Page 66 of In The Dark

Jo grippedthe steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. She hadn’t even started the engine; she didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing. Her flat was right there in front of her, but it felt like the last place in the world she could go right now. She couldn’t face Amelia.

Lia…is Amelia.

That confession repeated over and over in her mind, as if saying it enough times would make it make sense. As if repetition could dull the betrayal. But it didn’t, it only sharpened it. Every time the thought landed, it cut deeper.

She’d told Lia private and intimate things. Things she wouldneverhave said to Amelia if she’d known it was her in the dark room. And she’d meant every word. Every desperate whisper, every aching moan…every time she said she wanted Amelia, she’d meant it.

And all that time…Amelia had known.

Jo let out a strangled sob as she slammed her fist down on the steering wheel, her whole body jolting with the force of it.

How the fuck had this happened?

She leaned forward and rested her head against the leather, her breath ragged as she tried to calm down. She was shaking. Not just her hands, but her legs, her stomach, her chest, too. Herentirebody was caught in this storm she hadn’t seen coming.

Amelia. Her friend, her ex’smum, the woman who’d held her after her breakup, the one who had made her tea and stroked herhair while she cried into her lap. The woman who’d become her safe place aftereverythinghad fallen apart.

And now? Now she was the woman Jo had begged to fuck her in a dark room. The woman she’d touched and tasted and poured her heart out to, not realising it was the same person who sat across from her day in, day out, pretending she didn’t know.

It was all a lie.

Every moan in the dark, every stroke of her hand, every time Lia had pulled her close and whispered, ‘I’ve got you’, it had all been Amelia, and Jo hadn’t known. She hadn’t been given the fucking choice to know.

Her eyes burned as she looked out through the windscreen. She blinked repeatedly, not allowing herself to cry. If she cried, she’d fall apart completely, and if she fell apart, she didn’t know how or if she’d ever put herself back together.

She reached blindly for her phone on the passenger seat, her fingers trembling as she opened her contacts.

Ada.The only person she could stomach right now.

The call connected almost instantly. “Hey, babe. You alright?”

Jo tried to answer, but all that came out was a shaky exhale.

“Jo?”

“She lied to me,” Jo whispered as her bottom lip trembled. “It was her. Lia was Amelia.”

“O-oh, fuck.”

“Yeah.” Jo wiped at her face when a single tear fell. “Oh, fuck.”

“Okay,” Ada said gently. Jo could hear her shifting, as though she was sitting down. “I know you’re spiralling, but…can you talk me through it? What happened?”

Jo closed her eyes. “She came over and told me Callum’s coming home. Something about him wanting to try again withme. And then…she told me the truth. That it had been her all along.”

“She just came out with it?”

“Y-yes. It’s been her the whole time, Ada. Every time I touched Lia…it was Amelia.”

Ada let out a slow, controlled breath. “Jesus.”

“God, I feel sick.” Jo pressed a hand to her chest. “I feel like I’ve been fucking violated. I told her things in that room I didn’t even knowIfelt until they came out of me.”

“Jo…”

“Oh, God.” The realisation suddenly sank in. “I told her I loved her. During the roleplay, I told Lia I loved Amelia. And she didn’t even fucking stop me!”

“Do you want me to come over? I can be there within the hour.”