I ’m meant to work at the library again this afternoon, but when I arrive for my shift Henrietta is waiting at the entrance of the building, wearing a stern expression. Unlike Professor Dalziel, she seems less enamored with Raph and more concerned about my new found sex-tape celebrity. “We’ve had camera crews loitering outside all day. This library is a quiet place where people come to read and study. We can’t have that rabble disrupting everyone.”

“So…I can’t work today?”

She purses her lips into a disapproving line. “We’ll pay you until the end of the month. I’m sorry, Beth. I really am.”

So it’s not just today, then. She’s firing me. I’m so frustrated and annoyed by this point that I want to scream at her, to lose my temper, to tell her how ridiculous this whole thing is, but I can see from the look on her face that she’s not going to be moved on the matter. What would be the point in making a scene? Someone would probably catch the whole thing on their cell phone, and it would be live in a matter of seconds. That’s the last thing I fucking need.

I think about going to David’s place, but then I remember how absolutely unbearable he was last night, and how disgusting his apartment probably is, so I nix that idea. I find myself sitting on the subway, making my way across the city without even thinking about it. It’s only once I’m outside the Osiris Building that I realize what I’m about to do. Less than twelve hours ago I told Nate I didn’t want to be seen entering this huge monolith of a building. Then I had tinted windows and an underground entrance to protect my identity, and now I’m heading in here on foot? Through the front fucking door? I have officially lost my goddamn mind.

Oliver never seems to go home. His eyes nearly bug out of his head when he sees me hurrying toward him through the lobby. He steps out from behind the reception desk and puts his arm around me, ushering me toward the private elevator without saying a word.

“Ms. Dreymon! Ms. Dreymon! Elizabeth!” A hand lands on my shoulder, trying to turn me around. “What’s the nature of your relationship with Mr. North, Elizabeth? How long have you been engaging in a sexual relationship with him?”

“Which escort agency do you work for, Ms. Dreymon? How many clients do you have?”

The two men standing behind me yell questions over each other, both of them pulling at my arm. Oliver puts himself between me and the reporters, but they’re frenzied, their eyes wild, voice recorders held tightly in both their hands. They shove the Dictaphones in my face, and I feel like my legs are about to buckle from underneath me.

“Ms. Dreymon is a close personal friend of Mr. North’s,” Oliver states. “She is not an escort, and has nothing to say at this time. If you have any questions relating to Mr. North’s business endeavors, please direct them to our public relations department. If your questions are of a personal nature, please feel free to vacate the building at your earliest convenience.”

The guys aren’t listening, of course. They’re too busy straining to reach around Oliver, grabbing and clawing at my shirt. “Ms. Dreymon! Ms. Dreymon! Are you Raphael’s mistress? Are you moving into the penthouse with him, Elizabeth? Elizabeth !”

My heart is beating out of my chest as Oliver pulls me through the door and slams it shut behind us. His professional exterior has slipped, anger twisting his features. “Fucking animals,” he hisses. “I’ll call security as soon as you’re upstairs. Don’t worry. They won’t be here when you leave.”

“Thank you, Oliver. I’m sorry for the trouble.” I don’t know why I’m apologizing. I haven’t asked for any of this. I didn’t do anything wrong. By coming here, I’m causing trouble. I know that. It was probably a bad idea, but I’ve avoided this for as long as I can now, and I just cashed in the last fuck I could possibly give when Henrietta told me I no longer had a job.

I take my shoes off and slide them into my bag without thinking. No defiance this time. I’m nervous. My palms sweat like crazy as I watch the numbers illuminate one by one, marking out the floors as I ascend. What if he doesn’t actually want to see me? What if he sends me away? There’s every chance his business advisors have counseled him against further contact with me. I haven’t exactly checked the share prices on North Industries, but a public scandal like this can only breed distrust. It must be hurting him financially, and he’s a clever, pragmatic kind of guy when it comes to business and money. Surely he wouldn’t allow something like this to affect his bottom line.

