“She’s up late.”
“Oh, please. You’re too smart to play dumb,” she chastised. I could almost hear her eyes roll back in her skull, all the way in Asheville. “First you disappear from your bachelorette party.”
“Which you didn’t come to, by the way.” I shoveled another forkful of potatoes into my mouth.
“YouknowI couldn’t.”
Egging my big sister on was too easy even when she wasn’t six-and-a-half months pregnant. When you added in the extra hormones, though . . .
“Then you break off your engagement withWhere’s Waldo—”
“Walden. And how do you know that?”
“He called Daddy, who told Mama, who—”
“Called you,” I finished for her. I should’ve known he’d go sniveling to my parents to tattle on me. Just another perfect example of his priorities. “Good news sure travels fast. Look, V, I’ll talk to them tomorrow. Just as soon as I figure out what I’m going to say.”
“Forget them. Talk to me.” Her voice evened. “Are you okay?”
I answered her honestly. “Physically? Yes. I’m not sure about the rest just yet.”
“Are you somewhere safe? Do you need me to come pick you up?”
“V, stop.” My fork clattered onto the plate. “It’s the middle of the night, not to mention a four-hour drive back to Charleston.I’m not the first idiot whose fiancé cheated on her, okay? I’ll be fine. Besides, I thought you were on bed rest.”
“Don’t remind me,” she grumbled. “I’ll lie in the back seat and make Ellie drive.”
Viv and her wife, Ellie, were what one might call wilderness women. On their first date, they went axe throwing. On their second, they took a week-long camping trip in the Catskills. By the time they reached their fourth anniversary together, they’d visited every national park in America. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that her mandated bed rest was driving her nuttier than this pecan waffle.
“Save yourselves the trip. I don’t plan on staying long anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to get out of here,” I told her. “I need . . . a change.”
If there was anybody who would understand, it would be Viv. It was no secret that she and our folks didn’t exactly get on. Sure, they made pleasantries during Christmas—for the sake of appearances—and Mama was over the moon at the prospect of having her first grandbaby—though I doubted she ever predicted that her tattooed, lesbian daughter would be the first to marry and procreate—but the buck stopped there.
Unlike me, Viv had cut ties with Charleston—and the purse strings that came with it—at eighteen and never looked back. I’d always envied her for her strength. Quietly, of course, but still.
“That’s not going to be easy,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’re going to need some money. And nottheirmoney.”
“I know.” I suddenly lost my appetite. “I’ve got some saved from my internship. Not a lot, but enough to get out of here.”
I had been interning with South Carolina Symphony’s social media team for nearly a year, but the money I made barely covered my daily commute. I didn’t have any savings. I had never needed to save. Not as Dr. Walden Winters’s bride-to-beand certainly not as Pat Myers’s daughter. I had always been taken care of. So much so that without knowing it, my name and identity had been completely erased.
It was a startling thought. To realize that as a woman living in the twenty-first century, much of my worth was still determined by my proximity to men. Well, fuck that.
I’ll mail Mama the swear jar funds tomorrow.
On second thought, no. I’d need every penny for my fresh start.
“Where are you going to go?” Viv asked. That was the real question. One that I didn’t have an answer for just yet. “You know you’re more than welcome to come stay with us.”
I smiled. “I think this is something I need to do on my own . . . for once. But I appreciate the offer.”
