Isabel laughed humorlessly. “You honestly think your little stunt with the Everwood Inn isn’t common knowledge by now? Has your office phone rung this morning, Astrid? What about your email? How many notifications of canceled projects do you have waiting in your inbox?”
A familiar flare of panic. Astrid let her leg drop to the floor as she leaned toward her computer and opened her email. She sifted through her normal mix of design subscriptions until she found some familiar names.
The two clients she’d managed to procure this past week, both of them writing Astrid to inform her that they’d decided to go in a different direction. She sat back, all the breath leaving her lungs.
Isabel sniffed. “I can’t believe you let the situation at the Everwood spiral out of control like that. I warned you what would happen if people found out, and I was right. Now, what we need to do...”
Her mother kept talking, but Astrid barely heard her. She sat there, staring at her computer screen, at her complete lack of clients, Simon’s email terminating her still sitting in her inbox, and she knew this was the moment.
Complete, notorious failure.
She’d finally done it.
Her reputation, her integrity as a designer, all gone.
It was over.
She knew she should be fanning that little spark of panic, she should be losing her shit, planning and scheming how to fix it. She should be listening to her mother.
But she wasn’t.
She was... relieved.
That’s what this was, this big, open space in her chest. Astrid Parker had fucked up her professional life good and proper, and she was goddamn thrilled.
She washappy.
“...will go a long way to restoring your reputation,” her mother was saying, tapping away at her phone. “We’ll host the dinner at Wisteria House on Wednesday, which means we have a lot to do between now and then. I’ll email you a list of who you need to—”
“Stop,” Astrid said.
Isabel’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“Just stop,” she said. She’d said the same words to Jordan three days ago, just two tiny words that subsequently blew up her entire life.
And she meant to blow it up a little bit more.
“I’m done, Mother,” she said, pushing back from the desk.
“You’re... done,” Isabel said. It wasn’t a question. More like an accusation.
Astrid took a deep breath and leaned forward, her elbows propped on her knees. “Yeah.”
“With what?” Isabel asked.
“All of it. Bright Designs. Sunday brunch. Dinner parties and these”—she waved her hand between them—“strategy sessions on how to fix me. I don’t need fixing, Mother.”
Isabel looked offended. “Astrid. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to help you.”
Astrid shook her head. “No. You’re trying tomakeme, and I don’t need to be made. I thought... I thought things would change after Spencer. I thought you’d see that I’m my own person and I’mokayjust how I am, but you didn’t. And I can’t even blame you becauseIdidn’t see that in myself. I let you keep fixing and meddling and shaping because I wanted you to love me and accept—”
“Love you?” Isabel’s mouth hung open, and for the first time in years—maybe ever—Astrid saw genuine hurt flicker in her mother’s eyes. “Astrid, of course I love you.”
Astrid closed her eyes. She wanted it to be true. Her mother was the only family she had—but even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t the case. Claire was her family. Iris. Delilah, even. She’d spent her whole life trying to gain her mother’s approval, her mother’s love, and she’d barely noticed anything else around her. Of course, she knew her friends were there for her, but again, it was as though her head and heart were in constant dissonance—she knew they loved her, but she hadn’t let them love her the way she needed to.
She hadn’t let it be enough.
But it was.