The doors slide back and I hurry out, my bare feet slapping against the marble flooring. I stop halfway to the door when I see Thalia sitting in a heap in the middle of the anteroom, her purse up-ended around her, a bottle of water gripped tightly in her hand. Her eyes seem unfocused when she looks up at me. A deep frown forms on her face.

“Beth? You came. Finally .” Her relief is exaggerated, like she’s being sarcastic. It’s only when I draw a little closer that I see it’s not. She’s drunk. Hammered, in fact. The bottle of water in her hands is actually vodka, and it’s almost fucking empty. I drop my purse and sink to my knees in front of her, cupping her face in my hands.

“What are you doing, Thalia? Why weren’t you in class this morning?”

“I had to make sure he was okay,” she says, her words running into one another. “You didn’t answer my texts. You didn’t come over here, so…I had to.”

“I was going to. I just…I needed a little time to figure out what I was going to say.”

Thalia arches an eyebrow, her eyelids half closing. She unscrews the cap from the vodka bottle, lifts it to her lips and takes three deep gulps of the clear liquid inside. “Did you figure it out?” she asks flatly. “What you’re gonna say to him? Because this isn’t him, Beth. It isn’t, I swear. He’s had to live his life behind closed doors for a long time now. It’s a miracle they figured out how to invade his privacy here. A fucking miracle . He’s done absolutely everything he can to avoid prying eyes. He feels just as violated as you do right now.”

Violated. That’s a good word for it. I really do feel like I’ve been compromised. “I’m not mad at him , Thalia. I’m mad at the situation.” It’d be easy enough to assign blame, to say that Raphael was careless and should have known that fucking me up against that glass would lead to dire consequences, but it’s not the case. Seventy-three floors: the penthouse’s secluded nature should have been enough to keep that frenzied, urgent, lust-filled moment between us sacred.

Thalia knocks back another shot of vodka and then holds out the bottle to me. “He won’t answer the door to me. Can you believe that?” she asks.

I take the bottle from her and I put it on the ground behind me, out of her reach. “Did he message you?”

She nods morosely. “He told me not to come.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because. I made a promise a long time ago. I told her I’d watch out for him. I swore I’d make sure he was okay.”

“You promised? You promised who ?”

“Chhhhlllllooooeeeee .” Thalia says the name as though the answer should be obvious, that I’m stupid for not knowing. She’s never mentioned anyone by the name Chloe before, though. Never once since we met has that name ever crossed her lips.

“Who’s Chloe?”

A flicker of doubt passes over Thalia’s face. She hiccups, then bites her bottom lip, as if she realizes she’s said something wrong. “It doesn’t matter anymore. That was a long time ago. You’re here now. You’re here to make things better. You’re here to fix him. If you don’t, all of this has been for nothing.” Another loud hiccup echoes around the anteroom. She flops back onto the marble, her head rocking to one side as she looks out of the window to the city beyond. “We dreamed of this place, y’know?” She sighs, a sound of pure exhaustion. Her eyes glaze over; she stacks her hands on her sternum, crossing her feet at the ankle. “We used to sit on the rooftop at Paxton’s place and dream of being higher than the rest of the city even then. We wanted to be able to see the whole world from our vantage point. Money and power bought us the best view in New York, but still we weren’t happy with what we had. Raphael said he’d build this place. He already knew back then how special the Osiris would be. That it would be a haven for us.” She closes her eyelids, a tear rolling from the corner of the eye, streaking across the bridge of her nose. “Instead, it became his prison.”

“Thalia, stop.”

