“That’s not the point!” She runs a hand through her chestnut hair in frustration. “The point is that you’re choosing that fucking job over your family. Again.”
A choked back sob tears at the back of my throat. “I’m doing this for our family. Please, Rachel—”
“For our family?” She scoffs. “Please. I can’t even rely on you anymore. At all.”
Her words hit their mark with devastating accuracy, hooking into my heart like a thousand tiny daggers. For a moment, I can’t breathe.
All I ever wanted was to be the boulder on which the people I love most can rely on. Solid. Unmovable. Yet, I’ve failed at this one thing.
But if I don’t go, I’ll lose my job. And how can my family rely on me then?
“Rachel, I—”
“Go,” she says, stepping back. “Your boss is waiting.”
“I’ll be there before Christmas Eve. I swear.” I reach for her, pulling her close despite her resistance. “One day. Two max. I’ll just need to catch up.”
She doesn’t fight the embrace, but she doesn’t melt into it like she used to either. “The boys are going to be devastated.”
“I know.” I press my forehead against hers, breathing in her familiar strawberry scent. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you?” She pulls back just enough to look into my eyes. “Because sometimes I think you’re so afraid of disappointingliterally everyone else in your life—your parents, your fucking boss— that the kids and I don’t even factor into your equation.”
Rachel’s words still echo through my brain when I make it to my desk several hours later. I can’t shake them off because I can’t convince myself that she’s wrong.
“It’s about time!” my boss, Antoine, nearly screams when he sees me take a seat.
“I took the first flight back I could.”
“Stop explaining and just start fixing this thing.” He smashes his hand against my desk, shocking me and Bianca to our feet as we flinch back. “Someone leaked my phone number, and now angry customers are blowing me up, as if I could personally fix this.”
Of course he can’t. Antoine co-founded True Keys with an actual developer. He brought the business and marketing brain, while the developer built the minimum viable version of the app. But when they had a falling out, Antoine bought out the developer and became the sole head of the company.
“We’re on it,” Bianca says to placate him. “I already found out what Oliver did wrong, so now it’s just a matter of Karan and me fixing it.”
“God damn it,” Antoine nearly screams again. “Is it so hard to do things right?”
My blood goes cold.
Is it so hard to do things right?
I can’t count the number of times my father screamed those exact words to me. I always had good grades, but there were times that I came home with a few Bs instead of straight As. The anger and disappointment in his eyes still burns into my chest.
I swallow back the primitive fear wreaking havoc on my nervous system.
I’m safe.I’m safe. I’m safe.
I run the familiar chant through my mind like a spell, desperately casting it to banish the panic clawing at my insides. I’m not sure if I’ll ever believe it, but for now, I’ve got to claw my way back to the surface.
For Rachel. For Cayce and Corey.
If there’s one thing I don’t want for them, it’s for them to feel fear. I don’t want them to ever feel unsafe. Not just because of me, but because of the world around them. The game is rigged against us, and the harder I work, the more I can tip the scales back in their favour, because they deserve the world.
So I bury it all and get to work.
Chapter 14
Rachel
