Page 140 of Fault Lines
He left without another word, the door shutting quietly behind him.
I stared at the closed door, at the line of light that snuck in under the jamb. I wished I could crawl through it, dissolve into the hallway, start fresh with the next version of myself. Instead, I wandered to the window, pulled the blinds all the way up, and let the last of the sunlight burn my retinas.
It didn’t make me feel better, but it was a start.
∞∞∞
Back in Rachel’s apartment, I sat at the edge of the bed, hunched over, elbows on knees, staring at the slow, uneven pulse of my phone as it charged on the nightstand. The room was half-shadow, the only light coming from the blinking red indicator, casting just enough glow to remind me I wasn’t sleeping again.
My head throbbed in a dull, persistent way, and my tongue still tasted like battery acid from the talk with Nate. The aftermath felt as sticky as the humidity—anger, regret, a soft panic creeping in around the edges. I hadn’t showered since the night before, and I didn’t plan to. It felt like defeat.
The phone buzzed, sudden and violent against the wood, making me jump. I glanced at the screen, expecting Rachel ormaybe a guilt-text from Nate. But the name was unfamiliar: just a number, no contact. The area code was local.
I let it buzz three times, thumb hovering over the answer button, before I picked up.
“Hello?”
A pause—static, the crackle of a cheap connection. Then, a woman’s voice. Quiet, careful. “Is this Olivia?”
Something in the timbre was instantly familiar, and the memory clicked into place with a jolt. Lacey.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. The silence grew, long enough for her to clear her throat and try again.
“It’s Lacey,” she said, her voice lower now, as if she thought someone might be listening. “I’m sorry to call. I just—there are some things you need to know.”
I sat up straighter, every muscle tensing like I was bracing for a blow. “What things?” I asked, trying not to let my voice shake.
Another pause, this one more loaded. “I can’t say everything here. I just… there’s more information. Stuff about Cam. About the baby. About me.” She let out a nervous, wet-sounding laugh. “A lot has changed since… you know.”
I waited. The silence stretched until it felt like I might snap.
“Can we talk?” she said, voice almost pleading now. “In person?”
I swallowed. “I guess,” I said, the words coming out small and unsteady. “When?”
“Soon,” she said, and I heard something like relief. “I’ll text you a place.”
The call ended. I stared at the phone for a long minute, the screen still glowing with the unknown number, as if I could force the answers out with just my will.
I set the phone down and wrapped my arms around my knees, pulling them to my chest. The room was dead quiet exceptfor the distant hum of a neighbor’s TV and the soft click of the air conditioner cycling on.
I closed my eyes, let my head drop, and whispered into the dim, empty room, “What now?”
There was no answer.
Not yet.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next morning, I found myself walking with leaden steps through the half-dead heart of downtown, heading toward a café I’d never noticed before and would have crossed the street to avoid on any other day. The awning was sun-bleached and cracked, and the sign—CAFE SOLITUDE—looked like it belonged to a place that specialized in stale biscotti and graduate student tears. It was the perfect venue for my meeting with Lacey. The street was mostly empty, too early for the office crowd, too late for the drunks. I wasn’t hungover, but my nerves vibrated with the kind of exhaustion that usually followed a night spent oscillating between panic and pointless hope.
Lacey had texted me the address the night before, along with a polite:Thank you for agreeing to see me. I owe you an explanation.The message sat in my notifications all morning, an emotional threat I scrolled past without ever marking as read. I didn’t want to do this. Every instinct screamed at me to ignore the whole thing, bury it under work or sex or whatever new compulsion might fill the void. But curiosity gnawed away at my resolve, and here I was, ordering a black coffee from a teenager who looked like he’d been born with a nicotine patch already applied.
I chose a table by the window, far from the register, where I could watch the street and the entrance without having tomake eye contact with any of the five other patrons. None of them looked up. The mood was exactly what the name promised: solitude, plus the faint smell of over-roasted beans and disinfectant.
I stared at my phone. I’d turned off the ringer, but I was still waiting for something to happen. I wanted a text from Rachel, a call from Nate—anything that would give me an excuse to leave. Instead, the minutes ticked past. I sipped at the coffee, let the bitterness burn away any traces of cowardice, and thought about all the possible ways this meeting could go wrong.
Lacey arrived precisely on time, down to the second. She was almost unrecognizable from her Instagram-perfect headshots: dark sunglasses covering most of her face, lips bare and colorless, hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She wore a designer maternity dress, navy with white piping, stretched tight over a bump that was far beyond “food baby.” She looked like someone who wanted desperately to be invisible but had never succeeded in her life, and now had resigned herself to being noticed for all the wrong reasons.