I look up, and Raphael is standing at the entrance to the penthouse, wearing sweat pants and a Star Wars t-shirt, ripped at the collar. Dark, bruised circles ring his eyes, exhaustion hanging over him like a black cloud. He is the very picture of a haunted man. Thalia nearly hurts herself in her hurry to get up. She scrambles, her feet sliding out from underneath her, and she has to slap a palm to the floor in order to stop herself from falling. Raphael flinches back and I can see it written plainly on his face: he wants to vanish back inside the penthouse and lock the door behind him. He does not want to see Thalia at all. He keeps his hands in the pockets of his sweat pants as she rushes across the anteroom and throws her arms around his neck. He tolerates her embrace, standing stiff as a board while she hugs him, his eyes locked on me over her shoulder.

He doesn’t breathe a word. Thalia leans back, her hands traveling over Raph’s face, brushing his hair back, her movements frantic, as if she’s checking him for injuries or something. A choked sob rips through the silence. “Raphael. Raphael, god, are you okay? I can’t believe you’re here right now. God, I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe it.” She sobs again, her voice filled with pain and sorrow. “She didn’t want this for you,” she whispers. “She didn’t want to see you like this.”

Slowly, with cold detachment, Raphael turns his head so that he’s looking directly into Thalia’s eyes. “You need to leave,” he says. “You can’t be here. You know that.”

She shakes her head, hugging him fiercely again. “You don’t need to do this anymore. It’s all over. It’s been over for a very long time.”

Raphael remains unmoved by her emotion. He might as well be made out of the same marble that stands beneath our feet. Eventually, with the most careful, measured movements imaginable, he reaches up behind his head and takes Thalia by the wrists, detaching her from him, placing her arms back down by her sides. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. His words aren’t unkind or callous. They’re simply resigned. “Go back down now. I need to talk to Beth.”

“I’ll come back. Tomorrow.” She sniffs, a pleading look in her eyes. I’ve never seen her like this before—so dejected and upset. I have no idea what’s happened between these guys, but whatever it is has broken them all so thoroughly that there’s never going to be a way back from it. Raphael knows it. It appears that Thalia just can’t accept it, though. Can’t or won’t.

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Raphael tells her. “I’m having new security measures installed tomorrow. You won’t be allowed into the elevator. Go home and rest. You can email me if you need to.”

“I’ve known you since I was three years old!” Thalia snaps. “I shouldn’t have to email you, Raphael. I should be able to come here whenever I want to. Whenever you need me.”

“I know,” Raphael agrees. “But that’s just not how things are. I’m sorry, Thalia, I really am.” I can hear how sad he is, how much he means it. He closes his eyes and kisses her temple, then he looks back toward the elevator, nodding. I’ve been so distracted by what’s happening that I haven’t noticed the two men in deep maroon blazers stepping out into the anteroom. Security guards. Both of them have shaved heads and earpieces, and look like they’re probably ex military.

“Is that…really necessary?” I ask quietly.

Raphael’s eyes are on fire when he looks at me. He doesn’t say anything, though. Thalia steps back, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “It’s okay. It’s really okay. I’ll go. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry, Raph.”

A flash of pain contorts his features, but then the blank, empty look returns to his face almost immediately. He strokes his hand down the side of Thalia’s face, and then turns and walks back inside the penthouse without looking back. I help Thalia gather up the contents of her purse, which are still spread all over the anteroom floor. Her hands are shaking, her cheeks red, as she stuffs makeup and notebooks back into the bag. I think she’s angry at me for a second, angry that I can stay and speak with him, to see how he is, that I’m able to spend time with a man she so obviously cares about. Then she grabs me by the hand and squeezes.

“He’s not okay, Beth. Don’t believe him if he says he is. He’s hurting. He’s afraid he’s lost you. Don’t give up on him. Please .” Desperation colors her voice. Her nails bite into my skin as she clenches hold of me, and once again I find myself tumbling down the rabbit hole, so confused and turned around by her attitude. She’s so sure I’ll be the Band-Aid to fix whatever hurt Raphael is suffering from. The thing about Band-Aids is that they’re temporary. They only mask the problem. The body heals beneath, or it doesn’t. A Band-Aid only hides the progress.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I whisper. “Please, Thalia. I can’t stand this anymore. And now, with the entire world watching…”

She blinks, her mascara streaking down her face in twin, thick black lines, and for a second I think she might tell me. The entire thing is sitting there on the tip of her tongue. A heartbeat later and it’s gone, though. With one last squeeze of my arm, she says, “Just don’t give up on him, Beth.”

