Audrey cleared her throat. “So, all that to say, I’m not surprised River brought a fake girlfriend this year. You do what you have to in order to get through this thing. And I don’t judge her for a second for wanting them to love her and treat her well. She’s doing what she has to. Thank you for helping her with that.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be quite like this,” Hallie said quietly, feeling dizzy.
“Yeah.” She huffed, her breath a huge cloud in the dark night. “It’s not the kind of family I’d want to bring someone around.”
That explained why her girlfriend wasn’t here. They’d done too much damage while she was single. She was never going to subject the person she lovedmore than the whole skyto them.
“Right,” Hallie sighed. “I’m kind of glad I’m not really into River and this isn’t something I have to do every Christmas going forward.”
Audrey laughed. “Maybe she’d benefit from someone like you. You know, help her break free of the toxicity.”
“Is anyone helping you break free of it?” Hallie’s heart ached. Audrey had a girlfriend. She had someone to help her navigate this whole thing. There was no way they didn’t talk about whether it was healthy and wise for her to be here. That wasn’t Hallie’s job.
Audrey shot her a wry look. “I know what I’m doing to myself. Maybe one day I’ll stop coming, but I… I don’t know. I do what I have to do.”
“For yourself or for them?”
She was still for a long time. “For them, I guess,” she whispered eventually, and, even with as quiet as her voice was, the heartbreak was audible.
She wanted it to be for herself, that much was obvious, but she knew, deep down, that she was showing up for other people, for those who took seeing her as their opportunity to tear her down.
She deserved so much better.
Chapter Ten
Audrey felt like her chest had been hit with a battering ram. This wasn’t what families were supposed to be. She’d always known that, but having someone ask her, simply and directly, who she was here for was both unexpected and made it hard to hide from the truth. Not that they would, but if one of her relatives asked, she’d answer with the party line and think little of it. She’d push back on the faintly sick feeling in her stomach. She knew that feeling well. Long acquainted, long familiar, long used to the feeling of disgust it started off inside her.
But, when Hallie was the one asking, it was harder to hide.
She didn’t want or need a fake answer. Hallie had no skin in the game of being a Sinclair and wanting to keep the image intact. She didn’t need Audrey to be anything other than herself. Like the moment they’d first met, strangers over balsamic, just themselves and whatever spark came naturally between them.
Audrey sucked in a sharp breath, looking down at the wood of the balcony floor. She couldn’t be thinking about howeasy being around Hallie was, not like that. Sure, Zora had—somehow—been spot on that River and Hallie were faking it for the family, but they still had a charade to keep up. Audrey encroaching on that with thoughts of how comfortable she was with Hallie and how maybe that initial spark had been something more than just friendly was not going to help anyone. It wasn’t like it had been attraction exactly, more… potential. The initial magnetism that maybe, just maybe, somethingcouldexist there. But, even knowing her relationship with River was fake wasn’t going to make that spark more explorable. The Sinclairs would never tolerate knowing the truth, and Audrey had no interest in throwing River under the bus.
“I didn’t mean to make this whole thing harder for you,” Hallie said softly, her brow furrowed as she looked at Audrey.
“You didn’t.” She shook her head. “Being here is always hard, and, every year, I think this will be the one where it gets easier. That they’ll stop caring about whether I date, or that I’ll stop needing them.”
“It’s normal to want your family to love you. Especially around the holidays when everyone is talking about family time.”
Audrey shrugged. “Maybe, but, sometimes, you have to accept the family you’ve got and move on. Do what you need to in order to protect yourself. You’d think I’d be smart enough to have figured that out by now.”
Hallie’s hand burrowed through a tiny break in her blankets and she reached for Audrey’s arm. “You can be as smart as you clearly are and still be led by emotions when it comes to things like this. It’s not really something you can intelligence your way out of because they’ve spent your whole life preying on your emotions, not your intelligence.”
Audrey breathed a bitter laugh. “Yeah, maybe. If only it were that easy.”
Hallie nodded and squeezed Audrey’s arm tighter. “Hey, if you need a place to work through all of that, I’m here. Maybe this will be your year.”
Audrey smiled softly. She wanted it to be so badly, but how did you reach the place where walking away felt okay? People had a lot to say about those who cut off their families, but, as far as she could tell, all those people were brave, braver than she was. Sure, they were probably also broken and bruised by their families, just like she was, but they had reached the place where they were ready to heal, to be respected, to reach for better. She wanted to hit that point so badly.
It felt easier while sitting on a balcony in the middle of the night with Hallie, but that wasn’t permanent. Hallie was here for now, gone in a few days. She was here with River. And, when Audrey had to face her family, she’d experienced more than enough times that things just… felt impossible. How did you change a generations-wide thing alone?
She looked at Hallie and noticed the way she shivered. It was cold and they’d been sitting still for a long time now. This whole night had not gone the way she’d been expecting.
She smiled softly. “You should get back inside.”
Hallie shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m here with you.”
“And that means more than you could possibly know, but it really is very cold. And late. We should both be getting to bed.”
