New Kayla looked her best friend dead in the eye and repeated, “Who?”
Suzie looked to both sides like she was trying to come up with a cover story.
But then she caved with a, “Look, Kayla, you were planning to spend a week of PTO sulking over Dwayne in your room. Of course, your parents and I were worried about what would happen when the team came back from their break.”
I held up my hands. “Wait, so you and my parents got together like some kind of “we’re worried about Kayla” cabal and just decided to get Dwayne cut from the team?”
“You’re making it sound like this was a huge conspiracy.” Suzie put up her hands defensively. “Frankly, Dwayne isn’t that good of a player. He barely survived the post-season cut. And you know how much the coaching team respects your dad’s opinion. It was easy for him to drop a bug in their ear.”
“Easy?” I repeated. Anger gathered in my chest like a new storm. “Easy to manipulate my life while I was away. That’s what you really mean! You didn’t think I could handle Dwayne.”
“It wasn’t manipulation,” Suzie countered with an insistent shake of her head. “You’re my best friend and my best payroll administrator. I couldn’t have you putting in your two weeks’ notice, like, a day or two after the Suns came back from break.”
Run! Run like the coward you are. Because you’re weak—incapable of fighting for anything.
“You think I’m a coward?” I asked Suzie with Andy Atwater’s words echoing in my mind. “You all truly believed that I would quit, just so I didn’t have to cut Dwayne a paycheck?”
Suzie looked to the side. “Well, you dropped out of college, like, a week after transferring to SCU because your counselor said you needed to pick a major.”
“Because I wasn’t sure what I wanted, and I didn’t need to waste a bunch of money finding myself.”
“And you gave up your condo search last year, even after you saved up enough for a down payment.”
“Because the L.A. market isinsane,and I was fine at home!”
“Okay, well, then call it an abundance of caution.” Suzie dipped her head and threw me a sympathetic look. “We just wanted to make sure you felt comfortable here when you returned. You know,safe.”
Safe…
That’s the real reason you stayed with this wanker for as long as you did, innit? Because he was safe. Cos you thought he was some nice Missouri boy, and you were afraid of datin’ someone you felt somethin’ real for. Someone like me!
Suzie’s excuse for why she and my parents had worked behind the scenes to get Dwayne fired put my entire life in relief.
Suddenly, all my reasons for living the way I did sounded less like good sense and more like fear. New questions piled up in my head.
Had I dropped out of SCU because I was afraid to follow my interests and see where a bachelor’s degree would lead me?
Had I chosen to work for the Suns—or settled for this position because the L.A. job market was a big and scary place?
Just like the housing market that had me still sleeping in the same bedroom where I’d grown up? The same bedroom I’d slept in every single week of my adult life?
Until Mick.
With Mick, I’d taken chances. All the chances. With Mick, I’d been brave.
My heart sped up, remembering the look on his face when he predicted I’d run away as opposed to staying to fight.For us.
But leaving had been the right thing to do… hadn’t it?
The sound of voices in the distance interrupted my sudden questioning of everysafedecision I’d ever made in my life. Safe decisions that definitely did not match the outfit I was currently wearing—the outfit the man I’d known as Mick had picked out for me.
“Hey, you know what, on second thought, getting a head start on the end-of-year report is a great idea,” Suzie said, glancing over her shoulder at the other early arrivals. “Want to use the conference room, so you can really spread out?”
“Sure,” I answered, trying to match her bright work tone. But my voice sounded weak, even to my own ears.
Suzie rushed away, and I thought about texting my parents to get their side of the story.
But why? Suzie had explained their reasoning loud and clear.
