Page 80 of The Quiet After The Fall

Ican’t sleep. More like, I won’t sleep. Maybe I will eventually, once I’m sure his breathing stays even. Once every little creak in the apartment doesn’t have me on edge.

So I watch him instead, enjoying the way his face relaxes. He looks beautiful, even with the bruises. It has to be the whole letting his guard down thing. Something he never does awake. He’s always keeping that careful control, emotions locked up tight. When he’s like this, I can almost pretend that the last few hours didn’t happen. That he’s just here like before. That we’re just two people in bed, nothing chasing either of us. Not ghosts of ex-boyfriends or big scary hit men.

Okay, I know Owen’s not haunting me, and I’m not sure if Ella’s father is a hit man, but that’s how I picture him.

Still, playing pretend is nice.

Around four, he says my name. Low enough that if I wasn’t right beside him I wouldn’t have heard it. His brows knit together, eyelids twitching. Whatever he’s dreaming has him held tight.

I place my hand gently on his chest again, the way I did earlier, and it’s enough to settle him. His face smooths back out, and he stays asleep.

I’m restless but don’t want to move, so I lie here, running options in my head for how to solve this mess we’re in. How many more nights can we stay like this, hiding out, living on edge, before something worse happens? How long can we keep pretending a guest house and tiptoeing through life will work?

Around five, I give up on sleep and grab my phone off the nightstand, angling the screen away from him. Pulling up my notes app, I scroll by the list I made recently, all my plans that now seem so unimportant. Instead, I click new, and write the first things that come to mind.

Email work—family emergency

Email professor—same

Pack for guesthouse

Figure out what to tell Mom

How to end this?!

I stare at the last line for longer than I mean to, different scenarios running through my mind. Those four words mock me with how much they encompass. I guess skipping sleep and having the shit scared out of me isn’t conducive to active brainstorming anyway.

For now, all I can do is knock off numbers one and two on the list.

I type out the emails quietly, keeping them as brief as possible without arousing suspicion. After everything that’s happened this summer, my job thinks I’m barely holding it together as it is. What’s another week of unpaid time off? Unpaid. Fuck my life. I better email my lawyers. I’ll need that settlement from Wonder World sooner than later.

Wonder World.

What Knox said.

So much has happened, I almost forgot. He talked about paperwork Richard has, something about our father’s being involved with Velocity in some way, that they could be responsible for the accident. He info dumped so much in such a short amount of time, I didn’t absorb it all.

I add one more line to the list.

Get all the details about Velocity!

By the time the sky’s gone from black to misty gray, I’ve sent all three emails and stared into space thinking. If what Knox found is true, if our parents let that coaster get built on unstable ground, they need to pay. The thought makes me sick.

It’s a longshot, but maybe a good old fashioned Googling will pull something up. I tap my browser and start to type Velocity roller—then stop myself. What am I doing? One search and I’ll be flooded with articles and videos from the accident. That’s the last thing I need right now. Maybe ever.

Delete. Instead, I type Moretti, and hit enter. Random shit populates on my screen. Some Italian brewing company, a dude’s Instagram page, a pizza place in Chicago. In short—a waste of time. I try adding New York, and that only added other pizza places and social media links.

I need to know more before I can narrow my search. Hopefully Mr. Pain In My Ass will wake up in a talking mood today. I never know with him.

Like he heard my thoughts, Knox wakes a short while later, disoriented for a second until his eyes find mine. His features smooth and shoulders drop an inch.

“Hey,” I say. “How are you feeling?”

A groan is his answer. Can’t blame him.

“Let me get you something to drink and some ibuprofen. You’re swollen as fuck.” I move to stand, but his hand reaches for me. “What’s wrong?”

Even with one eye half open, he studies me. “You didn’t sleep.”