Chapter 3
ELLIE
Inside, I lock the door. Deadbolt and chain.
Then I check the windows, even though I’m on the third floor and they don’t open more than four inches. After that, I make the rounds. The closet. The bathroom. Behind the shower curtain. Under the bed.
When it’s all clear, I lean against the wall in the bathroom.
Shit .
He knows about Maren. He knows about the café.
Is that because I was too careless? Or does he have someone actually watching me now? Like, all the time?
I sink to the bathroom floor. The cold of the tiles seeps through my jeans, but I’m not moving. I pull my knees to my chest and try to take a deep breath. But the air won’t come out right. It hits in short, shallow gulps that make my chest hitch and my vision blur.
I press my forehead to my knees and count.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
My throat aches where his hand was.
I reach up and touch it. The skin is tender. Tomorrow, there will be marks for sure. Faint, nothing anyone would notice unless they knew where to search, but I’ll know. I’ll feel his fingerprints on my skin like a too-tight necklace I can’t take off.
Six. Seven. Eight.
I think about calling Maren and telling her about Landon. I should warn her. I should?—
Dread fills my gut.
No. I can’t.
If I tell her, she’ll call someone. The police. Her family. Landon will figure out what she knows, and then Maren becomes a target too, and I can’t — I won’t, I refuse to be the reason someone else gets pulled into this. I’ve already cost my father his life. I won’t cost Maren hers.
Nine. Ten.
The counting works. It always works, eventually. The panic recedes like a tide, not entirely gone, but pulled back to a place where I can function around it. I uncurl my fingers, unclench my jaw, and lift my head.
The apartment is quiet. Somewhere below me, a pipe clanks. Outside, a car passes with its music blaring, bass thudding through the walls. Then it fades, and there’s nothing again.
I pull Dad’s old flannel shirt from under my pillow — the one I took from his closet after he died. It stopped smelling like him years ago, but I still hold it to my face sometimes.
This time, I press it against the place on my throat where Landon’s hand was, as if my father’s ghost could cover the marks.
“I’m trying, Dad,” I whisper to the empty room. “I’m really trying.”
There’s a swell in my chest. But no tears fall. I can’t afford to cry. I have enough to get through in the next forty-eight hours. No use wasting energy on this.
Instead, I think about the interview.
Friday. Two o’clock. The estate. The little girl .
My stomach flips as I remember Landon’s new terms. Twenty percent increase on the minimum. At my old salary, that would have ruined me. At five times my old salary, it’s manageable.
If I get the job.
If .
I clutch my father’s shirt to my chest and stare at the ceiling, wondering what kind of person takes a job living in a stranger’s house, caring for their child, when she can’t even take care of herself.
The answer is simple: me.
Thursday morning arrives gray and cold. The sky looks like it forgot to finish loading shortly after dawn. I stand in front of my closet in my underwear and an old BU sweatshirt staring at my options.
Options . That’s generous.
I have three work-appropriate outfits. Two are from Target’s clearance rack.
One black dress that’s a little too tight in the waist, and one gray skirt-and-blouse combo that makes me look like a secretary from 1987.
The third is a pair of navy slacks with a small bleach stain on the left knee that I’ve been pretending isn’t there for six months.
None of them say, “Hire me to live on your estate and educate your child.” They say, “I am doing my best on a budget that would make a college student weep.”
I go to the bathroom to wash my face. In the mirror, I tilt my chin up.
Sure enough, the marks are there. Four faint ovals on the right side of my neck. One longer mark on the left where his thumb pressed.
They could be anything. A rash, a sunburn, the imprint of a necklace clasp. But I know what they are. I know the shape of Landon’s hand better than I know my own. It happened too many times to forget.
I pull my hair forward and test different positions. Down and loose covers most of it. A scarf would cover all of it, but a scarf at an interview would give the impression I was trying to hide something. I am, but they can’t know that.
Hair down. That’s the answer. Hair down and a smile. That’s an act I’ve been rehearsing for so long now that sometimes I forget which parts of me are real.
I grab my coat and my last twenty from the emergency jar. The thrift stores on Milwaukee Avenue are my usual hunting grounds. I know them all by name and by smell.
Second Chance smells like lavender and old books. New To You smells like fabric softener and mild regret. Goodwill smells like Goodwill , which is its own category entirely.
I start at Second Chance .
The owner, Gloria, sometimes holds things back for me. She’s a seventy-year-old Dominican woman who calls everyone mi amor and once gave me a cashmere scarf for free because she said I needed a soft touch.
Today, nothing fits. Or rather, nothing fits me and is fitting for an interview. I try on a blazer that’s two sizes too big. A dress with a zipper that won’t close. A blouse with a stain I don’t discover until I’m already buttoning it.
At New To You , it’s the same story. I stand in the narrow dressing room under fluorescent lights that turn my skin vaguely green.
By two in the afternoon, I’m sitting on a bench outside a Walgreens with a granola bar and a growing sense of dread.
The interview is tomorrow at two. I have nothing to wear.
I have seventeen dollars. I have a debt that follows me like a second shadow, an abusive ex-boyfriend who knows where my best friend eats lunch, and a list of qualifications I assume is at least three pages shorter than every other candidate’s.
Stop .
This isn’t the time.
I’ve been through worse. I held my father’s hand in a hospital room and watched him die. I signed my name on a debt that wasn’t mine because I thought I could fix it.
And on top of it all, I moved to a city where I only knew one person and built a life out of nothing. Hell, I did it with less than seventeen dollars too.
If I managed to survive all of that, this should be a piece of cake. Really, finding an outfit to wear is nothing in comparison.
So, I burn a trail home and dig with renewed conviction through my closet. In the back, behind the winter coats and the box of donation clothes, I find a forgotten white button-down.
Simple. Clean. A little wrinkled, but the iron still works. I pair it with a black dress that’s not too tight and has a neckline high enough to cover the marks on my throat.
I set them out on the bed and steam the wrinkles. Then I polish my only pair of black flats. They’re scuffed at the toes, but they’ll do.
It’s not perfect. It’s not what I’d choose if I had money, time, or the luxury of options. But it’s clean, and it fits.
When I try it on and check the mirror, the marks are hidden, and my eyes are clear. I almost pass for a person who, in the right light, might deserve a chance.
With a sigh, I hang the outfit on the back of my bedroom door and sit on the bed.
I don’t know who this family is. I don’t know if I’m qualified. But I do know I’m running out of moves. The walls are closing in from every side. There’s one door left, and it’s the only one I haven’t tried yet.
Whatever’s on the other side can’t be worse than what’s behind me, right?