I fight it back, though. I force myself not to cut.

But I no longer know what I’m fighting for, and I’m desperately afraid that my strength will give out, and one day I will press that blade against my skin, that I will feel the tug of yielding flesh, and that I will finally succumb. I am afraid that I will have to, because there is no other way to live without Damien.

I have not gone to my office for over two weeks now. At first, Damien called me five times each day. Then he dropped to four daily calls for a few days, then three. Now the calls have stopped altogether and the lure of the blade is even more potent.

I know that Jamie and Ollie are worried about me. That doesn’t take a great intellectual leap to figure out because they have both flat out said as much.

“You need to get out,” Jamie says one afternoon as I am on my bed, staring blankly at all the newspaper clippings and bits of memorabilia I was going to use for Damien’s scrapbook. “Just to the corner. Just for a drink.”

I shake my head.

“Dammit, Nicholas, I’m worried about you.”

I lift my head to look at her, and when I do, I see my reflection. My face is gray and there are circles under my eyes. My unwashed hair hangs limp around my face. I do not recognize myself. “I’m worried about me, too,” I say.

“Jesus, Nik.” I hear fear in her voice, and she comes to sit on the bed beside me. “You’re really scaring me. I don’t know what to do here. Tell me what you need.”

But I can’t. Because what I need I can’t have.

What I need is Damien.

“You did the right thing,” she says gently. I have told her and Ollie the truth about what I did and why I broke it off. I couldn’t keep the secret any longer. I have not told Evelyn that we broke up, but she heard the news anyway. I have not taken her calls; I’m too afraid of what she will say.

“But, Nik,” Jamie continues, “now it’s time to let yourself heal.”

“I just need time,” I manage to say. “Time heals, right?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I thought so, but now I just don’t know.”

I don’t know how many days have passed when Ollie shows up in my bedroom, his expression grim. “Come on,” he says, taking my arm and tugging me to my feet.

“What the—”

“We’re taking a walk.”

“No.” I jerk my arm back.

“Goddammit, yes.” He grabs a baseball cap from the shelf in my closet, crams it onto my head, then tugs me toward the door. “Corner store. Ice cream. And I’ll fucking carry you there if I have to.”

I’m standing now, and I nod. I don’t want to go out into the world, but I also don’t want to fight. And maybe it will help, though I don’t really believe it.

“You fucked up, Nikki,” he says once we’re on the sidewalk.

I don’t look at him. I don’t want to hear this. I know I did the right thing; that knowledge is as true to me as the sun that now beats down upon us. That truth is the only thing that’s helped me survive.

“I’ve seen him, you know.”

That gets my attention.

“I went with Maynard to the apartment yesterday. He’s missed too many appointments, and there was stuff that had to be handled. Signed. Life and business moving on. But, Nikki, Damien’s not moving on. He’s wrecked. Shit, I think he’s worse than you.”

I keep my head down and keep walking, but every step hurts me. Every second that I am hurting Damien hurts me. “I don’t want to hear this,” I whisper.

“Just talk to him. Go see him. Jesus, Nikki, fight for it.”

That makes me stop. Makes me turn to him. Makes the anger rise enough that it pushes back the pain. “Goddammit, Ollie, don’t you get it? I am fighting. I’m fighting every day not to run back to him. I’m fighting because I love him. And because I do, I can’t see him ripped to shreds. You saw how he was in Germany, and that was just a few people who saw those pictures. If those photos get out in the world, it will completely destroy him.”

“But, Nik,” he says gloomily. “He already is.”

The next morning, I pick up the phone. Ollie’s words have weighed on me. The dark cloud has pressed against me for too long. The lure of the blade is too sweet.

I can stand it no longer.

“Stark International.” It is Sylvia’s voice, clear and strong.

“I—oh—I must have hit the wrong button. I thought I dialed Damien’s cell.”

“Ms. Fairchild.” Her voice has lost the businesslike quality. It’s gentle now, maybe even a little sad. “He forwarded his cellular calls to the office.”

“Oh. Where is he? I’ll call the house or the apartment or wherever directly.” Now that I have gathered the courage to call, I am determined to do this. I do not know exactly what I intend to say—I haven’t thought this out that far—but I know that I need to talk to him. That I need to hear his voice.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Fairchild, I don’t know where he is. He left yesterday. No number, no address. He said he was leaving the country. He said he needed time.”

I close my eyes and sag down onto the bed. “I see. If he—if he calls, will you ask him to call me?”

“I will,” she says. “It will be the first thing I tell him.”

In the weeks that follows, I become a gossip hound. I troll websites and Twitter and Facebook and everything else I can think of searching for information about Damien. I find nothing. Nothing except the press speculating about the cause of our breakup.

I’ve seen nothing about Sofia, either, and so I do not know if Damien located her and got her back to London or if she is still in LA. Because I know Damien, I know they are not together. But I can’t help but worry about how Sofia is going to blow when her frustration level from not winning Damien back reaches critical mass.

When yet another Saturday night rolls around again, Jamie is determined to drag me out of my funk. “Popcorn and Arsenic and Old Lace,” she says, pointing authoritatively to the couch. “I’ll make the popcorn while you set up the movie.”

I do not argue. I turn on the television, then dig through the basket of CDs while the local news plays. I’m about to slip the disk in when I freeze.

Damien’s face is all over the screen, along with blurred copies of horrific photos that are all too familiar. I realize my hand is over my mouth, and I fear for a moment that I am going to be sick. I stand up, pace, then sit back down again. I need to do something—anything—but I don’t know what to do.

“Oh, God.” The words are from Jamie, who has come into the living room behind me.

I turn and meet her eyes. “I can’t believe she did it. I can’t believe that bitch sent those pictures to the press anyway.”

“Damien must be a mess.”

I nod, then pull out my phone.

“I thought he wasn’t there,” Jamie says.

I ignore her, keeping my fingers crossed, praying he is no longer forwarding the number.

But it is Ms. Peters, Damien’s weekend assistant, who answers the call.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Fairchild. We haven’t heard from him for weeks.”