I know that I should sleep, but I can’t bring myself to move to the bedroom. Everything around me is spinning wildly out of control, and I know that if I sleep, my nightmares will come.
But it’s more than that. Somehow? letting sleep take me feels like giving up. He has to call soon. He has to, because I need to know that we’re okay. I need to see his face and know that, despite the guilt that seems to cling to me like glue, he doesn’t blame me for firing him.
That’s what this is about, of course. That’s why I have to find him. Have to see him. That’s why I can’t sleep. Why I am a wreck.
Because I’m afraid.
I’m so terribly, terribly afraid that despite the passion that twines us together and despite having already overcome so much, the foundation of our relationship has shifted, and nothing is ever going to be the same.
“Just as well he stays away. He’s not the only one with secrets.”
I blink, confused, and push myself up on the couch. The garage-style door to my patio is rolled up, and Bob stands on the threshold looking at me, one hand pressed casually against his crotch, and his camera hanging from a strap around his neck. His silky black hair is pulled back with a leather band, and he’s smiling at me. “We’ve got a lot in common, you and I. We both want Jackson Steele.”
He reaches up and slides his hand over the top of his head, and my stomach tightens with revulsion as his hair slides off. It’s a wig, and he drops it negligently on the ground. “That’s not me anymore. I’m a long way from that man. I’m Robert Cabot Reed, and I have all the power now. But you don’t, do you, little Elle?”
I want to yell at him. To tell him my name is Sylvia. And that he’s nobody. Just some slimy photographer from the Valley who’s playing at making movies. But the words won’t come.
“You don’t have anything at all,” he continues in that singsong voice. “Not even Jackson.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not true.”
“Do you think he’ll still want you when he knows your secrets? My little Elle said she told him the truth, but you didn’t tell him all of it, did you? Still got your secrets, don’t you?”
I pull the blanket up all the way to my chin. I am so cold, and I’m scared. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want him to look at me. And I don’t want to be here.
“But you have to stay,” my father says. He is standing right in front of me, and he reaches down and takes the mug from me. It is full of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows. My favorite. I didn’t realize I was holding it. I haven’t even had one sip.
He lifts it to his lips and drinks it all up, then sets the empty cup on my coffee table. “You know why you have to stay. And you’re a good girl, Elle. You’re my good girl. You need to stand up now. It’s time for Bob to take your picture. He has a lot of things to take.”
“No,” I say, but it doesn’t matter. Because I see another me across the room. I’m leaning against the door frame, my back arched to accentuate my breasts, small and firm beneath a thin cotton T-shirt.
“Perfect,” Bob says. He picks up the camera and starts to click. “Just needs a little bit more. Gotta look like you’re enjoying it. Gotta look like you want it.”
“No,” I whisper, but I’m all the way on the couch and he doesn’t hear me. The other me—the one he’s touching, the one whose nipples he’s squeezing and stroking—she just stands still, her eyes closed tight as if she wants to cry.
She doesn’t. She can’t.
“That’s my girl,” my father says.
“Your slut, you mean,” Bob says. “Your whore.”
“No.” My father’s voice is sharp, and he picks the mug back up, then slams it down against the table. Bam! “No!” he repeats, then slams again. Bam!
Then again and again and again until my head is full of nothing but the sound of the ceramic against the wood and I am certain that any minute the mug is going to shatter and I will—
“Sylvia!”
Jackson’s voice.
I bolt upright, my heart pounding, unsure if I am still trapped in a dream.