Page 30 of The Quiet After The Fall

She won’t be a problem.

Why do I feel like he was talking about me?

The chicken finger churns in my stomach. I want to say something. Ask questions. But I know, by the way Knox looks alone, that it’ll be for nothing.

Sally stops at the edge of the table to grab our plates. “How about a slice of our homemade pie?”

“Yes—”

“No,” Knox cuts me off. “Just the check, please.”

Sally’s gaze lands on me, so I shake my head and give her a small smile. One that says sorry he’s being rude.

“I’ll be right back with the check.”

Knox doesn’t wait for her to return. He already has his wallet in hand, pulling out a hundred dollar bill.

“We should go,” he says, apparently done with the night and me.

There’s no reason for me to argue. What can I say? So I grab my purse and slide out of the booth, following him to the door.

Back outside, the air feels warmer than it did before, or maybe just thicker and more oppressive. Knox waits for me to reach his side, then starts walking with his hands in his pockets, looking straight ahead. I haven’t seen him walk like this since that day, walking through the park, the chip on his shoulder practically visible.

In a way, this side of Knox is almost comforting. I know this Knox. I spent years learning to read him. He needs time to process whatever’s going through his head.

I’ll let him have it.

We walk the blocks back toward Grand Central in silence. My skin prickles with an invisible awareness that I’m being watched, but I guess that’s just another effect of Knox’s eyes on me. I steal glances at him when I can without being obvious about it. His jaw is still clenched. Whatever Moretti said is weighing on him and I know he’s not going to share it with me. Not yet.

I replay the snippets of their conversation again and again, trying to make sense of it alongside everything else he told me tonight. An arranged engagement. A business deal he can’t explain. A man his father clearly answers to, and now Knox does too, whether he’d admit it or not.

What could Moretti possibly have on the Aldriches that would make Knox—Knox, who doesn’t bend for anyone—say yes sir and mean it? Commit to something as huge as marriage? Lose me?

Once the thought hits me, I struggle to hold back tears. He’s lost me over this. Whatever shred of something we had, I can see now that it’s gone.

Then I think about Ella. About Owen’s ring hanging from her neck. About the way Knox said he had everything and it still wasn’t enough. About all the things he’s carrying that I still can’t fully piece together.

It makes me tired and sad and angry all over again, though I can’t decide who any of my feelings should be directed at so I just hold it inside.

The entrance to Grand Central is already in front of us and without more than ten words spoken, we board the train back to Ashford.

My apartment is exactly how I left it—messy, cold, and empty. But why wouldn’t it be? That’s my life now.

Owen’s phone is on my nightstand, the table lamp I forgot to turn off casting a dim glow over the screen. The pull to hold it, to go through his photos and texts again is stronger tonight than it’s been in weeks.

I drop my purse on the couch and stand there in the outfit I felt cute in, more restless than I was when I left hours earlier.

I got on a train to escape Ashford and Knox followed me into the city and we sat on museum steps and laughed about Owen and ate chicken fingers and then Moretti called and just like that I remembered that none of it matters. That whatever tonight was, tomorrow we’re still in the same fucked up mess. None of it was real. I can’t let myself get caught up in the fairytale that Knox and I could have a life where nights like tonight happen all the time. Where we could laugh and reminisce and love freely.

Even if he could, would I even want that?

Fuck. My head is a mess.

I shed my clothes and jewelry, throw on an old T-shirt, and climb into bed. It’s almost 2 AM and there’s no one for me to talk to this late. Instead, I open the notes app on my phone, determined to get some of my feelings out. Dr. Mead would be so proud.

The first bullet point comes easily.

-Figure out what the fuck I want