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.Hold on, let me walk to it.""Sure," I said."Everything will be fine, alright?" I covered the bottom of my phone with my free hand and looked at Asher."Can you call Jeremy and see if he can go pick up Elise? Tell him to leave now and get some ice cream at a corner store.Something good? I'll find out where she is in a second.""I'm on the corner of Burton and Gregory," she said."I don't know where that is, but that's what the signs say.""Alright," I said, moving my hand away from the phone to speak.Then I put it back and whispered to Asher, "Burton and Gregory, tell Jeremy that." And away again, back to Elise."Stay there, alright? Jeremy will come pick you up.Are you okay, though? Are you hurt?""I'm not.I'm not hurt physically," she said."My heart hurts.And my chest.My head.""I'll stay on the phone with you until Jeremy comes, alright?""No, it's.it's fine," she said."I'll just wait.I'm fine.Everything's fine.Really, it is.""It's not—" Before I could finish, she hung up the phone."—fine."I called her back right away, but she didn't pick up and it went to voicemail.I hung up and called again, but still no answer.I left her a quick message, but I didn't really know what to say."Elise, um.if you get this, call me? I'm worried.It's not safe, either.I don't know what happened, but the police, uh.well, they're looking for you, if you didn't know? I guess you might, though.Asher and I should have tried to come see you and Lucent today.He talked to Lucent last night.Maybe he saw you? Everything's been so stressful and I don't know what to do.I'm sure it's bad for you, too.Confusing, huh? We'll make it through this, though.Both of us, we'll.""Jeremy's on his way," Asher said."I told him to hurry.""Jeremy's coming," I said to Elise's voicemail."If you want to call me back, I'm here.Be careful, alright? Bye."I hung up and stared at Asher, unsure what to do."What happened?" he asked."I don't know.She said something about Lucent and that's it.Something happened between them? Did you talk to Lucent today?""I tried," he said."I didn't have a chance to, though.We talked through some brief text messages, but it wasn't safe to do anything else.""Not safe?""The police are still looking for both of them.It's getting out of hand.There's a lot going on.It took everything I could do just to keep the rest of the directors at Landseer Tower calmed down."I had a grim suspicion, but I hoped I wasn't right."Asher, what haven't you told me?""It's not that," he said."It's nothing to do with what happened with us.The police are looking for Lucent and Elise because of the fire yesterday.You knew that.That's all it is.They went to Lucent's apartment with a search warrant, but he wasn't there and they didn't find anything as far as I know.They went to Elise's apartment, too.Just a routine.""How is that routine?" I asked."Elise and Lucent didn't do anything.Why did they do that?""They might not have done anything, but they're still suspects," Asher said."I guess so.Maybe it makes a little sense, but it's not true.""I know, but until the police can question them, it doesn't look good."I nodded.My eyes wandered the room, worried.I saw the computer still on, the end of the streaming video showing on the monitor."I don't like that," I said, staring at it."Asher, please, can you close that? Can you turn off the computer?"He blinked, confused for a second, but then he nodded.Jumping to his feet from the bed, he went to shut off the computer."I don't know why I did that," I said."I don't know why I wanted to show you that.I thought it was kind of sexy at first, but it's not, is it? It's." It's slutty, I thought.It was what a whore would have done.That was exactly what the media said about me before any of this happened, and now they could say it even more because of what happened.What I was doing, what aroused me.They wouldn't know about it, but it didn't matter.I was a whore, a slut, a gold digger and a homewrecker.I didn't want to be.I didn't mean to be.Asher finished shutting my computer down and rejoined me on the bed."I don't know," he said."I didn't mind you showing me, though.I was caught up in the moment.The video doesn't matter, Jessika.Nothing like that does.It was sexy because it was supposed to be sexy.Remember? We did that together.It was fun back then, wasn't it?""Yes, but.""Just because it's on the internet now, that makes it bad and wrong? If that's true, why did we do it in the first place? If it's wrong now, it seems like it must have always been wrong.I know that's difficult, and I don't want to share that with anyone.I don't want to share you with anyone, Jessika, but I don't want to think that what we do in our private lives is wrong, either.""I liked it, Asher," I said."I did.When we did it.And I liked watching it with you before.I like watching all of our videos and seeing the pictures.You're really good and I feel sexy like that.I feel like I could be sexy, even if maybe I'm not all the time, but it's just weird." I laughed, more from shame than amusement."I shouldn't like seeing us on the internet! That's kind of weird, don't you think?"Asher shrugged."It doesn't even look like us.It could be someone else.""It's weird," I repeated."It's like watching porn.""I think it's more like erotica," he said, giving me a sly smile."It's art.The passion between us, emboldened in privacy and reproduced as imagery and video.""That," I said, "sounds like a whole lot of crap."Asher shrugged, grinning.He swooped in to kiss me."Maybe," he said."It's how I feel, though.Jessika, I love you.I love us.I love being with you, whether it's talking, or having fun, or even having sex [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]