All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

while I’d slept unaware. It hadn’t been taken from me without consent or cut off my body without my knowledge.

No, I’d given mine away—one click, one like, one sponsored post and livestream at a time. For everything temporary and nothing eternal.

I unzipped Silas’s sweatshirt from my body and hung it on the towel rack behind the door. Then I tugged off the elastic tie at the top of my head. My hair tumbled down my neck and around my shoulders, swinging to the center of my back. The same hair that had started it all once upon a time—just a simple updo that had sparked the match that lit a roaring fire.

With measured calm, I slid the second drawer in my bathroom vanity open and reached for my heavy-duty scissors. They weren’t the cutting shears I’d left behind at the girls’ cottage after layering Amy’s bangs last Friday, the same shears Sasha had used on Wren as a weapon last night. No, those were now in the custody of the Washington State Police.

These scissors were the ones I used most often on plastic packaging sent by sponsors around the globe. They were nicked and dulled and completely unworthy for the job at hand. Which made them perfect.

The first cut brought a surge of power, an addicting rush that hummed through my arms to the tips of my fingers. I repositioned my hair for another snip and sliced through the thick lock without resistance, watching it slip to the floor and fall listless at my feet. A death I embraced with each and every cut.

The scissors continued to weave under my jaw and around my neck, until only a small section of beach-waved hair remained, dangling over my right shoulder. The last of the picture-perfect woman I’d spent my lifetime trying to create. For the final time, I raised the scissors and closed the blades.

A new, uncharted freedom coursed through me as the last blond ribbon spiraled to the ground. I may not know who I was . . . but at least I was starting to understand who I wasn’t.

30

Silas

I didn’t know what state I’d find her in when I arrived at her house.

But I did know that for the last seven hours, while I’d been held up in meetings, placed on hold with board members, dealing with Alex’s confession to sneaking into the garden shed with Sasha for the past month, and processing the subsequent discharge paperwork, my concern over Molly’s distress had increased tenfold. Her pleas to stay with Wren had haunted me, as had the feel of her tensed muscles against my hold as she’d tried to break free from me this morning.

But what concerned me most was her disappearing act sometime after her interview with the police.

Had she really believed she could just slip out of the house without question or care? That her absence would go unnoticed? That if she silenced her phone I’d forget all about her and just move on with my duties at the manor?

Not a chance.

Molly was as much a part of The Bridge as I was now. Her presence was irreplaceable.

I knocked on her door, impatience thrumming in my veins with each passing second. I needed to see her. To touch her. To tell her that despite whatever she might believe, she wasn’t at fault.

But when she opened the door, all previous thoughts were overridden.

Her damp skin was pink, her hair twisted into a towel atop her head, her body clad in the same gray sweatshirt I’d given her this morning.

A sight that had me actively remembering how to breathe.

Quiet surprise lit her eyes. “Silas.”

“You left.” The only two words I could drum up, apparently, after a thirty-minute car ride where I’d had nothing but time. To think. To pray. To plan out my next steps.

But I got the feeling that Molly had also been planning out some next steps of her own. Something was different about her. And I couldn’t discern exactly what it was yet.

“I thought it would be best,” she said. “After everything that happened.”

“For whom?”

She swallowed, turned her head, her eyes everywhere but on me.

“For whom?” I repeated, stepping toward her. “Because I’ve been calling you since I got out of my last meeting. Glo said you didn’t say good-bye, didn’t tell anyone where you were going. We’ve all been worried.”

She didn’t respond, just continued to stare at a spot in the yard beyond me.

“Molly.” The fear that had gripped me for most of the day gave way to hurt as I stared at her clean face. “Talk to me.”

“Is she all right?” she asked. “Is Wren . . . okay?”

“Yes, she’s back home now. She’s asked about you.”

It was the slight tremble of her bottom lip that undid me. I’d been polite and professional and every kind of patient as the cops searched each nook and cranny of Fir Crest Manor, asking questions I chose not to be insulted by for the sake of our program. But here, now, with Molly . . . I was done with the pretense and the pleasantries. I didn’t wait for her invitation to come inside. The sweatshirt she wore was invitation enough.

The heat from her shower-steamed skin warmed my hands as I clutched her face. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to Wren. You understand that, don’t you?”

Her eyes were slow to meet mine. “Didn’t the police tell you?”

“They told me a lot of things.”

“I mean about the deal I made with Sasha.” The pain in her eyes shot through my chest. “I thought I could help her, Silas. I thought that if she confessed everything to you this morning that her consequences wouldn’t have to be so extreme. That maybe we could find a way for her to stay in the program.” She shook her head. “Instead, my neglect made Wren a target.”

“Listen to me. Neither you, Glo, or Clara neglected the welfare of any of our residents last night. You all did exactly what I would have done given