thought. I shouldn’t have said that. This wasn’t Elena’s business.
“Forget it,” I snapped hastily. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
I turned my back on Elena, shutting the office door on her with a dull thud.
The sound of a thud snaps me back to reality—snatching me out of my memory and dropping me right back into Starbucks. Chris’s hand lands with a smack against the table in front of me.
His sea-green eyes are staring back at me, his brows twisted in a knot that looks almost comical.
“Bro… what is going on? I don’t know how to talk to you these days. I swear you’re in another dimension.”
I blink hard, shaking my head. “It feels like it sometimes…”
I can tell Chris is still confused, but I can’t explain. Something is going on—not just with me , but also around me. Around all of us.
I don’t know what it is… or who …
I stand, crushing my now-empty cup. “Speaking of other dimensions, let’s get out of here and back to work. I need to check on something.”
***
We leave the Starbucks in silence, each seemingly lost in our own thoughts as we head back to work.
I glance at Chris out of the corner of my eye, wondering if maybe I could’ve picked a different woman to lie about.
Chris has always had some sort of soft spot for Trina. In fact… he was the one that introduced us .
She was his type: a beautiful, funny, slightly nerdy type of girl—a real square when I met her.
Until she fell hard for me…
She wanted a taste of my lifestyle so I gave it to her. I was twenty-two at the time. How was I to know that she would tumble so far down the rabbit hole?
I was a reformed drinker, not a drug user .
Inside the café, Trina was the best substitute I could come up with for Elena. I figured maybe if Chris thought something was going on with Trina and me, he would let the Elena thing go.
Maybe his attention would shift to that. Maybe he wouldn’t tell Foxx.
But now I’ve fucked myself… because Chris is sulking, I feel guilty , and whoever’s behind these “attacks” on us lives another day incognito.
Secrets beget more secrets.
If it’s one thing that I know, it’s that .
And ever since I’ve kept one monumental secret, everything surrounding it has started to unravel.
I’ve emotionally abandoned Chris.
I’ve alienated Elena.
And now an assault that opened against me has started to spread to Tripping Out!... and I still haven’t told the truth.
Nobody knows about the note but me.
The note that some twisted sicko left to aggravate me after destroying my beloved car. A note that someone used to bait me—to let me know that they knew something I didn’t want revealed. Something they could hold over my head.
At the time, I had believed that jealousy was the culprit—that an envious Trina took her frustrations out on the thing I treasured most.
But when I saw the Tripping Out! hack, I knew it was just the beginning. Nothing’s happened since… but who knows how far this game will go?
Whoever it is… he or she is clearly having fun at my expense.
It’s all I can think about the entire way back.
The weather is dreary as we traverse the few blocks to our office building. The front lobby that houses the security desk is virtually empty.
Our shiny shoes echo loudly on the tiled floors, and Chris and I are staring so intently at them that we barely notice the unnatural solitude.
Or the unseemly man that interrupts it…
He walks quickly past us with his head down and if I wasn’t so intent on keeping my gaze on the floor, I might’ve missed his black sneakers crossing my path.
Sneakers—running shoes. In an office building.
It takes me several seconds to realize how odd the sight is. I finally look up.
The man is dressed casually in black jeans and a navy top. I observe him over my shoulder as he passes the front stairs going in the opposite direction. He’s heading towards the front entrance.
There’s
“Forget it,” I snapped hastily. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
I turned my back on Elena, shutting the office door on her with a dull thud.
The sound of a thud snaps me back to reality—snatching me out of my memory and dropping me right back into Starbucks. Chris’s hand lands with a smack against the table in front of me.
His sea-green eyes are staring back at me, his brows twisted in a knot that looks almost comical.
“Bro… what is going on? I don’t know how to talk to you these days. I swear you’re in another dimension.”
I blink hard, shaking my head. “It feels like it sometimes…”
I can tell Chris is still confused, but I can’t explain. Something is going on—not just with me , but also around me. Around all of us.
I don’t know what it is… or who …
I stand, crushing my now-empty cup. “Speaking of other dimensions, let’s get out of here and back to work. I need to check on something.”
***
We leave the Starbucks in silence, each seemingly lost in our own thoughts as we head back to work.
I glance at Chris out of the corner of my eye, wondering if maybe I could’ve picked a different woman to lie about.
Chris has always had some sort of soft spot for Trina. In fact… he was the one that introduced us .
She was his type: a beautiful, funny, slightly nerdy type of girl—a real square when I met her.
Until she fell hard for me…
She wanted a taste of my lifestyle so I gave it to her. I was twenty-two at the time. How was I to know that she would tumble so far down the rabbit hole?
I was a reformed drinker, not a drug user .
Inside the café, Trina was the best substitute I could come up with for Elena. I figured maybe if Chris thought something was going on with Trina and me, he would let the Elena thing go.
Maybe his attention would shift to that. Maybe he wouldn’t tell Foxx.
But now I’ve fucked myself… because Chris is sulking, I feel guilty , and whoever’s behind these “attacks” on us lives another day incognito.
Secrets beget more secrets.
If it’s one thing that I know, it’s that .
And ever since I’ve kept one monumental secret, everything surrounding it has started to unravel.
I’ve emotionally abandoned Chris.
I’ve alienated Elena.
And now an assault that opened against me has started to spread to Tripping Out!... and I still haven’t told the truth.
Nobody knows about the note but me.
The note that some twisted sicko left to aggravate me after destroying my beloved car. A note that someone used to bait me—to let me know that they knew something I didn’t want revealed. Something they could hold over my head.
At the time, I had believed that jealousy was the culprit—that an envious Trina took her frustrations out on the thing I treasured most.
But when I saw the Tripping Out! hack, I knew it was just the beginning. Nothing’s happened since… but who knows how far this game will go?
Whoever it is… he or she is clearly having fun at my expense.
It’s all I can think about the entire way back.
The weather is dreary as we traverse the few blocks to our office building. The front lobby that houses the security desk is virtually empty.
Our shiny shoes echo loudly on the tiled floors, and Chris and I are staring so intently at them that we barely notice the unnatural solitude.
Or the unseemly man that interrupts it…
He walks quickly past us with his head down and if I wasn’t so intent on keeping my gaze on the floor, I might’ve missed his black sneakers crossing my path.
Sneakers—running shoes. In an office building.
It takes me several seconds to realize how odd the sight is. I finally look up.
The man is dressed casually in black jeans and a navy top. I observe him over my shoulder as he passes the front stairs going in the opposite direction. He’s heading towards the front entrance.
There’s
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