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Twelve texts waited for me to read them, and if the cracked screen wasn’t lying to me, three missed calls, too.
Dom.
I flicked through the messages, finding a slew from her. Asking me where I went. If I was coming back. If I was alive. And then, the last two, sent within the last fifteen minutes, assumedly after she decided to go looking for answers herself.
Dom: Holy shit, babe. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me what happened?
Dom: I’m here if you need anything. Text me when you can.
My chest panged at the reminder, and I grimaced, closing her conversation without replying. Not ready to have that phone call just yet.
Here, people didn’t know. They wouldn’t treat me with pity or with any added scorn. I liked it better that way. I wasn’t ready to think about it too hard. Not yet.
Dom would understand. We were friends, but not the kind who really knew each other’s business. I didn’t know how to be that kind of friend, so Dom had to settle for a halfway friendship. The kind where we shared self-defense training and sometimes some fast food afterward. Where she poured her heart out to me, and I listened. Giving next to nothing in return.
I flicked through the other notifications, bristling as I came across one from my Aunt.
Female Hitler: Detention on the first day, Ava Jade. Not off to a good start.
Female Hitler: Answer your phone.
Not wanting to ruin my chances of a big payout from dear ol’ Auntie Humphrey, I thumbed a quick reply.
Ava Jade: Won’t happen again.
Big allowance. Big apartment in the city. Freedom. Big allowance. Big apartment in the city. Freedom.
I repeated the mantra in my head, trying to picture myself in that life. Just a girl in college, with aspirations of being a…whatever the fuck college girls wanted to be. With a cushy savings account, a nice boyfriend, and a local eatery on speed-dial for late night study sessions.
Yeah. Nope. Couldn’t picture it. I’d spent too long in the dirt, up to my elbows in bills and my mom’s vomit. At least Mom was someone else’s problem now if she weren’t dead.
I wouldn’t be like her, not if I escaped this place. I could be the college girl I pictured. Carefree. On the road to a good paying nine-to-five, taking vacations twice a year. It’s what I should want.
I mean, it’s what Idowant.
I groaned at the next message. Sent from Kit.
My Ticket to Ride: You missed the last session. Dom’s worried about you. Want to come over for a bit?
My thighs squeezed at the offer. I’d been fucking Kit for almost as long as he’d been giving Dom and me self-defense lessons. She thought it was gross, since he was nearing thirty, but he was the only guy who’d ever been able to give me that big, gloriousO. I wasn’t about to give that up over something as trivial as an age gap.
Fuck. I could use the release right now, but he was an hour away and I had no way to get there. Maybe he could come…
No.
Sighing, I shut off my phone and rolled onto my back, setting it on my chest. It went off not two seconds after I shut my eyes, and I groaned inwardly, lifting it to my tired eyes.
I assumed it was another scolding message from my Aunt, or a worried one from Dom, but it wasn’t either of them.
Unknown: Hello, Ava Jade.
I clicked through to see the number, but didn’t recognize it. A grand total of six people had my cell number. Six. And none of them would be giving it out in a hurry.
I considered how to reply. Obviously, the person had the right number…
Two sharp raps on my door had me bolting upright, a sizzle of heat racing up my spine.
“Whoa,” Becca said, holding up her hands as she appeared in the doorway. “I come in peace.” She grinned, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the door frame as I relaxed.
