“There’s the damage deposit, too. Another six hundred.”

Another six hundred that I didn’t have. Another apartment that I didn’t get.

• • •

The next one on my list was the same price, but also required first and last month’s, plus a thousand dollars damage deposit.

“You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’d cause a lot of trouble, though,” the landlord mused.

“I’m not. Could we do it another way? Take the second month’s rent as a damage deposit, then as soon as I can, I’ll give you an actual deposit.”

“I don’t think we need to make it that complicated. You look like a good girl. Pretty, too. I’m sure we could work something out,” he said, gaze sliding to my chest.

There was a surreal moment where I reflected that this, too, was something new. I’d always escaped roaming hands at crowded parties, alcohol-fueled invitations from college boys. I suppose something about me said I wasn’t the type. But that had changed.

I was vulnerable. And men like this could tell.

“Actually, no,” I said. “It’s not really right for me. I’m sorry. I’ll let myself out.”

I would like to say that I walked out, chin up, pace measured. I didn’t. I practically bolted from the apartment. I reached the front door and swung out, getting some distance before I stopped under a streetlamp, leaning back, breathing. Just breathing.

When I looked around, I realized how quiet everything was. It shouldn’t have been. I was on a busy street, two lanes of late rush-hour traffic making its way to a major thoroughfare. The sidewalk was just as busy, commuters cutting across to the nearest L station. But standing on that corner, it was as if someone had shoved plugs into my ears. Everything was unnaturally hushed, muffled. Dimmed, too, as if my glasses had darkened to shades.

The sounds, the sights, the smells were all so much easier for my brain to process—or not process, but skim past, dismissing as unimportant. And I realized it had been like that all day. Maybe I should have thought, Well, at least one good thing happened to me today. But, as I looked around, anxiety strummed through me, searching for something to latch onto. I don’t know what that meant. Just that I felt as if I was slipping and needed to grab something for traction.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Olivia?”

A man’s voice. Soft. Concerned.

My eyes flew open. I caught a glimpse of a dark overcoat behind a parked SUV. A man coming my way. Light hair flashed over the roof of the vehicle.

James.

I exhaled, the wave of relief so strong I shuddered.

The man hopped onto the sidewalk and grinned my way, and I just stood there, staring at him, blinking, as if my eyeglass prescription was wrong.

Not James.

A stranger. With a camera. Lifting it. Pointing at me.

My hands flew to my face.

The shutter whirred and every ounce of frustration in me hardened. This was why I was out here, alone and exhausted. It wasn’t because I’d discovered I was adopted. It wasn’t because I’d discovered my parents were Todd and Pamela Larsen. It was reporters like this son of a bitch, him and all the ghouls at home, slavering for tawdry tidbits.

“People want to hear your story, Olivia,” the man said as he continued toward me, camera raised. “They want to know what you’re going through.”

“What I’m going through?” I snarled, my hands falling away. “They have no goddamned idea what I’m going through. They don’t care. They just want a story. A good old-fashioned horror story.”

He stepped back and I thought, There. Just stand firm and they’ll back down. But then I remembered standing in my hallway, telling off Niles Gunderson, just in time to block my face as the reporter’s camera started snapping.

“Come on, Olivia,” he said. “Show them what you really think of them. This is your chance. Tell them all to go to hell.”

I spun and marched down the sidewalk.

“You’re news, honey,” he called after me. “Get used to it.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I wasted five dollars on a three-block cab ride, just to escape that reporter before I completely lost my temper. He hadn’t really looked much like James. I suppose that showed just how much I’d been hoping it was him. Hoping for rescue? No. Of course not.

Okay, maybe a little, but perhaps I can be excused for a brief flicker of fantasy.

I wanted to go home and be with my mother. I wanted to do the right thing and stay away. I wanted to see James. I wanted to stick to my guns and not see him. I wanted rescue. I wanted to do this on my own.

Let’s face it, at this point, “What would you like for dinner?” would send me into a tizzy of indecision.

When I got out of the cab, the world was still muted, dull, and the nervous twitch of anxiety in my gut had grown to full-blown clenching, complete with sweat trickling down my face.

I looked around, again searching for something to ground myself. I didn’t know what it was, just knew that I needed something.

Then I saw a shiny spot of copper on the sidewalk, and heard a woman’s singsong voice, deep in my head.

See a penny and pick it up,

And all day you’ll have good luck.

See a penny, let it lay,

And bad luck you’ll have all day.

• • •

I picked up the penny. When I did, the world snapped back into focus, like a window being thrown open. Cars screeched and honked. Drivers gestured and swore. Passersby muttered and laughed into cell phones. The scent of exhaust and garbage swirled around me. I closed my eyes and let the smells and sounds wash over me, feeling that familiar prickle that said this was all information and I had to figure it out, make sense of it. Anxiety, yes, but an anxiety I knew.

When I opened my eyes, I saw two women across the road cast glances my way and whisper to each other. That’s when I realized why my day had been so quiet. I’d been blocking it all out. Telling myself no one recognized me.

I turned and almost crashed into an elderly woman whose eyes widened when she saw my face. My stomach clenched again, and I stepped aside, ready to flee, but she caught my sleeve.

“Was it a shiny penny?” she asked.

“W-what?”

She smiled. “The penny you picked up. I didn’t think young people did that anymore. Was it shiny?”

I opened my hand. The newly minted coin gleamed.