Daniela flicked her gaze to either side. “Know what? What happened?”
I broke, slumping against the doorframe. Nobody knew how to fucking communicate anything around here. Myself included. Daniela and Cat were trying to give her space? And it should have been me saying something? But how was I supposed to know?
No wonder they hadn’t come around. Maybe if I’d reached out, we could have had an intervention and convinced Alyssa to stay. Maybe I should have done everything differently, from beginning to end. From the moment we first met, and when she first slapped me in the face.
My hand hurt. It was going to be embarrassing if it bruised. My brain fixated on that, because it was a hell of a lot easier than grappling with everything else.
“Alyssa left,” I said, finally, my voice hollow. Daniela blinked fast, and Cat was the one to respond, practically lunging forward, speaking without signing.
“She left? Where to?”
“Her mom’s. Told me she’d been on the verge of self-sabotaging by going back to Sawyer, and managed to stop herself in the last minute to talk to her mom instead. Spent the night with me and then drove off yesterday morning.”
“Why didn’t yousayanything?” Cat said, and I groaned.
“I thought you knew. Why didn’tyousay anything? Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t any of us say anything?” I shook my head. “I tried to talk her out of it. But she was intent. Said there was no place for her here. Apparently she’d talked to Drew, and he’d made it clear he and Charlie had been spreading rumors behind her back, drumming up a whole fuss about how annoying she was, couldn’t mind her own business. Thought you two hated her and that everyone else would soon too, so she left. And I thought maybe she was right, because nobody even came once to check in on her, to ask after her.”
Daniela pushed out a shaky breath, looking like she was about to fall over on the spot. “Shit,” she said, at length. “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t trying to… god, I didn’t want to drive her out of town altogether.”
“Where does her mom live?” Cat said. “We’ll plan a road trip.”
“I don’t know. Indiana. Somewhere with cornfields. She made me promise not to uproot my life and go after her.” I rounded on Daniela, something hot bubbling up in my chest. “So what was it? You didn’t want her to be with anybody? Or do you just hate me?”
“I don’t hate you, or—it’s not like that,” she protested. “I just wanted to know the truth! She was lying about where she was going, what she was doing, with who, when, where, and why,when she could have just told me and I’d have supported her the whole time—andyouwere planning on leaving and didn’t tell me anything, and she had this whole thing with Drew and Charlie and didn’t tell me anything, and I just want people to tell me the truth. I’m sick of trying to play nice and make everyone happy! Are we going to just step back at some point and admit it never makes anyone better off?”
“Daniela,” Cat said, a hand on her arm, calming her. I didn’t care, though. The two of them could work it out. I was suddenly on the verge of tears, even though I didn’t know whether it was from anger, frustration, or heartbreak, and I shook my head, stepping back into the house.
“Well, here’s the truth, then,” I said. “I’m on my way out of town. Been doing job applications for a while, and I don’t think it’ll be much longer. So… thanks. It’s been real. Hope things work out better here for you than they did for me.”
“Jade, wait,” Daniela started, but I didn’t give her time to finish—didn’t have the mental space for it myself, and I kicked the door shut, turning the lock and ignoring their voices from outside, trudging back into the other room and dropping onto the couch.
Shit. My hand was still throbbing. I’d get ice for it, but my pride wouldn’t let me admit I’d actually hurt myself on my fucking door, so I just lay there thinking about how it hurt, which was objectively stupider and more humiliating, but what did it matter now?
I had a great, productive evening. Once Daniela and Cat left, I got plenty done, ranging from kicking myself to crying, to staring vacantly out the window, to eating half a bag of chips and not even noticing I was doing it until I dropped one down my shirt and had to take my shirt off to get it out of my bra. I was shirtless wiping salt off my chest when I got a phone call, and my heart jumped into my mouth vividly imagining fantasy scenarios—Alyssa calling me and saying she missed me and wanted to come back and stay with me and everything would be okay—but it was Chad.
I didn’t know who the fuck Chad was, but that was his caller ID. I picked up the phone.
“Hi, Jade speaking.”
“Hey, this is Chad from the San Antonio city commission. I’m calling about your job application. Is this a good time?”
Had I applied to a job in fucking Texas? With fucking Chad? Kill me. “Now’s a good time, yeah,” I said, standing shirtless with a bag of chips in a bathroom crying over a girl.
“We’ve reviewed your application, and we think you’d be a good fit for the team. We’re looking to start hiring as soon as possible, so do you think you’d still be interested in taking the job?”
Well, there it was. Texas, though? Really? I couldn’t wait for endless stretches of dusty terrain with cookie-cutter houses in rat-race suburbs, each with their HOA-approved crabgrass lawn doused with unsustainable amounts of water. Maybe I’d swap the Jeep for a fuck-you huge-ass pickup truck with adon’t mess with Texasbumper sticker, go to tailgate parties, and drive into the fucking Gulf of Mexico.
“Yeah, I’m interested,” I said, sounding about as interested as if he was offering for me to swallow a cactus and pull it back out. “I’ll just have to check some things and make sure I’m available.”
“No problem. I noticed your address is listed in Vermont, so I understand it’s a big move. We’ll just need to hear back on your availability before the end of tomorrow, if you can do that for us.”
Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Get my ducks in a row. In a row like a firing range, and then one by one, shoot them in the headexecutioner-style, and go to meet my new buddy, Chad in Texas. “Yep, sounds great. Thanks, Chad.”
We exchanged pleasantries that were as pleasant as pulling off my fingernails, and then we hung up, and I crashed on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
My hand still hurt. Fuck me.
Chapter 30