* * *

R aphael isn’t in the vast lounge area when I walk into the penthouse. Nor is he in either of the VR studios. I haven’t been through any of the other doors that line the hallways, haven’t seen inside any of the rooms beyond, so it feels rude to start opening them up one by one on my mission to find him. I call his name until the sound of my voice rings out like a struck bell through the painfully silent space; there’s no way he doesn’t hear me, wherever he is. He doesn’t answer, though.

I find myself back in the formal dining room where Denny brought us steak the other night. Raphael is nowhere to be seen. I give up trying to be polite. I open up two offices, five guest bedrooms, a small library along with an actual movie theater, but I can’t seem to locate him. I’m about to call him on his phone when I notice a door at the far end of the hallway I find myself in standing ajar, and a tall column of sunlight cutting through the shadows.

When I peer through the open doorway, a flight of stairs leads up into what looks like open air. The sky is so very blue overhead. I creep up the stairs, uncertainty filling me from head to toe. Raph didn’t tell me to leave. He told Thalia he needed to talk to me and he left the door from the anteroom into the penthouse open. The security guards didn’t wait to escort me out of the building the way they did with Thalia. So why is it, then, that I feel like I’m intruding? Breaking the rules somehow?

At the top of the stairway, I find myself in the middle of the most beautiful rooftop garden imaginable. Plants, flowers…even trees. Everywhere I look, something green is growing. Terracotta pots form pathways leading from one section of the garden into the next, and on the far side of the roof, a step drops down onto a lawned area where Raphael is standing with his back to me. With a shotgun in his hand.

I stop dead in my tracks.

“It was a drone,” he calls out. “I heard it when we were together, but I didn’t think anything of it. There are always so many helicopters buzzing around the skies here that it didn’t even register at the time. I’ve shot down two of the fuckers since this morning. None of them have had markings on them, but I’m pretty sure they belong to the news crews.”

My heart is a fist in the hollow of my throat. At his feet, I see it—the debris. Broken pieces of plastic and glass. Twisted pieces of metal. I heard the whir of blades the other day, too. I assumed the same as Raphael—that it was just another helicopter. I’ve always been kind of entertained by the idea of drones. The prospect of having goods delivered by them, anywhere, anytime, always seemed like such an amazing idea. Now, I hate them beyond measure. They should be outlawed, banned countrywide. Fucking perverts, using them like that to spy on unwilling, unwitting people. I suppose technology has already been used to spy on unwitting people for years now, but drones make it too fucking easy.

My skin prickles, ice running through my veins. Raphael turns around, and the look on his face says it all. He’s ready to commit murder. He’s ready to tear someone limb from limb. He’s ready to go to motherfucking war. He lunges for me, taking three long strides, and then his arms are around me, holding onto me tight. I haven’t really given myself permission to think about how I might feel when I saw him again. I’ve purposefully stopped myself from even considering it, because when I left the Osiris yesterday evening, I felt light. Safe. Smitten, and so vulnerable. I kept thinking about the amazing, intense, private moment we shared, where he touched and caressed me, made me come alive under his hands. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way our bodies joined together and how perfect everything felt.

As soon as I saw that footage on the news, though, all of that changed. Listening to those bastards on the screen tearing apart every touch, every look, every moment our bodies met, made me feel like I’d imagined it all. They made me feel like the emotion and the pleasure I experienced when I was with him wasn’t as perfect as I’d originally thought. That maybe Raph was as unimpressed by me as the gossip columns and the reporters were.

