Chapter 7: The Reel

By morning the clip had nine thousand views.

It was twenty seconds long.

It showed me in a wet coat with a towel around my shoulders, standing in a doorway, and Elias's hand on my face.

Sabrina had cut it so that it stopped before I stepped back.

Her caption said, "Some people move on fast. Poor Gavin."

I read it at Teagan's counter while Teagan read it over my shoulder.

"I'm going to put her in the harbor," Teagan said. "Just her phone. Maybe a little of her."

"Don't."

"A very small amount of her."

"Teagan."

"Fine. What are you doing?"

I was putting on lipstick.

I hadn't worn any in a year.

"I'm going to get my hair cut," I said.

The Harbor Hair Studio was the most gossip-dense square footage in Marlow Point.

At ten on a Tuesday it held six chairs, four dryers and a dozen women, and every one of them had already seen the clip.

I knew because the room went quiet when the bell on the door rang.

Sabrina was in the second chair with foils in her hair, scrolling her phone.

She looked up and met my eyes in the mirror.

She smiled.

"Willa! What a surprise."

"Is it?" I said. "You've pointed a camera at me for three days."

The stylist at the next chair froze with a comb in the air.

I sat in the empty seat beside Sabrina and turned it to face her.

"I don't want a cut," I told the stylist. "I want to say something to Sabrina, and I'd like to say it somewhere the room can hear."

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