My pulse sped up, and I had to fan myself with a magazine.
Did I really want to do this?
I’d never spoken out before. I wanted to talk to Snark about it, but his phone was off. I didn’t know what happened to him, but he’d been the only other constant during all of this. Kian was the other.
Kian.
I had to call him—but no, I was getting confused. I shook my head, feeling a fog coming over me.
I had called him. I texted him and then called him again.
The reporter said we needed to go live now. The sooner, the better. “We have to get ahead of the story,” was how she put it. Erica agreed. So, here we were, about to go live.
I was going to pass out.
“Jo?”
I looked up, hearing Erica. She was the reporter now, not my roommate, but she gave me a soft smile. There. She was still my best friend. It was small, but it was enough.
I nodded, clearing my throat. “I’m ready.” My fingers dug into the underside of my chair.
She still gazed at me for a moment longer, studying me, and then nodded herself. She signaled to the camera guy. “Okay, let’s do this.” She twisted around to the other reporter. “Your station is a go?”
The lady clipped her head in a quick movement, up and down. “They’re good to go. You can start whenever, and they’ll jump in after a quick introduction from their end. It’ll be fine.” Her eyes darted to mine then, widening with the same excited rush that Susan had earlier.
I didn’t want her there, but Erica said it was necessary. They wouldn’t broadcast the interview if one of their reporters wasn’t present.
I just wanted to get it over with.
“Okay.” Erica gentled her voice. “Jo, you can start whenever you want. This is for you. It’s your time to address us. Tell us what you want us to hear.”
The light on the camera went from clear to red. He was taping me. This was now live.
And I couldn’t speak.
My throat wasn’t working.
Erica scooted forward. Her chair protested, groaning, and the other reporter held her breath.
Erica didn’t care. She said so calmly, “Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?”
“Jordan Emory.” My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest, one heartbeat after another. I needed to calm the fuck down.
One breath.
Two.
I closed my eyes and pretended it was only Kian and me, just us two, just like earlier in the day.
I started again, my voice stronger this time as I opened my eyes. “I’ve been hiding as Joslyn Keen for a little under the last three years. I tried to finish my senior year, but couldn’t. I ended up quitting and finishing with my GED.”
“Why did you have to hide?” Erica was subdued.
She was trying to draw me out, but she couldn’t. I had to choose to come out.
My nails dug even further into my chair, but I was trying. I really was. “I had to hide because people hated me.”
“Why—”
I didn’t need her prompting anymore. “Because, a long time ago, a very rich and good-looking boy saved my life. He killed my foster father, but instead of people focusing on what my foster father did or that the rich and handsome boy had to kill him in the first place, they focused on me. They blamed me.”
They blamed the victim.
Erica cleared her throat, fidgeting on her chair. I didn’t know what was making her uncomfortable. I didn’t care.
I kept going, looking right into the camera this time. “My parents died in a car accident when I was little. I wasn’t adopted, so I went from foster home to foster home. It’s the same old system that only foster kids understand. I moved in with Edmund’s family during the summer, and the first part of the year was fine.” I took a breath. Here was the hard part. “Until I got a boyfriend. I had no friends, so when Justin started paying attention to me, I was grateful. Someone cared. Someone was interested.”
Maybe someone would love me.
My voice dropped to a whisper, but I never looked away from that lens. “Edmund didn’t like that I was going out on dates. He and his wife were having problems, and he liked looking at me, but that was all it was. He just watched me.”
I could feel him again. He was in the room. He was seeing me once more, just like back then. He was always there, always waiting, always watching.
I had to stop talking for a moment. My breath hitched in my throat. I pulled my nails out of the chair and smoothed my palms down my jeans to wipe the sweat off there.
“He began drinking, and then he started drinking at work. That led to him being fired, and then he drank every day at home. He would go through a bottle every night. Sometimes more. His wife hid it all. She’d keep him out of the house when the social worker came, not that it was often. It happened more in the beginning, but then not as often toward the end. His wife was nice and warm…to others.” I refused to say her name. My tone hardened. “They had two biological children, who kept the secret, too. None of them talked.”