Now that I’m standing here in his arms, feeling his heart beating out of his chest the same way mine is, I’m filled with anger for doubting myself. This is real. It was real yesterday, and it’s real now. I can feel the connection between us pulling taut, something physical, a tether that links us together. That can’t be seen on a television screen. And just because an entire city of people analyzed our interaction, doesn’t mean it’s no longer invaluable.

It did mean something. It still does. One second, I’m trying to catch my breath, my face pressed into Raph’s torn Star Wars shirt, the next I’m clinging to him, my fingernails digging into his shoulder blades, and I’m sobbing. I can’t decide if I’m sad or relieved. All I know is that I am so glad to be in his arms right now, no matter the circumstances. Raphael runs his hand over my hair, whispering soothing things into my ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Beth. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I won’t let it happen again, I swear it. I will never let them attack you like this again. Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, leaning away from his chest. “Am I supposed to talk to them? Am I supposed take out a restraining order against the entire press? I can’t even go to the bathroom without someone being in there, glaring at me, ready to grill me about you. About…us . And there isn’t even really an us . I—”

Raphael gently places his index finger over my lips, cutting me off. “There absolutely is an us. If you still want there to be. I understand if this is all too much and you don’t want to see me again. I do understand. I won’t like it, but I’ll accept your decision if you decide you don’t want to meet with me again. But let me follow that up with this: no one will ever love you like I can. No one will ever care for your heart the same way I will. And no one will ever light you on fire the way I swear I will for the rest of my fucking life, either, Beth. I’m a focused man. I’ve set my sights on making you the happiest woman on the face of the fucking planet. I know we’re not off to a very good start, but I swear to god and all things holy I will protect you, Beth. When I find out who sold that footage, I am going to rain down hell fire on them, the likes of which they have never known. They’re going to wish they’d never been born. And I will find out who was responsible. I have people working on it already. There won’t be a stone left unturned in this godforsaken city until I locate and punish the motherfucker who caused you pain, believe me.”

I do believe him. There’s a dangerous, mad glint in his eye that tells me he wants to deal with this issue personally. He wants to use his fists to teach the person who invaded our privacy a lesson. A severe beating isn’t going to be enough. He wants them fucking dead . I do, too, but Raphael looks furious enough that he’d be willing to commit the act himself.

“I don’t care who did it,” I whisper. “I just want to be able to walk down the street without being judged. I didn’t know about the farm. I didn’t have a clue Mom was on the brink of foreclosure. Now that the public knows every single little dirty secret about my family’s financial issues, they’re all coming to the same conclusion. I’m fucking you for your money. I can’t bear it.” My tears chase down my cheeks even faster. This is the first time I’ve allowed myself to fall apart. I’ve been so intent and determined to hold everything together since David showed up at my place last night that it’s been hard to release the steel grip I have on my own pain. Now that I’m giving in to it, it feels like it’s taking me out at the knees.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of it,” Raphael tells me. He uses his thumb to wipe away my tears. Leaning down, he stoops so that our eyes are level.

“I’m going to take care of everything. You don’t need to worry about a thing from now on, okay? I swear it.”

I shouldn’t take him at his word. Not because I don’t believe he means it, but because it’s going to be virtually impossible for him to achieve what he’s talking about. Freedom of the press is taken care of under the First Amendment. The law does not bend or break to Raphael North’s will, no matter how many decimal places his bank balance goes to. He can’t force them to leave me alone simply because he wants them to. That’s not the way the world works.

“It’s not just that,” I say, doing my best to fight back my tears. “I lost my job at the library today. They fired me.”

Raphael growls in the back of his throat. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that the library is a place of study and relaxation, and should be quiet at all times, not filled with camera crews, looking to question me or harass my colleagues about me.”

“They can’t do that.”

“Well, they did.”

“I’ll cover whatever salary you’ve lost then. It’s the least I can do.”

“No!” I shove away from him, reeling back, out of his arms. “You can’t give me a cent. Not ever. I’ve told you, Raph. I don’t want your money.”

