Page 16 of Words We Didn't Say

Another ping.

All eyes in the office snapped to his phone. This time, Zach grabbed it. I didn’t imagine the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Mac saw it, too. Jealousy twisted her features, and sheuncoiled her legs like the viper she was and slithered off the desk.

“Got a secret admirer?” She sauntered beside him, trying to peer over his shoulder.

Zach’s chair slid away. “Ignore that.” He shoved his phone across the desk. “It’s no one.”

I sucked in a breath.

No one.

I was swaying again, toppling around on the spot like I was on the ocean, trying—no, failing—to stop my knees buckling.

No one.

I hit the floor.

“Messages at this time of night are usually important,” Mac said.

“It’s literally no one important.” Zach opened his laptop. “No big deal, okay? Don’t even think about it.” He started typing again.

No one.

It was just like the nights all those years ago that I’d spent cowering in a ball on the laundry room tiles. I’d crept through the dark and peeked under the gap of the door, searching for the crack of light, screaming my tiny lungs out.

“Who’s that?” the women’s voices had always whispered.

“No one,” my father had always barked back. “Ignore her. She’ll learn her lesson.”

Sometimes, my father had kicked the door or promised me a damn good hiding if I didn’t quit making so much noise. He’d taught me a long time ago to stop screaming in the dark.

I thought Zach saw me, though. I didn’t think I needed to scream, or send messages, or be hidden away. I wassomeonenow. I blinked at the light shining down the corridor. He didn’t see me. Had he ever?

“Want me to help you relax?” Mac asked.

He only saw her, and she was slithering closer…and closer…

“Zach?”

“Oh, um… Yeah—”

The broken whimper torn from my throat blotted out the rest of Zach’s words. I couldn’t sit there and let my heart get ripped out, too. I jolted to my feet, lurching in the other direction so I didn’t have to see what happened after Mac dug her claws into his shoulders. I scampered down the corridor like a drunk mouse, knocking into the walls, my handbag thumping against my hip until light burst through the suffocating darkness.

The elevators.

I jabbed at the down button over and over. No waiting, justding,and the doors opened.

I stumbled inside on shaky legs and pounded the lobby button with my fist. Agitated, I paced in the small space, anxious to escape the tiny elevator, the building, the memory of that woman touching the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life loving with all my heart. A lifetime passed. The scene in Zach’s office replayed too many times.

When the elevator stopped, I exploded out, my sneakers squeaking on the shiny floor as I ran through the foyer, my phone out of my bag and pressed to my ear as I fled the building.

“Pick up.” I dodged people walking on the street, the rings bleeping on and on. “Pick up.”

Andie yawned. “Eden?”

My eyes lifted to the sky to whisper a silentthank you. “Andie. Shit—he—I c-can’t—”

“What’s going on?” Andie suddenly sounded wide awake. “Is everything okay?”

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