He closes his eyes briefly, then winces, as if the sentiment is too scary.

Fear grips me. I’ve said too much. I want to take it all back, and time stands still in the wretchedness of this moment that I’ve ruined.

Then it revs up and my heart is racing at the speed of light as he curves a hand around my neck and leans his forehead against mine in the most tender gesture. All the hairs on my arms are standing on end and I’m coated in warmth and anticipation and something else too. Hope. The most painful, wondrous, delirious kind of hope that’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And this feeling is hope multiplied. My hope and the hope he is falling for real.

“I’m falling for you in a big way, Harley, and I have no clue what to do about it but let it happen.”

“Let’s let it happen.”

“It’s happening and I don’t want to stop it,” he says as he cups my cheeks. He brushes his lips to mine, and my breath catches from the softness, the sweetness.

But the kiss is cut short when my phone rings loudly.

My mother’s ringtone. I ignore it and return to Trey’s lips. But she calls again. And again. And again.

I finally pick up. “Hi. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been looking into a story. I saw some pages of a manuscript and – call it a reporter’s hunch – I feel like I might know the writer. Are you Layla?”

My blood freezes and my brain goes numb. The walls around all my secrets are cracking.

Even when I try to escape her, I can’t. She is at the beginning and the end and the middle of every twist and turn and dead end in this maze.

Miranda is my mom’s editor too.

Miranda is the most important person in my mother’s career.

Miranda plucked my mom from the lowly assignment desk, honed her journalist chops, and molded her into the fearless cutthroat reporter she is today.

Miranda is like a fairy godmother to my mom.

Miranda is also the woman cuckolded by her most prestigious investigative reporter’s daughter.

Phil is Twenty-Four on my list. I had an “almost affair” with my mom’s editor’s husband.

But I had my reasons, I swear I had them.

I never shared them with Miranda. Because I don’t want her to know my mom stole her husband first, and I walked into the trap I knew was being set. I walked into it with my arms wide open, ready for the photos to be snapped, the evidence to be amassed. Only I never expected Miranda would do what she did and handcuff me back. How could I? Those things don’t occur to you as possibilities. You don’t think, “Oh, if I have an affair with my mom’s editor’s husband to willingly get caught, the editor will then blackmail me into writing Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

It’s a catchy title, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t pick that up? It has mega bestseller written all over it. Especially since it’ll be shrouded in secrecy when it hits bookstore shelves.

Because it’ll be by “Anonymous.” Everyone will be abuzz trying to figure out who this Layla character is who learned how to kiss at a carnival, then went pro and made money hand over fist when she became a high-priced call girl. But wait! The salaciousness doesn’t end there! The girl got caught! Gasp! The girl confessed! The girl then cleaned up her act! She went to recovery! Who doesn’t love a tale of redemption? The hooker with the heart of gold. The whore turned good. It’s Heidi Fleiss, it’s Elliot Spitzer, it’s Tiger Woods. Only sexier and scarier.

Because it could happen to your daughter. It could happen to your son. Your kid could be a sex addict. Your kid could be a prostitute.

You can just smell the movie rights, can’t you? Miranda could. So she kept them all for herself. Because Miranda is the only one who knows who “Anonymous” is. Miranda found the story. Miranda brought the story to the publishing house she runs. Miranda alone is “Anonymous’” editor. And Miranda alone will cut the checks — or claim to — for “Anonymous” when the book finally lands on shelves in a few months. After all, she’s done editing it. Anonymous won’t see a dime of the profits. Anonymous doesn’t want money from this story.

Anonymous wants to be free.

But I will never be free. I know that now. Because the secret only grows bigger. The wall only rises higher, more mortar slathered between each brick, superglue that’ll hold forever.

Until it topples. Because it will.

Because somewhere, some enterprising person, maybe another journalist, maybe some dogged detective, will want to know who Anonymous really is. And someone will recognize himself somewhere in the story, though names of course have all been changed. And enough someones will put enough somethings together that this enterprising reporter-detective-dog catcher will figure out that Anonymous is me.

Page one of New York Post! “Layla’s true identity revealed — the daughter of The Cleaner.”

Page 212…

I don’t know a thing about Nathan. I never met him, never saw him, never heard him. But I heard her. And hearing your mom have sex with men is bad enough. But hearing your mom have phone sex is worse, especially when you are only thirteen. There’s nothing grosser I can think of in my whole life than hearing my mom masturbate every night for two weeks to Nathan on the phone.

“Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan.”

I wanted to die.

Chapter Nineteen

Harley

My past will never stop chasing me. It’s like a demon, a dark phantom, hunting me down across the streets of New York, always ready to trip me, topple me, wrestle me to the ground. I wonder how long I will spend trying to outpace my past, trying to stay one — no, many — steps ahead of what I have done. It’s exhausting, this race I’m running and I’m crawling now, my knees scraping against the rough asphalt. I’m nowhere near the finish line.

I stare at the door to my home. The cage I was raised in. It’s a big cage, but it’s a cage still, and my mom and I have been like two tigers in a pen at the zoo. Or maybe she’s the tiger and I’m the meal. That’s how I feel as I answer my summons.

Blackmail is the gift that keeps on giving. Because it means you have something to hide. And as long as that something is hidden, you will always owe.

I owe. I owe so much. I owe her everything.

The real debt was never to Miranda. The real debt was to my mother.

I open the door to my house. My mom is in the kitchen, stirring a large saucepan. Something hardens inside me – she’s still cooking for her lover, even while she’s planning on reaming me.

“I’m making risotto,” she says in a warm voice when she sees me. But it’s not the tone that worries me. It’s what she’s not saying. Her usual greeting–you look so pretty.

I walk to the kitchen, my legs feeling as if they have ankle weights.

She’s wearing black pressed pants, a royal blue blouse and black pumps with shiny piping around the chunky heel. Her hair is blow dried like she just stepped out of a salon. Her makeup has been applied with the perfection of a Hollywood stylist, long mascared lashes, smooth powdered skin and lips outlined precisely in plum lipliner.

“I bet it’s delish,” I say, and I’m not sure how I’m forming words, but somehow they’re coming out of my mouth as I take step after dreaded step into her kitchen, sun spilling in through the windows, the counters bright and white. But it’s as if I’m being marched into the darkened, shadowy back office of a mob boss who I’ve crossed. He’ll play with the mouse, bat it around, toy with his dinner.

Before he bites.

“Do you want some?” She waves me into the kitchen, the sleeves of her blue blouse billowing as she gestures.

“No thanks. I ate.”

“Good. Then we can get down to business. Because my heart tells me I’m mistaken, but my reporter’s instincts tell me I’m not. And my reporter’s instincts have never failed me before.”