Page 595 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

the crying,

the abuse,

the fingering,

the orgasms,

the addiction,

the kidnapping,

the Boys,

the loneliness,

then Andrew,

then I breathe out all the way.

And I drop it in.

// JAN 13, 9:18 AM - SOUNDWAVE - MIDTOWN, NYC //

By 9:18 AM, the sun is knifing through my office window with hot aggression, Callista’s eighty-something-page contract is scattered across my desk, and I have developed a system.

A bad system, some would say.

I’m highlighting everything that isn’t the loophole.

Sounds stupid, I know.

I’m aware highlighters were invented to mark important shit. But if I highlight what I already ruled out, bury pointless words under neon graves, then, in theory, I won’t accidentally reread the same paragraph six times.

In theory.

I’ve been at this for two hours.

Thirty minutes of that was figuring out the printer.

I’m only on page twenty-six.

Buzz.

My phone lights up beside my coffee.

My stomach jumps into my throat first.

My eyes lift to my phone second.

My heart screams:

it’s him, it’s him, it’s him.

I grab it quick,

highlighter still in my hand.

CELIE