“How was your date?” Stella looked up from her phone when I entered the living room.
“He didn’t show.” I unbuttoned my coat and hung it on the brass tree by the front door. It took me two tries, thanks to the tremble in my hand.
It’s the cold. Not the attempted mugging or the brief moment of paralysis I’d experienced on the porch when I—
Stop. Don’t think about it.
Stella’s eyes widened. “No way. What an asshole.”
I cracked a smile. Stella rarely cursed, so it always amused me when she let a bad word slip.
“It’s okay. I dodged a bullet. I mean, have you seen his dating app picture? That freakin’ fish. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.” I peeled off my gloves and took off my shoes, avoiding my friend’s eyes while I tried to suck enough oxygen into my lungs.
It hadn’t taken me long to disarm the mugger, but the sensation of being helpless, even for a few minutes, resurfaced memories better left buried.
Wood digging into my back. Sour breath on my neck. Hands on—
“Jules.”
I startled and almost knocked over the coat tree.
I’d held onto my calm during the aftermath of the attempted mugging, but now that I was safely home, my body finally started to process what happened.
It wasn’t pretty.
My heart was a frantic drumbeat in my chest, my stomach a storm of nausea. Stella’s presence was the only thing keeping me upright.
Her brow creased. “Are you okay? You’ve been staring into space for the past five minutes. I called your name twice.”
“Yep.” I pasted on a bright smile. “I just spaced. Thinking of ways to get back at Todd.”
I wasn’t going to waste another drop of energy on the asshole, but Stella didn’t know that.
She tilted her head, her catlike green eyes narrowing. As a fashion blogger and influencer, she was glued to her phone ninety percent of the time, but she was also more observant than people gave her credit for.
“You wouldn’t waste more energy on that guy,” she said.
Okay, there was observant and there was creepy. Maybe those gross wheatgrass smoothies she loved so much gave her superpowers, like reading minds.
“Seriously, I’m fine.” I upped the wattage of my smile. I had no qualms about turning to my friends for advice, but only when they could do something about it. Otherwise, there was no point making them worry. “I just want to watch a movie, eat ice cream, and forget about Todd the Toad.”
A spark of suspicion remained in Stella’s eyes, but thankfully, she didn’t press the issue. “We have a pint of salted caramel ice cream left,” she said. “Legally Blonde rewatch while we finish it?”
“Always.” I never got tired of watching a perfectly coiffed Elle Woods kick ass. “I’m gonna shower first. You do whatever you have to do.”
“Going through my DMs.” She sighed. “Not that I’ll ever get through them all.”
“You don’t have to reply to all of them, you know.”
Stella had hundreds of thousands of followers, and I couldn’t imagine how many messages flooded her inbox on a daily basis.
“I want to. Unless they’re creeps.” She waved a hand in the air. “Go do your thing. I’ll be here.”
While Stella returned to her phone, I entered our shared bathroom and turned on the shower, my smile fading.
I waited until the air thickened with steam before I stepped into the tub and rested my forehead against the slick tile wall, letting the drum of the water wash away my unwanted memories.
My senior year of high school. Alastair and Max and Adeline—
Stop.
“Get yourself together, Jules,” I whispered fiercely.
I wasn’t a young, helpless girl trapped in Ohio anymore.
I was in a whole other state, about to gain everything I had ever dreamed of.
Money. Freedom. Security.
And I’d be damned if I let anyone take that away from me.
