Page 9 of Don't Tell

The elevator doors close on me, and I press my forehead to the cool, brushed steel and suck in a breath.

He looked at my sketchbook. Why was he looking in my cart anyway? Just because he let me sleep in his bed doesn’t give him the right to go through my things.

I don’t let anyone look at my sketchbook. Not even Renée. The last person who looked at it was Marguerite. I always liked to show her my recent sketches. She would kiss my cheek andtell me how talented I was. I tried to show it to my mom once. She had a very different reaction. She would just laugh.

You think you’re something special, don’t you? Well, let me be the first to clue you in. You’re nothing, and you’ll always be nothing.

That was when I realized I was going to live a very different life from the one I had with Marguerite. She meant everything to me. She still does. Death doesn't change that.

Renée thinks I need to let some of the grief go. I don’t know how she does it, how she lives without the constricting feeling in her chest. Marguerite was her mother. It should hurt more for her.

Maybe it’s because Renée had her for longer. She got to experience that love for longer than I did. And what hurts the most isn’t that I lost someone who loved me. It is the fact that I lost the only person who did.

The elevator drops twelve floors. I count the brass numbers above the door so I don't start crying. Anger first. Crying later. Anger keeps the spine straight. Crying buys me nothing in a hotel I'm still, technically, employed by.

The doors open onto the staff-only corridor. Roger is at the service desk, waiting to pounce on the answer that ends my career. Hehasbeen waiting since I left. And that is when I remember the actual reason I went up to the penthouse. I might be unemployed by the end of the day.

Roger’s eyebrows go up the second the doors part. He puts his pen down. He folds his hands across his clipboard. "How did it go?"

The words are on the tip of my tongue:He doesn't know about the car.

But how do I explain exactly what I saw to him? Roger will probably call me a liar or accuse me of something completelynefarious. And since I refused to sign Mr. Nightingale’s NDA, I don’t thinkhewill be inclined to vouch for me at all.

Roger will find out, and my job is probably toast. Whoever tells him first decides whether I'm cooked or just warned.

This is the second secret of the day. A bit tame for a regular day at the Cresswell. Today, I'm keeping one from Roger, too. Hopefully, it’s never discovered.

I look at Roger. My fingers tighten around my cart. I keep my face very flat. "It went fine."

Roger’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t believe me. "That’s it? He doesn’t want you fired? He just…accepted it?"

“No, he didn’t. He was perfectly understanding about the entire situation.” Lie. “In fact, he expressed his satisfaction with my services.” Technically not a lie. I did save him. If not for the scratch on his car, who knows when he would have gotten free? Probably never. Come to think of it, he didn’t even thank me for helping him out.

I should have left him there to rot.

It doesn't matter that he was handcuffed. He was naked when he asked me to lean in. He breathed against my neck. If I wanted to, I could report him for sexual assault and watch his expensive silence break open like a bad egg.

I don't want to. I want a sandwich.

“Are you sure?” Roger is still glaring at me.

I nod.

He looks at me a beat longer than is comfortable. He makes a small mark on his clipboard. He turns and walks away without a word.

Whew.

I spend the rest of the day looking over my shoulder, half expecting to see Mr. Nightingale march in with Roger in tow. But as each hour ticks by, nothing happens. I’m safe. At least for now.

Carmen meets me at the staff door. We take the bus together occasionally, on nights when she doesn’t go to a bar with friends or doesn’t have to pick up her kids.

I don’t have any friends. Not for lack of trying. But because I don’t know how to let people in. I don’t know how people are so comfortable talking about their personal life. For example, the first day Carmen and I met, I found out she was married with kids and that her husband was a recovering addict. Ten years sober. She told me how hard it was for them.

And I didn’t say a single word. Nothing at all.

I don’t know how to bare my soul to anyone but Marguerite. When she died, a part of me died too.

So when Carmen — once again, out of sheer courtesy, I’m sure — invites me to a family barbecue that weekend, I shake my head and say, “I have plans.”