Page 42 of The Devil Wears Nada

AGGIE

I’m on the cold tile of my bathroom floor because I've been up all night and can't make myself stand up and go out to be Agnes the receptionist.

Nor can I be Diablo anymore. I have to get out.

Not that I want to. I have to. There's a difference, and I crossed it somewhere in the last two weeks without noticing. I was fat and happy and ignoring the fact that my life was unraveling.

The list of what's got me freaking out is short, but it’s bad. Sal wants his serious money by the end of the month, but my ability to make the final payment died the day the guys stopped coming together at night to visit Diablo. My sister already handed my secret to a friend, who handed it to a roommate, who is handing it to God-knows-who. And Sloane's watching me now. She never used to. That was the whole point of me, that nobody ever watched me, but this past week she looks up every single time I pass her office, and she's stopped bothering to look away when I catch her at it.

And KindRegards said a thing the other night I still can't shake loose. He described a woman nobody looks at, a woman who made herself small on purpose, and he aimed every word of it straight at Diablo, the balls-out camgirl. But he was not describing Diablo. He was describing me. Or somebody like me. I've told myself it was a coincidence a hundred times, but I’ve not believed it once.

The foundation my whole alter ego was built on is that nobody looks at Agnes. That was the trick that made Diablo safe. No one was ever supposed to put the two of us together. Me as Diablo and Diablo as me? No way. Never. But, one by one, every person around me has started to suspect. Look closer. Match the two personalities together that don’t have a damn thing in common.

Except for me.

So I make myself face what I've been dodging for a week. The only move left that keeps me sane is to disappear. Kill Diablo. Wipe the channel, cancel the account, delete the app, dump the red lipstick on Birdie, who it looks better on anyway, and go back to being nobody. I have to be fast, though, before somebody sets loud Diablo and quiet Agnes down side by side and notices they're the same woman.

There's just the small matter of the pile of money I owe a man who breaks legs for a living.

That's the trap, and I have to hand it to the universe, ’cause it’s fucked me good this time. Diablo is the reason I'm in danger, but Diablo is also the only thing on earth paying Sal. Quit her, and my exposure problem vanishes while my loan-shark problem strolls up my street with a bat. Keep her, and I'm one leaked screenshot away from losing the job, the apartment, and the whole invisible little life I need waiting for me when this is over.

Save myself one way, I die the other.

Fine. Okay. I've been broke and cornered my whole life, and I already know exactly how it feels and exactly how you move through it. Panic is a luxury for people with a safety net. I've never had one, so I don't get to.

So I sit on my bathroom floor, still wet from my shower, and I make a plan, because that is the one thing I am actually good at. I'm the fixer. I'm the one who works the problem while everybody else stands around having feelings about it. Birdie cries, the guys feud, Sal makes threats, and Agnes figures out how everybody gets through the day.

Here's my plan. I give Diablo until Sal's deadline and not one day more. I run her into the ground. Every private session, every crown, every last dollar I can wring out of three men who may or may not still be speaking to me. I get as close to Sal's number as humanly possible, I talk him down for whatever's left, and the day that debt is handled, Diablo dies. I take her off the internet, climb back into my cardigans, and no one is the wiser.

A controlled demolition. My hand on the switch. That's the most control I get, so I'll take it.

And yes, here's a part of this I've been refusing to look at straight, so let me look at it now and get it over with.

When Diablo goes, so do they.

No more HouseMoney throwing money at me, cocky and generous and impossible to ignore. No more Elias, silent at the top of the board, the one quiet thing in my life. No more KindRegards checking in, asking how I am.

I am about to walk out of the only room I've ever been in where somebody was glad I existed. And the genuinely pathetic part, the part I will take to my grave, is that it isn't the money I'm going to miss.

It's them. The three men I route calls for all day, who have no idea the woman they can't stop paying for at night is the same one saying good morning to the sides of their faces every morning. They’re also the closest thing to mine I've had in longer than I want to count.

But feelings are a luxury and I am on a budget. So I fold that up, set it next to the lipstick, and get up off the bathroom floor.

I open my laptop to start lining up my CamALot schedule, and before the page even loads, my phone buzzes on the edge of the sink.

Sal. A text, this time.

Change of plans, Agnes. I need it Friday. Don't make me come remind you in person.

Friday.

Not the end of the month. Friday.

My controlled demolition just lost two weeks, and I haven't even lit the fuse. So much for my hand on the switch.

I'm getting out. I just have to survive the getting.

I spend the day at the front desk being the best receptionist Ardent Capital has ever had, smiling and routing calls and refilling the espresso beans, while underneath, I work my problem the way I always do. Quietly. Constantly. One locked door at a time.