“I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you prefer women.”

I cringed. “What? No.”

“You and Ellis—”

“That’s nothing. It’s just . . . it’s whatever.” Now I felt totally off-kilter. “Look, I should get going. Let’s not make this weird.”

I didn’t want to think about this. The way it felt to be touched by a man.

Max watched me walk toward the kitchen. His eyes were different on me now. Not fatherly.

When I reached the door he said, “Hold on. Please.”

He stepped into another room, returned with a folio. Flipped through papers. I watched the muscle curl and knot in his arms and made myself look away.

“This might not be the best time, but I wanted to go over this with you. You had a chance to look at these yet?”

“At what?”

He laid the folio on the table. “The black box reports. From the cars.”

My eyes went to the papers, then back to his face, slowly. “No. Why would I? Why are you?”

“Got a lot of spare time. And a lot of need for closure.” He shrugged. “It gives me a reason to stay sober. But there’s something off.”

“What?”

Max gazed at the table. “If you tell me, I won’t hold it against you. I promise you that.”

Shit.

“Tell you what?”

“Who was driving your car.”

“I was, Max. Like I told the police.”

“That’s what you said.” He tapped a sheet. “But these say something else.”

Our eyes met. The air between us pulsed like an invisible heart.

“I’ve never lied to you,” I said.

“I believe you, Vada. But I don’t believe you’ve told me the whole truth.”

This was my chance. The window would never be this open.

If you tell me, I won’t hold it against you.

Except Elle was back, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to throw everything away now.

“I have to go.”

“Vada—”

“See you around.”

I stepped onto the porch. Let the screen door slam, took the steps in one leap. When my shoes hit the dirt I started jogging, and by the time I reached the road, it was a full-out run.

—5—

This is what happens when you lie. Lies grow thin and steely and hard and become bars. Bars become a cage.

Ellis was probably awake. Huddled in her hoodie, typing away in the wraithlike glow of her laptop. I smoked a joint in a hot bath and stared up at the pine plank ceiling, thinking.

I could’ve let myself out of this cage. But I chose to stay. For her.

I slept for a few hours and woke unrested. Everything was soft and heather gray, a pencil sketch of a day. Rain coming. Frankie and Dane were heading out on the yacht, and I cornered her on a stone jetty while he coiled rope.

“Can we talk?” My voice was a croak.

Dane raised his eyebrows at us.

“Alone,” I said.

Frankie wrapped herself in her cardigan, warding off the chilly spray. “You look hungover. Get some sleep.”

“I just need to talk to you. Please.”

I must have looked haunted enough to convince her.

“Morgan’s doing the run today,” she called to Dane. “We need some one-on-one time.”

He headed over. “Girls’ day out?”

“Something like that.”

Dane frowned when he saw my face. “You okay?”

“Come on.” Frankie took my arm. “Before he talks his way in.”

We boarded while Dane stayed behind to help us cast off. I hauled up the stern and bow lines, pulled the fat boat fenders from the water. He watched me till I climbed to the helm.

Frankie reclined in the captain’s chair, all in white, a dimple at one side of her mouth that I thought of as her well, well look. Against her clothes and the boat her skin shone burnished brown. My hands ached for my camera, to capture contrast, the clean edge between hues.

I sat beside her. Wind washed my hair over my face.

“What’s on your mind?” she said.

“Don’t hire Ellis.”

Her eyebrows lifted over her Ray-Bans. “Why?”

“There’s bad blood between us. It’ll be a disaster.”

“I like you, Morgan, but I can’t let your personal drama dictate my business decisions.”

“You can find a million other coders. You won’t find another cam girl like me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. I meant—I’m asking as a friend, okay? Please.”

We cruised for a bit, the rush of water like silk tearing. Frankie had taken me under her wing. Taught me the tricks of the trade. How to tease and prolong, get paid for anticipation as well as delivery. How to sculpt a persona. How to protect myself. My first night on the job she’d unpinned a gold barrette from her hair, a wire butterfly. She’d placed it in my palm.

“Do you know what this is?”

I shook my head.

“This is Tiana. I used to do live theater. Onstage, you’re in costume. You wear someone else’s face, someone else’s life. It’s easier to separate yourself from the character. But on cam, there’s no barrier. We’re bare-ass naked, at someone’s beck and call. Completely vulnerable.” She touched the butterfly in my hand. “So this is my trick. My costume. When I put this on, I’m Tiana. Anything that happens will happen to her, and it stays inside this. When I take it off, I’m Frankie. Understand?”

It was strange, I thought later, that her trick was similar to how people separated themselves from their bodies when terrible things happened to those bodies. When a man held you down and unbuckled his belt. When a mother raised a stiff palm. As if you could just decide that bad things would happen to someone else, someone who wasn’t really you.

But I took her advice and found a bracelet Elle had given me, silvery and fine as a spiderweb. I put it on every night and became Morgan. In a way, it felt like a fetter. And in a way being shackled felt good because it meant I couldn’t drift any further. I couldn’t get more lost.

“Is this about the trouble you’re running from?” Frankie said now.

My head snapped toward her. Dead giveaway.

“You’re trying to protect Ellis from it, aren’t you?”

“I just don’t want her around me.”

“Dane said you nearly tore each other’s throats out on the boat.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“I think it was. But Dane is a man. He doesn’t see what’s really going on.” Frankie drummed on the wheel. “You two had a thing.”

“I don’t want to work with her, okay? That’s all.”

“Actually, I think you’d work great together.”

My mouth fell. “Seriously?”

“I watched you lock horns. She’s the dreamer, you’re the doer. Good pair. If she gets fancy ideas about the site, you can keep her grounded.” Her smile flashed, an arc of opal. “Besides, I haven’t seen you that animated since we met. Something lights up in you when you’re near her.”

“Yeah, like a bomb.”

“I already promised you’d be her liaison. Show her the ropes. I don’t have time and Dane will be in Boston. You’re my top choice.” She glanced at me over her sunglasses. “If you can handle this, I’ll make you a partner.”

Promotion.

Most of what I’d earned so far was paying off my student loans. More money meant I could return to grad school without worry. Or not, because what the hell would I do with an MFA? Teach budding young artists about the world I’d been severed from, the world I could only observe instead of touch? I didn’t even know what to do with the extra money I earned now. I rarely bought anything. The things I really wanted couldn’t be bought.

I frowned suddenly. “Wait, Dane’s going to Boston?”

“He didn’t tell you? That’s where we’re opening the new house.”

That bastard.

“Guess I’m not important enough to tell,” I muttered.

Her eyes lingered on me. “Or maybe he doesn’t know how to say good-bye.”

Frankie had contracts to sign in downtown Portland. All those fancy foil-stamped documents about girls riding dildos and boys pulling on cock rings. Any of these lawyers in their crisp Armani and asshole roadsters could log on tonight and beg, Let me come on ur face.