Chapter 8: House Keys

Margot's POV

I woke on a stranger's sofa at six in the morning with the legal pad on my chest.

I had slept with it there.

Millie's blanket smelled of dryer sheets, and the room was grey.

From the kitchen came the sound of someone moving quietly.

Nolan was making coffee, and he was doing it the way he always had, without noise, so as not to wake me.

I lay there and watched his back.

For six years I had told myself that Nolan did all of it because it was easy for him.

The pill organizer, the dinners, the night he built me a bedroom with no steps in it.

I thought a man who never asked for anything must not want anything.

Then I read a page that said eat before ten, and I knew I had been wrong, and I did not know for how long.

I pretended to be asleep until he left for the garage.

Then I called a car.

Millie caught me at the door in her uniform, with her keys in her hand.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To get my keys back."

"You're not strong enough."

"Come with me, then."

She stared at me.

"I mean it," I said. "Bring your bag. Bring whatever you want. I'm not leaving it with him another day."

She put her bag over her shoulder.

"Get in the truck," she said. "And if you get dizzy, you tell me."

The house was loud when we pulled up.

There were vans in the drive, with a company logo on the side that I knew because I had signed their sponsorship contract in May.

Cables ran across my lawn into the kitchen windows.

The crew had taken over the whole ground floor, and I walked through it holding the door frame at the bottom of the stairs.

Brody stood by the island under a ring light with a protein bar in each hand.

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