Page 8 of The Quiet After The Fall

It’s not what I think? Be so fucking serious right now.

I went down there for takeout…a fucking sandwich after leaving your room confused and exhausted. And I ended up at that bar…watched you propose to another woman an hour after your cock was inside me.

I watched the whole thing. Every goddamn second. And all I could think was this makes sense. So much more than you and me ever would. And I saw how happy they were…all of them, Richard and Victoria. Especially Ella. And I can’t tell if I pity them or you more, knowing what I know.

So whatever you think I think—I promise you, the reality is worse.

Owen would be so ashamed of you.

That’s all I’ve got.

Don’t contact me again.

I stare at it for a long time, until my breathing slows and my pulse returns to semi-normal.

Then I select all and delete it.

Every word, gone.

I release a breath. It’s not because I didn’t mean what I wrote. I meant every single syllable. But sending it means he knows he got to me, and the one thing I refuse to give Knox right now is the satisfaction of knowing how deep he hurt me. How far the damage goes.

I close the window and sit back in my chair, staring at the ceiling until the popcorn pattern blurs together and an idea dances at the corner of my mind.

I click compose and drag the cursor to the empty To field.

I type slowly this time. This is a decision I won’t be able to take back.

Ella Moretti.

I stare at each letter of her name like they’ll suddenly sprout up into the person herself.

Then I picture Knox’s face as he slid the ring onto her finger and I start to type.

Chapter 3

Knox

The CVS on Oak Street has a parking lot with those tall concrete pillars. I’ve been parked behind one for the past fifteen minutes, Radiohead crooning low through my speakers.

I left Ella asleep in my bed, threw on clothes, picked up my keys, and opened the app before I reached my door. I’m done telling myself a story or making excuses. I needed to go out anyway. I was in the area. Nope. I’m here for one reason and one reason alone. To watch Sawyer. Even if the closest I can get to her is a parking lot a hundred feet away.

Finally, she comes out through the automatic doors, holding a small paper bag in one hand and her keys in the other. She’s wearing jean shorts and an oversized T-shirt, her hair pulled up and sunglasses on despite the sky being overcast.

I’d bet my paycheck she hasn’t been sleeping. It’s in the way she’s walking—the slow steps, the set of her shoulders.

And why would she be able to sleep? She had the rug pulled from her less than two weeks ago after experiencing the most traumatic, gut-wrenching heartache of her life. And it’s all been my fucking fault.

She gets in her car.

I wait thirty seconds and follow.

She drives across town without rushing, staying five under the speed limit, much to the annoyance of the asshole driving a Tesla directly behind her. If I wasn’t so goddamn out of my mind, I’d tailgate his ass to piss him off and give him a taste of his own medicine.

But I stay two cars back, clenching my jaw and gripping the wheel too hard.

Her blinker goes on and she pulls into the lot for Ashford Community College. Interesting. What could she be doing here? Instead of getting out right away, she sits there, peering out the windshield. I can’t see her well. Her details are fuzzy from the tint and the glare.

But finally, she comes to some kind of decision and gets out.