayed, and made me a priority, even though he was gutted and his whole life was a fucking train wreck.
So no, I never asked for the key back. I couldn’t. And if I’m being honest? Some twisted part of me didn’t want to. Becauseeven before Thayer and I imploded, it was always Knox who kept showing up for me. Quietly. Consistently. In all the ways Thayer never did.
And that guilt? It never really went away.
Not back then — when I was still with Thayer and Knox would show up with patient eyes and gentle hands and that infuriating ability toseeme without needing an explanation. And not now, either. Not after everything that had happened. Not after Thayer shattered me on purpose and Knox helped pick up the pieces without ever asking for anything in return.
I never cheated on Thayer, not even a little bit. But God, I’d wanted to. Not to get back at Thayer. Not out of spite. Just… because it was Knox. And I hated myself for it every time I thought about it. Every sideways glance I lingered on too long. Every brush of his arm that made me shiver. Every moment when Thayer was too distracted, too dismissive, too cruel to care. Knox was justthereand solid and predictable in a way I didn’t deserve, orbiting me like I was his center of gravity, like he couldn’t stop even if he tried.
