Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Billie remained exactly where she was, frozen between the desk and the doorway, her hands braced on her knees as she fought to draw breath into her lungs.
The leather at her waist suddenly felt unbearable, and what usually made her feel powerful…
resembled nothing more than a mistake now.
Proof of something Debra had not only misunderstood but seen.
“Billie,” Nina stepped closer. “I-I didn’t know she was—”
“Don’t.”
Billie’s hands went straight to her waist, her fingers shaking as they fumbled with the harness buckle. She missed it once, then again, and Nina immediately noticed.
“Do you want me to—”
“Get it off,” Billie whispered.
She wasn’t focusing on Nina anymore. She wasn’t really seeing the room at all.
“Please, get it off. I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have been wearing it.
I shouldn’t have—” She tried again, but her fingers slipped once more.
That was when something broke in her. “No, no, no,” Billie muttered, her words tumbling over themselves as her breathing grew more and more ragged.
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”
Don’t panic. Don’t move. Don’t make it worse.
But the panic surged anyway, rushing up her throat. Her body remembered even when her mind tried to forget.
Don’t raise your voice, Billie.
Don’t move until I tell you to.
Look at me when you apologise.
You’re only good when you’re quiet.
She heard the sound of fabric shifting behind her, and it sent a jolt straight up her spine.
“Billie,” Nina said carefully. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Billie hunched her shoulders inwards, protecting herself from the hardest blows she knew were coming, hoping she could make herself smaller in the huge space around her.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered again.
“I promise I’ll be better. I’ll do it right next time.
I won’t push.” Her voice cracked completely. “I won’t make you angry.”
She caught Nina inching closer out of the corner of her eye, but she had nowhere to turn. She felt exposed and it was all her own fault. If she hadn’t upset anyone, she wouldn’t be in this position.
“Please, don’t.”
“Oh, Billie…” Nina’s voice broke, but she didn’t step any closer.
Billie yanked at the harness again, and the buckle finally gave way. The leather slipped loose and hit the floor with a thud, making Billie flinch.
She stared down at it as though she didn’t recognise it, and then she recoiled, bumping into the desk as she staggered back. She braced her palms behind her, needing something solid to stop herself from falling apart altogether.
“I knew this would happen.” Billie shook her head. “I knew better. I always know better. I just—” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I just forgot for a second.”
Nina approached slowly. “Forgot what?”
“That wanting doesn’t end well.” Billie felt her breathing starting to spiral again.
“I told myself it was fine. I told myself I could handle it. That I was in control.” Her voice dropped.
“I always think that. And then…” She slid down the side of the desk, her knees buckling as she sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, rocking slightly.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I swear. I won’t need anything. I won’t ask.”
Nina crouched in front of her without touching her, her hands braced on her own thighs as she searched Billie’s face. “You don’t have to apologise. Not to me.”
Billie shook her head, her eyes unfocused. “I do. I always do. It’s easier if I do. If I say sorry first, maybe it won’t hurt as much.”
“Billie, do you want me to call someone for you? Or take you home?”
“N-no. I’ll fix it. I just…I just have to be better. Quieter. I shouldn’t have wanted anything.” Her throat closed painfully. “I knew that.”
“Hey.” Nina dipped her head and smiled. “It’ll all be okay.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, but Debra’s face was still there. The shock and the heartbreak. The way she’d looked at Billie as though she finally understood something she never wanted to see.
“Billie.” Nina sat down on the floor at Billie’s feet. “Look at me.”
It took a moment, but Billie’s eyes slowly lifted.
“You’re not in trouble. No one’s angry. Debra didn’t—”
Billie flinched at the name.
“I broke it,” she whispered. “I finally had something real, and I broke it.”
“I don’t think she left because of you. I think she left because she was hurt.”
Billie pressed her forehead to her knees. “That’s worse.”
The silence that settled was heavier than anything Billie had experienced in a long time, but she welcomed it. Because silence usually meant no pain. Silence meant nothing being thrown, nobody being whipped, and no mess to clean up when it was all over.
She felt herself folding in on herself, her muscles drawn tight and her arms wrapping around her torso without conscious thought. Her body knew this shape. It had lived in it for too long at one time.
“I won’t do it again, I promise. I won’t need anything. I won’t ask. I won’t push.”
“Billie,” Nina said, her voice thick with worry. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m fine. I just misjudged something.” Her body ached so badly that she wondered if she was going to throw up. “I always do.”
That stillness settled again, but Billie stayed where she was, her back against the desk with her eyes closed, and her palms pressed flat to the floor.
“I need you to go home. I’ll lock up.”
“I don’t think I can, Billie. I can’t leave you here like this.”
Billie locked eyes with Nina for a brief second. “I’m okay. I want to be alone.” And then she pressed her forehead to her knees again. “Please, just go.”
There was a hesitation—she felt it even without seeing it—and then the sound of movement as footsteps retreated.
After the door closed and the shop returned to silence, Billie lifted her head and swallowed.
She pressed her hands against her face, but nothing could stop the avalanche of shame ripping through her.
