I shrugged, ‘He didn’t say. When I mentioned the book the first time around, he looked like he wanted to throw me off the nearest cliff, so I highly doubt he wants to go ahead with it, but I honestly can’t imagine what else he’d want to talk to me about.’
‘Maybe you utterly fascinated him, and he wants to ask you out.’
I levelled a stern glare at her. ‘Have you read the articles about him? His last girlfriend was an actress and model. Let’s keep ourselves at least partially planted in reality if you don’t mind.’
A look of irritation crossed over Rosie’s face. I frowned a little but shrugged it off, finishing my breakfast.
‘Do you want me to go with you?’ Rosie asked, picking up her coffee and taking a sip.
I shook my head. ‘Unlike me, you have a job.’
Rosie’s eyes narrowed slightly, and her lips pursed.
‘What?’ I asked, putting my knife and fork on my empty plate.
Rosie shook her head, refusing to say anything, but I could see whatever was bothering her bubbling below the surface.
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Rosie, what is it? Is it Oliver?’
She huffed, looking down at the table. ‘No, it’s not that.’
I felt myself shrink back at the caustic tone she suddenlytook. ‘What have I done?’ I looked back over the conversation with her, coming up with nothing that would have upset her so much.
‘That.’ Rosie pointed at my slumped figure in the chair. ‘That’s what’s wrong. I hate the version of you that always appears after you’ve seen your family.’
Tension rippled through my chest, squeezing my lungs. ‘I don’t know-‘
‘Yes, you do.’ She interrupted, her tone softer. ‘You come back from seeing them with all these negative thoughts about yourself, constantly putting yourself down, putting absolutely zero value in yourself. You’ve worked so hard to get rid of those toxic fuckers from your head. I hate how easily they undo you.’
Rosie’s impassioned speech made tears well in my eyes. I couldn’t deny anything she said because I knew it was true. As much as I wanted to say that they didn’t affect me anymore… they did. Their words still dance around my head. Their judgement still cuts as deep as it did when I was a teenager.
I reached across the table, placing a hand over hers.
‘I’m sorry.’
Rosie tugged her hand away and slapped mine lightly.‘See?Right there. You don’t apologise for being you. You stopped doing that a long time ago, so as your best friend, I’m going to give you some of my bad bitch energy. Or, as my mother would say, “good witch energy”.’
My smile grew along with hers.
‘And how are you going to do that?’
‘By taking advice from our lord and saviour, Miss Swift. And playingI Forgot You Existedfor the rest of the day until those words are embedded in your soul.’
I burst out laughing. Rosie’s eyes sparkled with light. Every day I woke up thankful that Rosie had plopped herselfdown next to me in high school. She was the same blunt, spritely girl she used to be in so many ways, but she’d got stronger. She’d grown into herself.
Sometimes, I still felt like the teenage version of myself at the lunch table. Afraid of taking up too much space, talking too loud, and drawing attention to myself. Confidence wasn’t a one-step process. You didn’t gain it and then never lose it. It was a fickle thing that could be taken from you if you weren’t careful. And my family could strip it from me completely.
16
FALLON
An alleyway—no matter what time of day—wasalwayscreepy.
Cigarette butts scattering the ground with broken beer bottles and accompanying stains of various origins were my obstacle course for the afternoon.
After dropping Rosie off at work, I’d gone home to pick out an outfit for the meeting with Oliver—or what I assumed was a meeting. I needed something that said ‘professional’ with a hint of ‘powerful woman’. Why was that outfit always a pantsuit? That was the first thing to cross my mind. Still, considering the majority of my clothes didn’t match, I’d rummaged around my closet and pulled out a pair of black jeans and a blue blouse that was cut a smidge too low to be appropriate for work—for a meeting with a near stranger about potentially writing a book, it would do.
Pushing back the self deprecating voice that wanted to tell me my jeans were too tight and that someone like me had no business taking this meeting, I raised my fist and rapped sharply on the metal door. The memory of being here twoweeks ago, about to piss myself, was burned in my brain. Hopefully this time around, things went a lot better.
