Page 5 of Break Out

I groan, dropping my head into my hands.

Where am I going to find a date? And not just a regular one-evening wedding date. Oh no, this person must be willing to travel to the wedding and spend a week with me. I mean, at least it’s Key West and it’s the summer. There could be worse places to be stuck for a week with family. But still.

“You okay?” Summer’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

“Fine.” I frown and shake my head. “Well, no, not really.”

“Clara’s wedding?” she asks, stepping into my office and taking a seat in the chair across from my desk.

I tilt my head and watch my friend grab a Hershey’s Kiss from the jar on my desk and peel off the wrapper.

We’ve been friends since my first day on the job, when she plowed into my office and announced that we were going to be the best of friends since we’re the only two women in the astronomy department.

We’re complete opposites.

She’s outgoing and loud. I’m quiet and reserved. Her bright red hair and green eyes are a stark contrast to my brown hair and blue eyes. She’s always wearing a wild, loud outfit that only she can pull off. Today, it’s a blue and green plaid skirt, which I’m pretty sure is actually a kilt, black stilettos, and a black, oversized button-down.

I, on the other hand, am wearing my work uniform. A.K.A. a pair of black pants, a light blue button-down, and black flats. My hair is piled into a messy bun on the top of my head.

“Yeah.” I rub my temple again, feeling the beginning of a stress headache. Closing my eyes, I stretch my neck, hoping to relieve some of the tension that’s taken up permanent residence.

“Want to talk about it?”

I open my eyes to see Summer leaning forward in her chair, watching me. I shrug. I’ve told her some of the details of my relationship with my family, specifically my mother. She knows how much she’s been pressuring me to get married, settle down.

It’s not that I don’t want to find love.

Be in a relationship.

Even get married.

Because I do.

I’m just not willing to sacrifice something for it. At least not yet. Maybe never. Because that’s what happens when you fall in love—you make sacrifices. And you end up turning into someone you’re not. I’ve seen it firsthand everywhere I turn.

My middle sister, Brielle, was going to go to law school when she got pregnant with her daughter, Anabelle. My youngest sister, Clara, sacrificed too. She was going abroad for a year to study fashion so she could open a clothing boutique when she met Chet, her fiancé, and decided against it.

Even Thad, my brother, sacrificed. Although he didn’t have a choice. His marriage to his wife, June, was a business arrangement to merge two companies. When they first started dating and got married, I thought that perhaps they’d fall in love and end up happy. For a while it seemed like they were well on their way.

At the wedding they couldn’t take their eyes off each other and seemed to be in love. It didn’t last very long. Shortly after their first child was born, two years later, something happened between them. June stopped going to family events. Thad refuses to talk about what happened.

It’s gotten worse over the years. Apparently, June even has her own wing in their house. June and the kids aren’t even coming to the wedding. But they’re stuck with each other, they have an ironclad prenuptial agreement, so whoever files for divorce loses everything.

Apparently, a business deal was more important than their children’s happiness to my father and June’s father.

My mother sacrificed too, and maybe that’s why all my siblings have as well. She was an up-and-coming actress in New York City when she met my father. She was waitressing at a restaurant he had a dinner meeting at. Apparently, it was love at first sight and they spent the weeks he was in the city together. When he went back to Florida, they tried to do the long-distance thing for a few months, but eventually she gave up her career to be with him.

Maybe it was the right choice in the beginning, but I remember hearing them fight late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep. She’d yell at him about how she gave up everything for him and he was hardly around. His response was that it was because he was trying to build a business so she could have the life she’d always dreamed of.

Everyone in my family had to make a sacrifice for their partner, for what was expected of them. But I refuse. I refuse to give up my career to get married. I’ve worked too hard and for too long to get where I am today to give it up. I went to Brown, damn it, I have a PhD in Astronomy.

So I guess I’ll be the spinster Fairchild.

The fun single aunt.

But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I huff out a breath and say, “It is what it is. But on a more exciting note, I got the job.”

Summer’s mouth falls open. “You did!”