“My friends won’t talk to me,” she sniffles.
“I bet it’s because the troll’s alienated all your friends,” Darolina tells her. “That’s why.”
“But why would they listen to her?” Kathy’s shocked. “I was helpful. I babysat their kids, and pet-sat, and I’d come over to help them when they were sick.”
“Because they’re bitches, and not the cool kind. They were using you,” Carolina explains. “They didn’t respect you, because Knox wouldn’t marry you or give you a baby.”
Kathy’s sad. “Even if I do get engaged, they won’t care. They are out of baby mode. I don’t have anything to my name. I don’t even have a podcast. He didn’t even let me have an Instagram account. Oh! That’s what I can do.” She brightens. “A podcast.”
“I mean, you’d need somewhere to record, sponsors—probably ShiftGrid and HarborMade. I invested in their companies,” I rattle off. “They’d probably do me a solid.”
“Aaaand now Winnie is in fix-it mode. Kath,” Carolina says firmly, “Winnie is not helping you produce a podcast. She is busy. There was a man in here who was interested in Winnie, and you are giving her an excuse not to invest in her romantic future.”
“Clive just wanted free sex.”
“Um, no. Clive needs to be thrown into a pit of raptors. But Fitz was totally hitting on you.”
“Guys like him don’t hit on girls like me. And I’m glad,” I argue. “I don’t want to cater to a man like that. You seewhere it got my sister. I craved a spot at a table I should have fucking flipped.”
My sister sees right through it. “You like him! You like him,” she squeals.
“Fine.” I spit. “Just a little bit.”
“Oh, you should totally ask him out.” Kathy is sincere.
Right. Because for her, it’s just that easy.
After takingpity on the stragglers waiting outside, I let them in, tell Olive I’ll finish her shift, and send Kathy with Carolina.
Now it’s just me and Fidget in the empty, half-lit café, listening to the drizzle of the rain until finally, it’s time to leave.
And I can’t even go home to wallow in my self-loathing, to ruminate on the past, because my freaking family is in my sanctuary.
“That’s such a good word, ‘ruminate,’” I tell Fidget as I coax her over the puddles.
I grab the steering wheel, scream to release my stress like that self-help girl on Instagram tells you to do, then yelp when something pricks my finger.
“What the hell?” After fumbling for the overhead light, I wince in the brightness. Woven through my steering wheel, not yet wilted from the chilly Seattle-night air, is a dark-red rose. It perfumes the car.
There’s a note.
It’s fromhim.
Typewritten, it has that sharp scent of fresh ink alongside the slight scent of leather. I run my fingers over the indents from the typewriter.
I prefer my flowers with thorns.
12
WINNIE
“Iwish this was Fitz’s eyeball,” I mutter, stabbing one of the poached eggs I’m cooking.
Then I wince. I have a Band-Aid over the cut on my finger from the thorn.
Bad omen? No. My stalker cares about me. However, even the note from my stalker’s not enough to make me feel better.
I don’t need Fitz. I have a man who appreciates me for me.
