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“Nikki?” she fearfully whispers.
Opening my mouth, I force the words out. “He knows where I am. He knows where to find me.”
Saying those words out loud sounds much scarier than they did in my head. It makes them real.
He knows where to find me.
Cam whispers, “Who? What is going on?”
Chloe gasps. “How? What happened? Nikki?”
Tears well in my eyes until a drop falls over the edge of my lashes and rolls down my cheek.
“Nikki?” Chloe shouts in the phone as it slips out of my hand, caught mid-drop by Cam.
“C-Chloe, what is going on right now?” Cam stutters into the phone.
“What else did you tell them?” I ask, my voice sounding unrecognizable.
“Chloe said she’s coming back. She turned around,” Cam says, still confused.
I reach my hand out, and he sets my phone in my grasp.
I tell Chloe, “Don’t come back. Please. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Are you sure? I’m right outside. Whatever you need, I’ll do it,” she says, and I can hear the sadness in her voice.
“I need to talk to Cam. Come over in the morning,” I tell her.
“Okay, I love you,” she says soothingly.
“I love you too,” I say and hang up before I change my mind.
I’ve envisioned this conversation a million times in my head, trying to come up with the best way to tell him. But there’s no way to ease him into this. To tell him that who he knows me as is a lie.
Taking a calm and shaky breath, I set my phone down and turn to face him.
“Let’s go to my office, and I’ll explain everything,” I tell him, already leading the way.
He follows me down the hallway in silence and into my office, finding a seat on my couch. I opt for my desk chair to put some space between us.
“Promise me you’ll listen until I’m finished, that you won’t leave and that you’ll try to understand,” I beg him. “Please.”
Meeting his eyes, I notice the fear in them and the way his posture sinks from my words.
He agrees, “I promise.”
Blowing out a shaky breath, I stop my foot from tapping and force myself to be still, to try to calm my anxiety. “My name isn’t Nikki Satinn.”
He gulps. “What do you mean, it’s not your name?”
I sit on my hands to stop them from quivering. “I mean that Nikki Satinn isn’t a real person. I made her up. It was the only way I could escape.”
I see the panic and the questions brewing in the constant adjustment of how he’s sitting and in the rapid tapping of his foot.
“Escape what?” he quietly asks.
“Not what. Who,” I breathe. “My ex-boyfriend, Trey, the one that I’ve told you about. I had to get away from him, and when the chance arose, I took it, and I ran. He was going to kill me even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself yet. He was never going to let me go.”