His body tenses, a hard edge to his voice when he speaks. “You lost your job because of me. It’s my fault.”

“No, Raphael. I mean it.”

He clenches his jaw. “I have plenty of money. Might as well put it to good use.”

“I can’t believe you’d even think that right now. Not after all the hateful things they’re saying about me in the papers. I refuse to continue with this conversation.”

He folds his arms across his chest, visibly riled and unhappy. “What do you want to talk about then?”

I stare at him for a moment. He’s not going to let the money thing drop, I can tell. I get why he feels like he needs to give me cash to cover my lost salary, but I’m not going to back down on this one either. I’ll feel like a fraud if I do. I need to change the subject. I need to change it, and fast.

“Who is Chloe?” I fire the question at him like a bullet from a gun. For all intents and purposes it might as well have been a bullet, too, because Raphael jumps, his entire body jolting. A look of horror settles on his face.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“Thalia mentioned her before. She said Chloe made her promise to watch out for you.”

“She was drunk,” Raphael fires back. “She doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“She seemed pretty clear about it to me. And I don’t think she’d just randomly make a name up on the spot like that. So who is Chloe, Raphael? And why don’t you want to talk about her?”

I watch as the wall comes crashing down: a double reinforced, steel riveted door, eight inches thick. God knows how long Raphael has been throwing up this wall whenever he’s faced with a hard question, but right now it stands between us, impregnable and impossible to climb. I don’t even try. I know it would be futile.

“Forget it. It doesn’t even matter. I’m going home.”

The mask Raph’s wearing slips a little. “Don’t. You just got here. We haven’t spoken properly yet.”

I shrug, turning around, walking back to the stairway. “How can we when there are so many things you won’t even talk about, Raphael? Maybe one of these days you’ll be ready for a conversation. When you are ready, why don’t you come to me for once? Oh. And if you need my address, you can always ask Nate .”

* * *

T hree days pass . I hear nothing from Raphael. I’d hoped things would become more manageable with the press, that their interest would fade after a few days with no comment from either myself or from North Industries, but if anything, things get worse. Gareth, my doorman, finds people going through the trash in the alley behind the building. Mom has to email me in order to get a message to me since my mailbox is absolutely full of messages from talk show hosts and lifestyle magazines, all offering me vast amounts of money to sell them my story, each one promising to outbid the other. On my way to class, I get stared at, whispered about, sneered over, and, once, actually spat on. I start to rethink taking the subway to school. I’ve never felt unsafe in New York City, but now I feel like something bad might happen. Like someone might attack me, or I’ll get cornered by a bunch of frenzied paparazzi and I’ll end up injured when they take things too far. A part of me refuses to let this affect me, though. I wouldn’t let Raphael talk me out of taking the subway when he wanted Nate to drive me to and from the Osiris Building. It felt like an infringement on my free will then, and it definitely feels that way now, too. So I keep on taking the train. I keep on walking the streets, and I keep my damn head held high.

I constantly think about Raphael. I can’t stop. He’s there, at the forefront of my mind every morning when I open my eyes, and he’s there the second I close them to sleep, too. At night, those vivid, cool green eyes of his stalk me through my dreams. We writhe, naked and covered in sweat, our mouths locked together, our bodies joined, him thrusting into me over and over again until eventually I wake, tangled in the bed sheets, drenched, my hair plastered to my forehead, my heart racing away from me. I have other dreams of Raphael, too. Dreams where he’s in pain, suffering, lost somewhere and I can’t find him. Can’t reach him to help him. I run through an old stone maze, turning one way and then another, constantly searching, and yet I never make it to him.

Thalia doesn’t show up to class. She hasn’t messaged me. Hasn’t come by the apartment to see if I’m okay. Honestly, I don’t think she’s okay. I’m pulled in opposing directions, angry that she seems to have abandoned me during the most difficult moment of my life—a moment she technically caused to happen in the first place—and sad she doesn’t appear to be coping with the pain she’s suffering through, either.

