Katherine dried her face with the corner of the sheet. It smelled like him. She hated it.
She found her dress-a crumpled heap of blue chiffon near the door where Gus had dragged her in. She put it on with trembling hands, her fingers fumbling with the zipper. She didn't have her shoes. They were probably still in his bedroom.
She couldn't go back there.
She pushed open the heavy fire door at the end of the corridor.
The weather had turned. The sunny morning had collapsed into a violent summer storm. Rain lashed against the pavement, turning the gravel driveway of the estate into a river of mud.
Katherine stepped out. The water soaked her instantly. Her dress clung to her legs, heavy and cold. The gravel dug into the soles of her bare feet.
She started walking toward the main gate. She had no phone. No purse. Just herself and the humiliation burning under her skin.
A black Cadillac Escalade rolled down the driveway, its tires crunching on the stones. It slowed as it approached her.
Katherine stopped. Her heart leaped into her throat. Maybe... maybe he was coming back. Maybe he realized he had been cruel.
The tinted rear window rolled down halfway.
Gus sat in the back seat. He was wearing a suit jacket now, looking every inch the corporate heir. He held an unlit cigarette between his fingers.
He looked at her.
Rain dripped from Katherine's hair, running into her eyes, blurring her vision. She shivered, hugging herself.
Gus didn't say a word. He didn't offer a ride. He didn't offer an umbrella. He just looked at her with eyes that were completely dead.
Then, he made a small motion with his hand.
The window rolled up.
The Cadillac accelerated, spraying a wave of muddy water over her legs. Katherine stood there, watching the red taillights fade into the gray mist of the storm.
She looked down at her feet, bleeding slightly on the sharp rocks.
Never again, she thought. The vow was a cold, hard stone in her stomach. I will never let Agustus Riddle look at me like that again.
Four Years Later
The alarm clock screamed.
Katherine jolted upright, gasping for air. Her hand flew to her chest. Her heart was racing. For a second, she could still feel the cold rain on her skin, smell the exhaust of the Cadillac.
She blinked. The Hamptons estate dissolved.
She was in Los Angeles. West Hollywood.
The sunlight filtering through the cheap, bent plastic blinds was dusty and yellow. The room was stiflingly hot. The air conditioner was broken again.
She rubbed her face. It was just a dream. The same dream.
She swung her legs out of bed. The carpet here wasn't plush wool; it was thin, beige synthetic that smelled faintly of old dog.
Katherine walked to the mirror. The face staring back was older. The baby fat was gone from her cheeks, leaving her cheekbones sharper, her eyes hollower.
She wasn't the heiress-adjacent girl anymore. She was Katherine Woodward, a ghost haunting the edges of an industry that had once promised her everything. A star who had fallen, now working as a full-time barista to pay for the privilege of failure.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She picked it up. An email from her agent.
Passed on the indie film role. The director felt your 'essence' was too tragic for the part.
Katherine let out a dry laugh. Tragic. She hadn't felt anything but tragic in four years.
She walked out into the living room. It was a war zone of clothes, makeup, and takeout boxes.
"You have that nightmare again?" Kylie asked, not looking up from her phone. "The one where you look like a drowned rat? So dreary."
Kylie Barker stood in the center of the room, holding up a lime green dress against her body. Kylie was everything Katherine wasn't-loud, vibrant, and relentlessly ambitious. She was an Instagram influencer with 90,000 followers and an ego to match.
"Does this make my ass look famous?" Kylie asked, twirling.
"It makes you look visible from space," Katherine muttered, opening the fridge. Empty. Just a jar of pickles and a bottle of vodka.
"Don't be a hater, Kat," Kylie chirped. "You need to get ready. Tonight is the night."
Katherine paused, a water bottle halfway to her lips. "Night for what?"
"Dinner! The roommate dinner? I've been talking about it all week." Kylie rolled her eyes. "My treat. I'm celebrating hitting 100k followers. Well, I'm at 99.8k, but I'm manifesting it."
"I can't," Katherine said. "I have to prep for a callback tomorrow. It's just an understudy role for an off-Broadway play, but it's something."
"Boring," Kylie sang. "Beth is coming. Trixie is coming. You are coming. You need to get out of this apartment. You smell like depression and old coffee beans."
Beth, their third roommate, poked her head out of her room. "Come on, Kat. Kylie says she's taking us to Catch. We'll never get in there otherwise."
Katherine looked at them. She looked at the stack of unpaid bills on the counter. She looked at the rejection email on her phone.
She was tired. She was so tired of the grind. Maybe one night of expensive food and pretending to be someone else wouldn't hurt.
"Fine," Katherine sighed. "I'll go."
She didn't know it then. She didn't know that saying "yes" was the mistake that would drag her back into hell.
