Page 79 of Total Exposure

I stay like that, my head bowed, my eyes closed, until the waitress is saying, “Here you go,” as she slips a gray cardboard box in front of me. “Your check is all set. Thanks for coming!”

I nod, take my box, and then get up, fully intending on escaping without looking at Jordan again… but—

I can’t help it. And when I find his face, he’s already found mine.

The doors open as a man enters, and I slip past him and out into the gray afternoon.

A moment of pure panic passes through my body as I realize I have no way to get home. I’m not even sure where home is, but then I see a cab, and I raise my hand like I’ve seen people do in movies, and it stops for me.

I climb in. And when the driver says, “Where to?”

I say, “The Botanic Gardens.”

I get dropped off at the main visitors’ center. Which happens to be close to the greenhouse I was in the other day, so finding my way back to the path that leads to the house isn’t too hard.

When I finally get back inside, I collapse onto the grand foyer stairs and look up at the camera in the chandelier.

“Fuck you,” I say.

But the house seems empty for some reason. Like… I can just feel his eyes are somewhere else. Not on me.

And even though I’ve been living with that same feeling for almost a decade, it feels lonely now.

I go upstairs, take off my coat, my scarf, my gloves, my shoes… and I climb back into bed, exhausted, and sad, and more unsure of myself than I have ever been in my life.

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Ixion

When I get back to the house I rewind the footage of her return. See the slump in her shoulders. The sadness and uncertainty in her expression. She is the perfect image of complete surrender.

I wonder what she thought of Jordan. I wonder what was going through her head when she found him staring at her.

Was it intrigue? Fear? Longing?

Whatever it was, this was a good day for me. And the night is about to get even better.

I remember the notebook in the kitchen and go upstairs to retrieve it and read what she wrote.

Did you ever feel like a diamond ring?

Just a ring on a finger, sitting pretty

on the hand that that makes you sing?

Preposterous child with anonymous smiles

and weariness dancing on your strings?

Well, I have.

That was me.

Invisible except for my ability.

So I said no and threw a fit

And yes, became a little sick

of the music and the stage