**Chapter 68**
ELLIE'S POV
I didn’t take the lingerie off right away.
I lay there in the dark with the red lace still cutting into my skin and Richard’s voice playing on a loop in my head. *Dressed like a whore.* The words sat heavier than the silence coming from the guest room down the hall. I could still feel the shape of them, sharp and deliberate, like he had chosen the one word that would cut the deepest. At some point I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew early light was leaking through the curtains and my phone was buzzing on the nightstand.
Nathan.
**Can Cole sleep over tonight? His dad’s being weird again.**
I stared at the message until the screen dimmed. Cole. Eighteen. Nathan’s best friend since middle school. The quiet one who always said “yes, ma’am”
