When I told her I was headed to the Hamptons to stop Margot from taking Oliver back—the first time I’ve set foot anywhere near the city since I was disinherited—there was something in the way she hugged me that told me she was worried about me leaving.
Ihaveto get my phone back to call her.
She’s as much my family as Margot is, and she saved my life when my parents cut me off.
She’d come get me herself because that’s who Bea is. Sister of my heart. Best friend. One of only two people on the planet that I would honestly die for, the other being Margot.
I finally look Oliver square in the eye and tell him the absolute complete truth of my life instead. “I don’t know what’s going on in your life. I don’t know why you’re here. All I know is what it looks like you’re doing. I also know what it’s like to leave the world we grew up in. I know what it’s like to not fit there but need to stay there because people like you and me aren’t taught how to live in the real world. And I know what it’s like to suddenly have nothing, including the skills to survive without a driver and security and a household manager and a trust fund.”
He stares back at me, nostrils flaring, a hint of desperation touching his eyes as one eyelid visibly twitches.
Or maybe that’s my imagination.
Maybe?
I don’t know.
I suck in a deep breath and keep going.
I’ve told this story a handful of times, but never to people from the world I used to live in.
Only to people in the world I live in now. People who like me for me. People who know I have nothing and will continue to voluntarily have nothing for the rest of my life. People who are dedicated to causes they believe in that are bigger than their own bank accounts and wine cellars and art collections.
“But now I know how to get along on my own anywhere from the streets of New York to mountain trails miles and miles from civilization. I know how to shop on a budget in a grocery store and cook for myself. I know how to change the oil in a car. I change my own lightbulbs and communicate with my own landlord and walk around festivals without security at my back. And I can do it because very, very kind people took me in and taught me how to live in the normal world when I had absolutely nothing to give them for it and when they had absolutely nothing to gain from it.”
His chest is rising and falling rapidly while he stares at me.
I keep going. “You’re clearly having some kind of crisis, and you were almost my brother-in-law. I don’t have to like you to have empathy for whatever it is you’re going through. And watching your father go to jail and taking over his company and breaking up with the woman you were with long enough to propose to her and then your father getting out of jail and you fleeing the city with literal suitcases of cash in the back of your car? Something’s wrong. I’m not getting out until I know you’ll be okay. That’s what Margot would want me to do. Because even if you’re not right for each other, she still cares about you. And she’s a good person. The best, in fact.”
Shiiiiiiit.
It’s not my imagination that his eyes are getting shiny.
That his Adam’s apple is bobbing.
That he’s gripping the steering wheel so hard with his left hand that his knuckles have gone a shade past white.
“I. Will be. Fine.” His voice is thick and gritty, and I can’t decide if he’s trying to not hit me or trying to not absolutely lose his shit.
Dammit.
Dammit.
I’m not supposed to feel sorry for this man.
But I suddenly do.
“Yeah, I know. You’ll have your money to help you in ways I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use my help.”
He breathes.
Breathes and stares at me.
“Where are you going?” I keep my voice quiet in case he does want to hit me.
He’s among the last people that I’d suspect of being capable of violence, but he’s also among the last people that I’d suspect would spend a weekend driving a boring old sedan loaded with briefcases of cash and a fake passport.
The boring sedan part, yes, even if I can’t talk since that’s what I can afford too these days.
