I’d thought she was my friend. Mine. Not someone sent by my mother to report back on my every move.
Her face changed. Just a flicker. “Oh. Honey. Let me explain. We were going to take the trip together, but then she hurt her hip. It’s not…I wasn’t going to keep it from you, but Evelyn?—”
“Why would you lie to me?”
Babs’ expression splintered even more as she sat down beside me. When she put her hand on my arm, I shrugged it off.
With my entire world in pieces around me, I’d thought I was done living in an illusion. I thought I’d been safe on this trip.
“Your mom knew you wouldn’t come if you knew about me. And she was so worried.”
Oh. God.
“So, you were watching me? And, what? Reporting back?”
Babs flinched. “No! I was just looking out for you.”
I stared at her like I didn’t even recognize her. “I thought you were my friend.”
“I am your friend, Luna. I still am. Your mom said you’d been holed up at home for weeks after your breakup. Not to mention the public’s scrutiny after the last episode of Lunch with Leo and Luna?—”
My stomach turned when she said the name of the show out loud. It felt like I’d never escape it. I’d never escape Leo and what I now realized had been a sham of a relationship.
It would haunt me forever.
Just then, Josie and Marla showed up, glittering with a cheer that grated on my mood like—well, like a cheese grater.
“She knows that we know now?” Josie asked, practically bouncing.
“Finally,” Marla added with exaggerated relief.
My spine straightened. “Excuse me. What? What do I know that you know?”
Marla’s eyebrows lifted like it was obvious. “About what happened on the show you were on with your fiancé. That pompous lout Leo—the chef?”
“Ugh, he was the worst,” Josie muttered.
Marla waved a hand. “We all knew, dear. And just so you know, every single one of us—except maybe Ed—thinks you were totally justified in dumping the sauce over his head.”
Josie nodded, eyes bright. “It’s just a shame you slipped. Kind of ruined the effect of the moment. But honestly, even that wasn’t too humiliating. You still looked cute, wearing your grandmother’s apron. I barely noticed that two of your buttons popped off.”
Cute. She thought I looked cute on the worst day of my life. Well, thank heavens for that!
My mouth may have opened, but nothing came out.
Because what was there to say?
The world I thought I’d been living in had been made up.
Again.
The safety I’d felt with these people had been just like the show. Scripted. Manipulated.
I would not cry. Even if everything inside me had split wide open.
But I was totally incapable of trying to pretend any of this was okay.
I simply stood up and walked away.
