Page 5 of Exposed

I cannot.

Cannot.

I clench my fists and squeeze my eyes shut and stand in the center of the elevator and force my lungs to expand and contract. Compel my hand to extend and my fingers to fit the key to the slot, compel my fingers to twist the key. I don’t pay attention to which floor I have chosen. It doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here.

Ground floor. The lobby. Hushed conversation between a man in a suit and a woman behind a massive marble desk. The lobby is an expanse of black marble, three-foot-by-three-foot tiles veined with gold streaks. Soaring ceilings, easily fifty feet high. Thirty-foot-tall cypress trees rooted under the floor itself lining the walls on either side of the lobby. It is a spacedesigned to intimidate. The reception desk is a continent unto itself, the receptionists on pedestals behind it, literally looking down at visitors. It reminds me of a judge’s podium from centuries past, when the judge literally sat several feet above you, thus engendering the phrase “to look down upon” someone in arrogance.

My heelsclick-clack-click-clackacross the floor, each step echoing like the report of a rifle. Stares follow me. Eyes watch me.

I am beautiful.

I look expensive.

Because I am.

I did not know this, before.

Before I made the naked journey from my condo prison up to the penthouse, thus making a choice for my life.

After that, I began learning.

That my beloved crimson Jimmy Choo stilettos cost two thousand dollars. That my Valentino dress, the one I have on right now, cost nearly three thousand dollars. That each article of clothing I own, down to my underwear, is the most expensive of its kind there could be.

I discovered this, and didn’t know what to do with the knowledge. I still don’t. I didn’t pay for them. I didn’t choose them.

I allow my thoughts to wander as I cross the vast lobby, forcing myself to walk as if I am confident, arrogant. I let my hips sway and keep my shoulders back and my chin high. Focus my gaze on the revolving doors miles and miles in the distance, across acres of black marble. Acknowledge none of the stares. In the center of the lobby there are twelve large black leather couches arranged in a wide square, three couches to a side, each separated by small tables. People wait and converse and perhapsdo business deals, and they all watch me cross the lobby. Surreptitiously, I count them. Fourteen.

Fourteen people watch me cross the lobby, as if I am utterly unexpected, a rare sighting.

A leopard stalking down Fifth Avenue, perhaps.

I try to capture that essence, pretend that I am a predator rather than prey.

It gets me through the revolving glass doors and outside. It is late August, hot, the air thick. The sun bright, beating down on me from between skyscrapers. The noise of Manhattan assaults me in a physical wave: sirens, a police car zipping past me, howling. An ambulance in pursuit. A garbage truck groaning around a corner, engine grumbling. Dozens of motors revving as the light turns green twenty feet to my right.

I force myself to walk. Refuse to let my knees fold in, refuse to let my lungs seize. The panic is a knife in my throat, a blade in my chest, hot wires constricting my breath. I am clutched by talons of panic. The sirens did it, the sounds of sirens howling like wild beasts, howling in my ear.

Tires squeal somewhere and I cannot see, my eyes are squeezed shut, and hot dark marble burns my bicep as I lean against the side of the building, succumbing to panic.

I hear questions, someone asking I’m all right.

Clearly I am not, but I am beyond answering.

Until I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Hear a voice in my ear.

Heat from a big body crowding against me, blocking the world and the noises and the questions.

“Hey. Breathe, okay? Breathe. Breathe, X.” That voice, like the warmth of the sun made sonic. “It’s me. I’ve got you.”

No. It cannot be.

Cannot be.

I look up.

It is.