Debra had looked at her like she’d been punched.
Because of Billie and what she’d allowed. Because of what she’d done.
She needed to fix it. She needed to see her, and she needed to make it right, even if she didn’t deserve to.
Her gaze caught the harness on the floor; a startling reminder of everything she couldn’t outrun.
Billie’s breath trembled again as she rose to her feet, but this time there was a thin thread of resolve attached to it.
She would go to Debra tonight, right now, and if she never wanted to look at Billie again, she would take that punishment. She deserved far worse.
Tonight, she would show Debra the one truth she’d never allowed anyone else to see. That Billie Brown and all her control, poise, and armour were nothing more than a woman who was terrified of hurting someone she cared about.
But she had, and now she would break herself open if it meant Debra knew she was sorry. She pressed her palm flat against the ache in her chest and whispered the only apology she would ever make again. “I’m sorry I remembered how to want.”
Billie barely remembered locking the shop. She knew she must have—via muscle memory if nothing else—but the act itself passed through her without registering, the way everything else had since Debra’s face had fractured in front of her eyes.
The city blurred around her. Pavements slick with rain, headlights smearing white and red across the wet road, strangers passing by without looking twice.
She welcomed that, the anonymity. The fact that no one knew who she was supposed to be.
It felt fitting, given the fact that everything in her life had smashed into pieces she no longer knew how to gather.
She hadn’t bothered to take a cab. She’d needed the cold and the movement.
She’d needed the punishment of each step striking the ground as though she could walk something out of herself that had been buried for too long.
Her collar was skewed and her hair was a mess from constantly pulling at it before she’d made her way over there.
Anyone looking at her would have seen a woman coming undone, but no one looked closely enough. They never did.
Her mind replayed it all in relentless detail.
Debra standing in the doorway and that sound Billie would never be able to scrub from her mind.
Small, wounded, and involuntary. The way her eyes had searched Billie’s face, desperate for reassurance that never came…
and how she’d searched for something to hold on to and found nothing solid enough to stay for.
Billie clenched her jaw as her throat burned again.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered into the night, the words torn from her before she could swallow them back. “I didn’t mean to lie.”
But she had. In fact, she’d done something worse. She’d let Debra believe something true enough to feel safe in, only to rip it away the moment it mattered.
She hadn’t meant for it to happen. Not like that. Not there. She’d told herself she was reclaiming something, slipping back into something familiar because familiarity felt safer than the open, terrifying want Debra had stirred in her. She’d told herself she was in control.
Control.
Billie scoffed to herself.
Her feet slowed as Debra’s building came into view, her palms growing clammy as she reached that fight or flight stage. She stopped across the street, soaked through from the rain, and stared at the darkened windows.
She could still leave.
That instinct flared, the same one that had carried her out of bedrooms and cities and entire lives before anyone had the chance to hurt her. She had left in the middle of the night before. She was excellent at vanishing.
Leave before you’re seen.
Leave before you make it worse.
Leave before you kneel for something you don’t deserve.
But this time, her body refused to move.
Because this wasn’t about escape. This was about penance. It wasn’t about deserving; it was about owning what she’d done.
She crossed the street slowly, each step heavier than the last, her shoulders curling inwards.
The building loomed ahead of her, ordinary yet terrifying in its normality.
This wasn’t a club. This wasn’t a controlled space.
This wasn’t her place. This was Debra’s home…
the one place Billie had never let herself sit in fully.
When she entered the building and took the several flights of stairs to Debra’s flat, her legs trembled not from exhaustion, but from memory. By the time she reached Debra’s door, her breath was shallow again, her heart hammering so hard she wondered if Debra could hear it through the wood.
She lifted her hand to knock but stopped herself and lowered it again.
When an old reflex reared its head, her posture folding without warning, Billie lowered herself to her knees outside Debra’s front door and placed her palms flat on her thighs.
Be still. Be quiet. Be small.
She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t rush. She knelt there carefully, as though the act itself required ultimate precision.
Hands flat on your thighs.
Palms down.
Back straight.
Head bowed.
She bowed her head and swallowed. Her body knew this posture, and it remembered it far better than she wanted to admit. Billie’s breathing came unevenly, but she forced it slower, counting under her breath the way she used to.
Don’t look up unless you’re told to.
Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.
Apologise first.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the closed door, the words spilling out before she could stop them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to want anything. I forgot…” Her breath stuttered. “I forgot my place.”
If she could find the composure to rehearse her lines properly and fully, maybe the pain wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she would make it home tonight in one piece.
Her shoulders shook once before she forced them still again.
The truth was, she deserved whatever came next.
“I know I shouldn’t be here. I know I don’t deserve to be.” Emotion welled in her throat. “I’m sorry for wanting you.”
She pressed her lips together and composed herself.
Crying only made things worse, and she couldn’t afford to fall apart yet.
She stayed exactly where she was as she reached forward and knocked on the door.
As she waited obediently, Billie knew what this was, and she accepted what it was.
She wasn’t here to be forgiven. She was here to be judged.