Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

the unspoken word anyway. You have a replacement.

“She has no connection to anything. She never met Arabella. She’s a psychologist.” She had no idea why she said that as if it explained everything. “The party I was at last night is charity-related thing. We’re trying to raise money for the Cambridge Teen Center. It wasn’t anything Arabella was involved in.”

He nodded, finally rising to leave. “Well, thank you for your time. Please be in touch if you hear anything that you think might be helpful to us.”

Before he even took a step, he turned his head to his left and stared right at her bag of coke.

Then he just walked on to the stairs.

As soon as he was out the door, Rowan leapt off the stool, yanking up the towels and blankets as she looked for her phone.

No sign of it in the bathroom, or on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t plugged in like normal. She yanked the blanket up off the floor, and at last she found it. Out of battery.

She rushed to an outlet to plug it in then flopped down on her sofa staring at the black screen. At last, it lit up with a little white apple, and her heart sped up.

When it was charged at last, she cringed at the onslaught of text message notifications. Yikes.

Adrenaline lit her up when she saw that Marc had written to her, at last.

She opened the message. It simply read, Are you okay?

Whatever she’d posted, she’d managed to get his attention at last.

She had fifteen messages from Heather. Not a good sign.

Biting her lip, she flicked open her Instagram app.

The shock of it hit her like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t just that she’d posted a nude—she’d already done that—but it wasn’t even a flattering one, nor artful. It was her, sitting with her legs splayed on one of her kitchen stools, under the yellow kitchen lights. She looked sweaty, eyes glazed.

She’d just barely managed to circumvent Instagram’s nudity rules by adding little cartoon apples in strategic places, but this was clearly a drunk, trashy image. The text beneath it was a tirade—starting with a random quote from Byron: There is a rapture on the lonely shore. Then a rambling description of how society demanded that women be beautiful but then reviled them for vanity.

Swallowing hard, she opened Twitter and felt like throwing up all over again. She’d been tagged thousands of times—most of it about how she’d had a nervous breakdown, and plenty about how disgusting she looked. She was attention-seeking, desperate.

She could hardly breathe.

One thing at a time.

Maybe she finally had Marc’s attention, but this wasn’t how she’d meant to do it.

She had two options now. The most obvious was to delete it immediately. The second option was to double down, to explain that it was an artistic, feminist statement.

She closed her eyes. Who did she trust enough to help her figure this out?

She dropped the phone, turning back to the sink, sickness overtaking her. She threw up, watery vomit. Then she grabbed a paper towel to dry off her mouth. She pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it to rinse out her mouth.

She’d start with Heather. But when she opened the text messages, the capital letters made her stomach clench.

CALL ME NOW!!!

Heather was going to yell at her. Her parents were going to cut her out of the will.

She chewed the end of her thumb. She’d just ruined her own life, hadn’t she?

She needed someone levelheaded. Who did she trust most of all? Marc, first and foremost.

Except she felt too embarrassed to speak to him now.

She knew him so well that she could almost envision what he would say. He’d soothe her, and she wanted desperately to hear his soothing voice. He’d tell her to delete it, but he’d remind her that once it’s online, it’s there forever. He’d say she should be honest about making a mistake, that everyone makes mistakes. He would tell her to come clean.

Just like he wanted her to come clean about everything. A confession. And that was one of the things she loved about him, his relentless honesty.

But something about that strategy wasn’t quite her.

Hannah, then. Another dark swarm of shame clouded Rowan’s mind. Something had happened with Hannah last night, too. They’d fought over Daniel, to start, and then it got a bit fuzzy. She remembered grabbing Hannah’s arm…

Rowan wondered what the hell was wrong with her. The coke use was one problem, she knew, but it made her feel so alive. When she’d written the caption, she had probably been certain it was genius.

Right now, Rowan felt like a thousand tons of rocks were pressing on her chest, and they’d never let up.

She picked up her phone and called Hannah. She only remembered that Hannah had looked very beautiful, and that it had excited her and made her jealous at the same time.

She actually winced as the phone started ringing, and her stomach plummeted when Hannah picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hannah.” Rowan felt like she might drown in shame. Where to even begin, when she didn’t remember last night? “Well, I wanted to get in touch because last night is hazy. I was hammered, basically. And… maybe a teensy bit high?”

“A teensy bit?”

“A lot. Did we have an argument?”

“Well, not really. I got mad at you for sitting on Daniel’s lap after he’d asked me on a date, but in the cold light of day, that seems like a dumb thing to get mad about.”

“He asked you on a date? That’s fantastic.”

“Yes. He actually got in touch already. He’s going to pick me up in Porter Square this week, and then we’re going to drive out to Concord.”

“This is amazing. I knew you two would hit off. I have a sixth sense for these things.”

A long, awkward silence followed, during which Rowan surmised that maybe Hannah had seen her Instagram and didn’t know what to say about it.

“I remember grabbing your arm,” Rowan blurted. “But not what