I sigh heavily. ‘There’s that flair for the dramatic again. No one is making you do anything. You have free will; you can do what you wish.’
‘Behold,’ she declares, sending me another of her choice looks. ‘I send you out as a sheep amidst the wolves.’
‘What’s it to be then, Olivia?’ I ask, paraphrasing the rest of the dramatically delivered Bible verse. ‘Will you choose to be as wise as a serpent or remain as innocent as a dove?’
Chapter 14
OLIVIA
He left me with a sleek-looking business card and my choices ringing through my head.
Would I be as meek as a lamb and give in to my fate?
Or be as wise as a serpent and slither away? Or would I be the kind of snake Luke had been? Or he kind of snake that wants to retaliate or strike?
As for the dove metaphor, I’m not feeling very peaceful at all, though I kind of wish I had wings because then I’d fly off someplace where these troubles couldn’t follow.
Another week passes, and the payroll run is complete. An electricity bill sits in the kitchen unopened, waiting for me. I have three missed calls from my accountant, five more politely sterileno thanksfrom other finance options, and twice as many more refusing to take my call. I’ve spent hours wondering if I led Luke on. If there was something I did or said that would make him see me as unworthy. Disposable, even. The hours I’ve spent having conversations with him in my head I will never get back. But I’ve decided there is no way this can be explained away. There is no reason for what he’s done. In short, I’m never speaking to him again.
But that doesn’t help my options, which are few.
I am up shit creek and paddling with my arms against the current.
And the worst of the situation isn’t Luke’s betrayal, but the sense that I’ve frittered it all away somehow. My share of my grandfather’s life’s work. His and Gran’s hopes and dreams for me. I have a business that I’ve fucked up, despite my best intentions and hours of hard work, and only one very unappealing option to fix things. Maybe if I’d worked harder or smarter or taken more advice I might not be in this situation.
Was it pure hubris that will leave me with nothing?
And I’ve no one to talk things over with. I can’t call Reggie and tell her what has happened with Luke and Beckett and their fucked-up plans. I can’t tell her because I know she’d say the same thing I’d say if our roles were reversed.
It’s not worth it. Cut your losses and walk away.
But that’s because we’re both good friends who want the best for the other. But it’s a little different when you’re living in your own skin and wondering if retaining the moral high ground is worth losing the roof over your head.
I think I have to say yes.
Though not to becoming homeless. Yes to the other thing.
I sit on my bed with my back pressed against the headboard as I scroll through my phone, not truly paying much attention to anything on my social media feeds. I flip over to the E-Volve app, not because I’m looking for a hookup but because it’s mine. The one thing I own in my life. I grew this from a tiny seed of an idea where I wanted to find my best friend a date after she’d discovered her boyfriend had been cheating on her. It was a project, and that’s all. A project that’s grown and grown until it’s depleted my resources and left me on the verge of homelessness. Not that I’ll ever truly be homeless. I know my mom will always take me in like one of her strays. Reggie would make space on her sofa for me in a heartbeat. And then there’s Gran. She’d move heaven and earth to make sure I’m okay. But I’m nearly twenty-seven, and I can’t keep expecting people to clean up after me.
A fragment of our conversation in the coffee shop comes floating back to me.
Tell me more about this grandmother of yours, he’d said.
Why? Because she’s a neutral topic or because you pretending to listen to me would make me less of a bitch.
No, because I asked you,he’d griped right back at me. So I did.
She’s originally from Yorkshire but has lived in the States since she was seventeen. She followed a G.I. home after the war, against the wishes of her parents and all that kind of thing.
She must be very brave.
She says it’s what love does to a person. It makes you foolish, not brave. But he wasn’t a good husband, and the marriage didn’t last long. He was, however, good enough to die so she didn’t have to divorce him.
Sporting of him. I’d wrapped my hands around my teacup, finding I was fighting a smile. While aware he was up to no good, it just felt nice to talk about my favourite person for a while.
And your mother?
Divorced.