I wake up on Friday and I consider going over to her place and checking in with her. However, by the time I’m ready and out of the door, I’m running late and I don’t have time. On the train, the guy across from me is reading The New York Times , shooting furtive, disapproving looks at me every few seconds over the top of the broadsheet. I’m so used to people gawking at me now that I almost don’t even bother to look at the front page of the paper. Not until the guy clears his throat, shaking it out, and the bold text catches my eye:

And then, underneath, in smaller letters:

I sold my what ? I sold my virginity to Raphael? Where the hell did they get that idea from? And a family rift? I thought Raphael was the only North left. His parents are long dead and he was an only child, so who the fuck are they claiming he’s fallen out with? I get to my feet and I snatch the paper out of the man’s hands.

“Hey! That’s my paper!” he snaps. “You can’t just take—”

“Taking from me is all anyone’s done for the past four days,” I volley back. “I have a right to know what’s being said about me. Don’t worry. I’ll give it back in a second.”

He must have been expecting me to cow down and hand the paper back right away. His eyes grow round with surprise when I stomp back to my seat and I sit myself down, my eyes scanning over the black text as quickly as I can.

‘…b rother of Beth , David Dreymon, says things have been tense between Beth and their mother for years. When Margo Dreymon, of Hopestanton, KS, saw evidence of her daughter’s antics all over the news, she reportedly collapsed from shock. Elizabeth and Margo fought on the telephone for well over an hour on the night the news of Elizabeth’s sexual relationship with Raphael North went public. The two women have not spoken again since, with Margo Dreymon blocking her daughter’s calls and messages. When asked about the divide that now separates the Dreymon household, David said that his mother was experiencing anxiety and a ‘great deal of stress’ because of the matter, and that he didn’t know if Elizabeth and Margo would ever be able to repair their once close relationship.’

I read on , not really seeing the words that are clearly staring back at me in print. The article goes on forever. It paints a picture of a very rocky past between me and Mom, and in a number of places David is quoted as saying that I had an, ‘intense, kind of odd relationship’ with Dad. What is that supposed to mean? I feel like I’m about to throw up every time the train rocks from side to side. I can’t believe what they’re insinuating. What David is insinuating. He wants people to think I was abused by Dad or something? He wants the public to believe there was something untoward going on behind our family’s closed doors? It makes no sense whatsoever. I…I just can’t believe he would talk to anyone about this. There’s no way he would have. No way in a million years. They have to be lying. My mind is racing, speeding through everything I know about the liable and slander cases that have taken place in the past fifty years. I throw the paper into the guy’s lap, and I bolt from the train the moment the doors open.

Up on street level, I call David, horror slamming through me with every breath I take. He picks up almost immediately, like he was staring at his phone, waiting for someone to call. “Before you get mad, I want you to know, they twisted what I said.”

I stumble over my own feet, nearly falling flat on my face. He…he did speak to the media? David’s a jerk. He’s thoughtless and a total asshole most of the time, but he’s my brother. He’s not evil. I didn’t for a second really think he’d actually gone ahead and sold his story. My story. Whatever. I didn’t think he’d really done it. His defensive words coupled with his equally defensive tone tell me otherwise, however. I screw my eyes shut, trying not to explode in public. It’s a good thing I’m not alone right now. If I was, I’d probably be screaming and using every single curse word under the sun. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” I hiss into the phone. “You knew I didn’t want this dragged through the press any further than it already has been. You knew I didn’t want to comment or feed the story in any way, and yet you went ahead and threw in your own two cents, regardless. What’s wrong with you?”

He scoffs, the same annoying way he used to when we were kids and he was caught doing something that made him look stupid in front of his friends. “I was being realistic, Beth. You think one of your old school friends wasn’t going to start blabbing about you the moment they were offered a paycheck? Hmm? You think one of your friends from Columbia wasn’t going to give them every single detail they know about you in return for a fucking whale of a paycheck? It was better that we benefitted from the information making its way into the papers. Our family’s the one suffering right now, after all. No one should profit from that suffering but us.”

