CHAPTER 1
Lauren crumpledthe empty bag of chips and tossed it into her passenger seat before she sifted through the cache of convenience store snacks trying to get to the bottle of ginger ale against the passenger door. Loosening her hold on the steering wheel, she stretched across the seat, and the SUV swerved over the double yellow lines.
Goddamn it!
Snapping upright, she grabbed the wheel with both hands and quickly corrected.
Stop being such a reckless idiot.
Please, there hasn’t been another car on the road for the last five miles, I can afford to be a little reckless, she snapped back, reaching for the soda again. Because really, what had thoughtful, responsible,non-recklessLauren ended up? Her life stuffed inside her SUV after the most devastating betrayal she could’ve imagined.
Twisting off the bottle cap, she swallowed the liquid like it was bitter pain. It threatened to spew out in another round of rage and recrimination.
To hell with them.Let them all choke and strangle on the secrets they kept.
Sucking in desperate breaths, she tried to tame the rage that made her want to fight someone.
“Who the hell you gonna fight in here but yourself Ren? No one.”
There was no one. Plus, she wasn’t the one who deserved to be ripped apart, stomped to a pulp, and verbally slashed to ribbons. They were. All of them. Every single one.
No, she wasn’t reckless; she was a goddamn saint!
A sanctified, supremely practical, patron of all things rational and restrained.
The fact that they were safe, untouched, with no consequences other than needing to explain why the wedding was canceled less than a week and a half before the event was a testament to her control. By distancing herself from them, her family, the ones who somehowalwaysmanaged to demonstrate—at the most bewildering times—thatno matterfuckingwhat, she didn’t deserve to have her level of successandhave truelove.
No, she wasn’t reckless, she was enacting self-preservation.
Tears clogged her throat, blurred her vision, and she screamed—raw and primal—furious that thousands of miles later, she hadn’t outrun her hurt and shame.
“You sons of bitches,” she whispered, dropping her shoulders in defeat as she fought another wave of despair. “I never would’ve hurtanyof you like this.”
Shifting her thumb over the controls on the steering wheel, she cranked up the music to drown out all thoughts and emotions. This had been her routine for the last four days: driving, cursing, crying, desolation; and periodically, when music, open windows, and cold air couldn’t keep her awake, she slept at rest stops or motel parking lots, as the ghost of betrayals past transported her back to that day which always began with that inpatient knock.
Frowning, Lauren turned her Bluetooth speaker down, walked to the door of her recently sold condo, and opened it to her mother and sister. Lahn looked wrecked. Makeup-less, skin absent of its natural radiance, eyes swollen, face streaked with tear residue. When their mother stood next to her daughters, she seemed dwarf-like at five feet four, only because Lahn and Lauren were five feet nine and five feet eight respectively. But the way Ma Mable’s arm was wrapped around Lahn’s waist, it was more than evident that she was keeping Lahn upright.
“Who do I need to fight?” Lauren asked, pulling her sister into a tight hug that released the wave of tears Lahn had been struggling to hold back.
This scenario had played out endless times over the last three decades after Lahn moved in with Lauren and her parents. Lauren initially hated sharing her home and her parents, but after her daddy and Ma Mable finished having “the talk” with Lauren about loyalty, her duty as a big sister, and being grateful for having the blessings she was born with, Lauren quickly learned that if someone hurt Lahn’s feelings, it was Lauren’s responsibility to track them down and hurt more than feelings.
What happened? Lauren mouthed to her mother.
“Take her in the house, Ren, we got a lot to talk about.”
It was instinctual to rebel when her mother used that tone, but for Lahn’s sake, Lauren did as she was told and navigated her sister around the boxes she’d been packing in preparation for the move to Derrick’s home in San Francisco.
Lauren sat her sister down in the center of her crimson crushed velvet chesterfield, and their mother sat on the other side, bracketing Lahn between them.
Trying to be patient, Lauren rubbed Lahn’s back, waiting for her sister to find her words. Instead, Lahn broke down intears again, leaning against their mother who wrapped her arms around Lahn and said soothing words.
Ok, that’s weird, Lauren thought.
Things had to be nuclear-level bad for Lahn to seek nurturing from their mother; weirder still for Ma Mable to provide it. She wasn’t a cold woman, but she definitely wasn’t touchy-feely.
Lauren leaned over and rested her head on her sister’s shoulder, continuing to rub her back as she silently tried to assure Lahn that everything would be okay.
“Lauren, baby…” their mother began, then looked away, which was red flag number two because Mrs. Mable Green choosing her words wisely was a rarity. Their mother had never been one to bite her tongue for the greater good.
