That continued into the week. I took a selfie in front of my favorite bookstore, or posted a photo of my current read, and I told myself it wasn’t for anyone. But I felt an electric jolt every time that black mask appeared.
“You’ve been posting regularly,” Olly said when I got into work on Wednesday. “Did hell freeze over?”
“I thought you were hacked at first,” Eames said.
I released a somewhat stilted laugh.
Hacked.
On Thursday, I woke up feeling heavy limbed. I knew if I pushed it, I’d get a weeklong flare-up. So I called in sick. Which meant I had all day to lie in bed and think about Void. I hadn’t taken a selfie today, because, well…sick in bed.
If he knew you were sick, he wouldn’t want to keep talking to you?—
I opened my photos and picked an older, though still recent, photo of me taking a selfie outside of work. Then I posted.
Void didn’t know me, and the odds of us ever meeting were slim to none.
I could be whoever I wanted.
I could be healthy.
On Friday it was my turn to get the group lunch, and I picked out a new seed-oil-free Mexican place. Saturday we hosted book club and argued about whom the heroine should have ended up with.
“Hey, so, not everyone needs to end up with the dark-haired shadow daddy,” Olly said.
“Oh my god,” Lithie said. “It has nothing to do with his hair color and everything to do with the fact that hecheatedon the heroine and there wasno groveling.”
“They weren’t even together?—”
“This is why I suggested we add love triangles to our list of banned tropes,” Eames interrupted. “Because you two cannot fucking handle them. We barely recovered fromHunger GamesGate.”
“The fact that you’d be anything other than Team Peeta suggests a serious lack of critical thinking,” my sister mumbled.
“Right, because being Team Jacob is the hallmark of good decision-making,” Olly said.
While Eames tried to convince everyone we replace love triangles with “why choose,” I picked up the book and took a selfie. Then chewed the skin of my thumb, waiting to see who watched my story.
Like clockwork, Void popped up.
Thanks for the rec.
Void sent a picture of him holding the book. I had a half second to register that he somehow alreadyhadit, because the photo was on a vanishing timer.
I drank in everything I could find.
His hands were gloved, his face masked, the background blurred. A small sliver of skin showed where his neck met the mask—tanned. Golden. A faint soft, white powder dusted the side of his neck.
Then it vanished, just as Void sent another.
Keep wondering which chapter is your favorite.
I chewed on my bottom lip and stared at the words until they blurred into a mess of pixels. What was wrong with me?Call the police. Delete this. Doanythingelse.I’d received enough safety warnings from my mother and college orientation to know I’d blown past red flag and straight into danger.
I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be chased. To be made to submit.
But it was hard to say it aloud, because whenever I told Graham what I wanted, it was like he went out of his way to do the opposite.
So I just said:
