Page 7 of The Quiet After The Fall

I should get a cat. If Owen were here, he’d push for a dog, and I’d agree even though I secretly wanted a cat the whole time.

Is it progress that I’m only now admitting that to myself?

I change out of my uniform and pull on my ratty Lake Mercer T-shirt that I really should get rid of and sit on the edge of my bed.

I don’t open my phone or reach for the remote. I just sit there, letting the quiet press in all around me. One minute. I’ll wallow for one minute because if I don’t give it some time, the feeling just follows me around for the rest of the night anyway.

One minute. Then I get up.

I make tea I don’t even want and sit at the kitchen table with my laptop. A few nights ago in an insomnia stupor, I promised myself I’d look into paralegal programs, and I need to follow through on at least one thing I’ve told myself lately. The hotel isn’t enough anymore. It was never really enough, just something to do while I waited for my life to start. And I’ve been waiting a long time.

There’s nothing or no one left to wait on but myself.

Ashford Community College has a program that might work. I bookmarked it the other morning after I finally gave up on sleep at 4 AM.

I took some classes there after I moved back home, but not enough to amount to anything. I don’t know if I need a degree at this point…I just need a direction. Law has always pulled at something inside me, even more so after watching the system work efficiently and mercilessly to dismantle what little my family had left.

There’s also the matter of being broke enough to potentially qualify for aid now. Maybe a scholarship if I’m lucky.

Knox’s words creep into my head uninvited, the way they always do. Call one of those lawyers, Thorne. I brushed it off then, or maybe I didn’t have the mental capacity to take it on. But the idea of a trial, of sitting across from strangers and walking through the worst minutes of my life over and over on the record, sounded unbearable then and it still does now.

But the money could be life-changing. Even if I don’t want it, I need it. If I’m going to start fresh—get out of the hotel, get some distance from Knox and the rest of Ashford—I need to stand on my own feet first. That takes money I don’t currently have.

I open a new tab and pull up my email. I don’t know how they all got my information but there are over ten law offices in my inbox from this week alone. I spend the next hour clicking through websites and reading reviews until I land on a smaller firm owned by two women. From what I can see, they have an amazing track record, and lack that obnoxious billboard energy that makes me cringe.

I draft a short response before I can talk myself out of it and hit send.

Clicking back into my inbox, my eye catches on an email that I must have missed earlier. It’s from Knox. He’s really trying every avenue besides breaking my door down to get me to hear him out.

I pull in a breath and click on it.

Sawyer,

I know you won’t answer the phone. I know you’re not going to open the door. So here I am, sending a fucking email like we’re strangers, because apparently that’s where we are now.

I need you to know it’s not what you think. I know that sounds like bullshit, but I’m asking you to give me ten minutes to explain. I can’t talk about it here…it has to be in person.

I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to pretend you’re okay.

Just don’t disappear on me. Please.

I’ll wait as long as it takes. But we’re not done, Thorne. You know we’re not done.

—K

I read it two more times, using the mouse to highlight each word.

It’s not what you think.

A weird snort laugh comes out of me. Of all the things he could have led with. Of all the words Knox Aldrich could have strung together, he went with the most cliche, threadbare excuse in existence. Acting like I don’t know what I saw. Like I didn’t watch him slide a ring onto another woman’s finger with my own two eyes from twenty feet away after he was with me not an hour earlier.

My index finger slams against the mouse, hitting reply before I’ve made a conscious decision to do it.

Knox,

My fingers fly over the keyboard, like there’s a pressure building under my skin that will somehow be released with each word typed.

You want ten minutes? Fine. Here’s what I’d say in ten minutes.