“Suffering? How the hell are you suffering, David? You’ve probably been prancing around Brooklyn, telling anyone who’ll listen that you’re the brother of the famous slut who slept with Raphael North. You’re a disgusting pig!”

David grunts. He does that whenever he knows he’s done something wrong, and yet he doesn’t want to back down. “You’re the one who got herself filmed by a drone fucking a dude up against a window, Beth. The whole nation’s seen your pussy but none of them know a single thing about you. Sue me if I told them you were a brainiac in high school, for fuck’s sake. Sue me if I told them your favorite fucking flavor of ice cream and your favorite candy bar, okay?”

“You told them Dad abused me, David!”

“I never said that. Not in so many words.”

“Not in so many words? God…” I shake my head, covering my eyes with my free hand. I’ve stepped off the sidewalk and into the gutter, right alongside my reputation, in order to avoid the people on their way home from or on their way to work. The world feels like it’s seesawing, tilting to the right and then to the left. “Mom’s never going to speak to you again, you realize that, right?”

The line is quiet for a moment, and then, “She’ll get over it. Especially when I use some of the money to pay off the debt we owe on the farm.”

Some of the money. Some of it. So he got paid more than two hundred and fifty grand for his hateful words. Unbelievable. “You haven’t even spoken to Mom, have you?” I whisper. “She doesn’t care about the farm. She doesn’t want to keep it. She wants a fresh start. She’s not going to let you use that money to save the business.”

“Well, it’s too late,” David crows triumphantly. “She doesn’t have a choice in the matter. The wheels are already in motion. I called the bank earlier this morning and paid the debt in full. Now she can always live in the old house.”

“She doesn’t want to fucking stay in the house, David! She wants to fucking go!”

“Bullshit. That’s where we grew up. That’s where she had built a life with Dad.”

“Just because you’re sentimental about it, doesn’t mean she has to be as well. And you’re forgetting one thing, too. Dad died in that house.” I don’t mention Mom’s attack. Maybe David would understand a little better why Mom wouldn’t care about the place very much if he knew what happened, but I can’t voice the words. Mom made me promise all those years ago never to tell Dad or David. She made me swear I wouldn’t breathe a word. Even now, I can’t break that promise to her. “Our father dropped down onto his knees in that house,” I continue. “She watched his eyes roll back into his head, and that was that. He never opened them again. What do you think she sees when she closes her eyes, asshole? She sees the man she loved most in the world, dying in front of her. The man that you just implied sexually abused me. The man that raised both of us, gave everything for us, always. He was such a—“

“He was just a man, Beth!” my brother roars. “People are always going on about him like they know him better than anyone else. They talk about him like he was some kind of fucking saint. Like he rescued starving orphans from the roadside on a daily basis. He was just a fucking guy, though. He cursed, and he dropped shit, and he would stare out of a window with a stupid smile on his face for three hours at a time and never get anything done. And he did slap Mom once. I saw it.”

“Bullshit.”

“He slapped her right across the face, Beth. You wouldn’t even fucking know! You were just a baby.”

I can’t take this anymore, this weird grasping at straws. He’s just trying to justify what he’s done, to make it okay that he’s betrayed not just me, but Mom and Dad, too. “How much did they give you, David?” I ask tiredly.

The line is static and nothing more.

“David. Tell me how much they gave you!”

“It doesn’t matter how much exactly. I got enough to save the farm. That’s all that matters.” His voice is flat. Almost lifeless. He’s not going to tell me what my dignity was worth to him.

“Don’t call me again, David,” I say. “Lose my number. Don’t come knocking on my door anymore, okay? You’ve just gone and lost yourself a sister.”

He laughs gently, chewing something on the other end of the phone. “Whatever you say, Spooch.”