Relieved was enough for now. Relieved was all I could handle.

“I know you said you’re not from around here, but we’re having a book sale this week,” the librarian said. “Paperbacks are a dollar, hardbacks are three.”

I got to my feet, bracing myself against the table for a moment when it felt like my knees were wobbling.

The librarian pointed to a little rack of books by the door, full of beat-up old bestsellers and hardback textbooks and literary novels.

I loved books. Loved reading. It not only gave me an escape from my own world, but opened a door into other worlds. It allowed me, at the beginning of my marriage, to suffer with some grace. As long as I had another world to go to, what did I care about how small and strange and terrifying my own life had gotten?

Then Hoyt took away my books. Put them right in the burn pile, and the smell had been worse than anything. Like every dream going up in smoke. I’d tried to get some at the library, telling him it wasn’t costing him anything. But he didn’t like it.

And then I snuck them when I could, hiding some garage sale books in the barn.

But he’d found them.

And that had not gone well for me.

“I’m fine,” I said to the woman, feeling unbelievably outside of my body. Like I was floating somewhere near the ceiling, watching my thin arms and legs all scraped up from the work I’d been doing. The stupid bad dye job.

The scarf.

Stop. Fucking. Saying. That.

Everyone can see you are not fine.

“Actually,” I said and stopped at the shelf, “let me see what you have.”

In the end I bought ten paperback books. One of them was Fifty Shades of Grey, so worn the cover was nearly falling off. Chunks of pages were threatening to fall away from the spine.

“We’ve had to replace that book three times,” the librarian said with a twinkly smile.

“I’ve never read it.” I could not imagine the shit storm that would have fallen on my head had I tried to bring that into my home. But news of it had even managed to make its way to the rock I lived under. It had caused something of a revolution.

And I was ready to be revolutionized.

I clutched the plastic bag of books to my chest and headed back to my car. My hands were shaking so bad I barely got the key in the lock, barely got my body inside the car, the door shut behind me.

It was hot, and it smelled like the peaches I’d bought off the clearance rack at the grocery store.

I rested my head against the steering wheel.

He wasn’t looking for me.

I bought chocolate chips.

And a dirty book.

I pressed my hands to my lips, unsure whether I was going to laugh or cry. Until I was doing both. Loudly. Like a crazy person.

A sudden knock on my driver-side window made me jump, spilling my books all around me.

A cop stood out there. I must have shot him the worst look, because he stepped back and lifted his glasses up onto his head. He smiled.

I’m a nice guy, that smile said. I swear.

I used the old crank to unroll my window, brushing the tears away from my face with my other hand.

“I didn’t mean to spook you,” he said. He had a nice face. Round, with a little blond scruff around his chin. An uncommitted beard.

“It’s all right,” I said, my voice reedy and thin.

“I just…I saw you and I wanted to be sure you were all right.”

He saw me in the middle of some kind of freak-out. A panic attack. I was caught in that wide chasm between what I’d had and what I could have. What my life had been and what I wanted it to be, and every step, every huge step I’d taken away from what I knew and into the unknown, felt terrifying.

“I’m fine.” I gave him my best smile, which apparently wasn’t convincing, because he asked, “Are you sure?”

No. I’m not, but I’m trying here. I’m trying harder than I ever have and it’s so damn hard.

“Yep,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

Funny, but I felt like this time it wasn’t totally a lie.

In the twilight, hours later, the heat had broken and the breeze coming in through the windows was cool. My little trailer was ripe and delicious and homey with the scent of pasta sauce, bubbling away on one of the burners of my two-burner stove.

But my body was restless. Aching.

I sat up from where I’d been lying on the settee and put the book down on the table.

God.

I mean. God.

Between my legs, I throbbed. Actually throbbed. I felt swollen and wet and…throbby.

Honestly, I’d never felt this way before. Like my skin was too tight and aching and I needed something…something to split me open. To relieve this pressure.

No wonder that book was so popular.

I clasped my hands to my lips, closed my eyes, and tried to will the feeling away, but the more I thought about it, the worse the ache became, until it was in my bones.

I turned my head, staring back at my room.

The phone was in there.

Dylan.

I call him and…what? Have phone sex? Honestly, Annie McKay, is that what you’re thinking? You have no idea how that starts. How it even happens.

But I would bet my last seventeen dollars that he did.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I went back and grabbed my phone and took it back into the kitchen.

Away from the bed.

See how crazy you are?

Its face was dark and my intentions uncertain.

I’m twenty-four. Girls my age do this shit all the time, and worse! Why do I have to be different?

Dylan wanted to know about Ben, I thought, searching for a respectable reason to call the man. Something more…me. More passive and meek. Ben, a man with a penchant for tattoos and tomatoes. A harmless guy. So what would be the harm in calling Dylan and letting him know that the old man was fine?

Because Ben was not the threat.

Dylan is.

No, not even that was the truth.

I am the threat.

I’d promised myself in that bus station in Tulsa that I wouldn’t lie to myself anymore. The self-deception would stop. Because it had made me complicit in my abuse to some extent.

All married couples fight. That was one I told myself quite a bit.

Hoyt’s just under a lot of stress—that had been a doozey.

I’ll be fine.

That had been the worst of them.

So I wasn’t going to lie to myself now.

The phone was in my hand because I wanted to call him. Because my belly was full and my shelves were stocked with food I liked. Because my hands were raw from honest work, because I’d had a week of safety in this world I’d carved out for myself.

Because between my legs I was sore with…desire. Lust.

Those were such strange words. Foreign to my life.

Because I wanted to see what would happen if I talked to Dylan again.

What I might do if he asked.

Tell me no.

Because I wanted to be asked to do something I couldn’t quite do on my own.

I pressed the power button and the phone slowly blinked to life.

He answered a breath after the first ring, but instead of his voice all I heard was the revving of an engine. Or lots of engines. I pulled the phone from my ear.

“Just a second,” Dylan yelled into the phone and then I heard his voice, muffled as he yelled to someone else on his end, “I’ll be in my office.”

A second later the roar of the engines was gone. “Hello,” he said.

Oh.

His voice made me ache harder. I sat back down on the settee and crossed my legs, squeezing them together until sparks shot out through my nerves.