Chapter 5 The Fallout
Nobody spoke.
Dad set his fork down. Mom looked at her phone, then at Sienna, then back at her phone like the words might change.
Mason hadn't moved at all.
Sienna folded her hands on the table. "I just thought everyone should know. I was worried about Lila, honestly. Writing things like that about someone in your own family."
"You went into a password-protected folder," Knox said.
She hesitates for half a second. Sienna's eyes moved to Knox and something behind them went completely flat before the smile came back.
"I don't know what you mean. It was open on the screen."
Mom looked up. "Password protected?"
"Lila mentioned it a few weeks ago." Knox wasn't loud. He just let it sit there in the middle of the table. "Said she kept her writing locked because she was private about it. So I'm wondering how Sienna got in if the screen was all she had."
Sienna opened her mouth. Closed it. Then, carefully: "I really don't remember it being locked. Maybe she'd already opened it."
"Maybe?," Knox said.
Dad put down his glass.
Sienna held the silence for three full seconds, chin lifting slightly. "I would never go through someone's private things on purpose. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I genuinely thought Lila needed help."
Mom's hand unclenched on the tablecloth. Mason looked at Sienna once, quickly, then looked away.
Knox picked up his jacket. "I'll be outside," he said to me, and walked out.
The front door didn't slam. I almost wished it had.
Sienna stood up right after. "I'll give you all some space." Her hand dropped onto Mason's shoulder for a second. "Come up whenever, babe."
Her heels on the stairs. The guest room door clicking shut. Then Mom and Dad carried their plates to the kitchen and the dining room was just me and Mason and the bowl of fake lemons in the middle of the table.
He was looking at his phone, face down.
"How long," he said.
"A while."
"Were you in love with me."
I didn't answer fast enough. He looked up.
"I thought I was," I said.
He laughed once, short. "Every dinner." He pushed his plate away. "Every game you came to. Every time we sat on that couch and watched something and you barely said a word." He shook his head. "I told Sienna you were just shy."
"Mason—"
"That's embarrassing. For me. That I didn't notice." He stood up and grabbed his phone. "I'm not angry. I just need to not be in this room."
He went up the stairs. I listened for his footsteps to slow. To stop. To come back.
They didn't.
Sienna opened the guest room door before he'd even knocked.
I sat at the table alone with my half-eaten plate and the kitchen light humming and the sound of the television from upstairs.
I got my jacket and went outside.
Knox was leaning against his truck in the dark, not on his phone, just waiting. He looked at my face and said nothing.
I got in. He handed me the coffee from the cupholder and pulled away from the curb.
We drove. The streets were empty. The coffee went cold between my palms.
"She came to me two days ago," he said.
"She what."
"Told me to end things with you. Said she'd drop the whole story situation if I did." He kept his eyes on the road. "I said no."
"You didn't tell me."
His hand shifted on the wheel. "I didn't want you thinking I had to consider it."
"Did you."
"No." A beat. "But then she told me what she wanted if I said yes."
"What did she want."
He was quiet for a moment.
"The full file," he said. "She kept saying the full file, like she already knew there was more than what she'd sent tonight. And she mentioned a site. A place where writers post publicly." He glanced over. "She said she knew you had an account."
The window glass was cold where my arm touched it.
Knox pulled up in front of the house and left the engine running.
"Get some sleep," he said.
I got out and stood on the curb. The garage light buzzed in the dark behind me.
I went inside and got halfway up the stairs before my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I have more than the file. Meet me tomorrow at noon or I send everything to your followers. All four thousand of them
I stood on the third step and read it twice.
She knew the exact number.
