F O U R T E E N
LOS ANGELES, CA
"Fucking Michelle," I complain to Sadie, on our Uber ride back to the Airbnb.
She shoots me a pointed glare from the opposite end of the back seat before returning to her priority—the state of my career. She holds her phone on one hand and her baby-blue planner on the other, using her knee for support for the latter, and I pretend not to notice how many appointments she has scribbled out. In this industry, you have to be reliable, and I suppose I haven't been doing great in that aspect.
We don't speak much.
There wasn't much room for conversation before we got into the car, as it would be terribly inappropriate to rant about my family and Adam during a funeral, regardless of how despicable my grandmother was. Instead, I sat there on my designated seat, arms and legs crossed so tightly my muscles are still cramping, and stared right ahead, refusing to look anywhere but ahead. My eyes stung the whole way through, but I sat there, as straight as an iron board, refusing to shed a single tear.
Most people wouldn't have cared or find it odd that I was crying at my grandmother's funeral, as that's the normal way to act in such a situation, but I hadn't wanted to attract Adam's attention any further. Though my mother had been decent enough to keep us far away from each other—I suspected it was mostly to try and keep us apart for the sake of eliminating any violent triggers and not because she cares about my mental state—I could still feel the pressure of his stare glued to the side of my head.
Michelle overheard the conversation, though I'm not sure to what extent, and I'm not entirely certain I want to know. He doesn't know about that—I'm certain she's smart enough not to mention it to him—which keeps her on his good side and away from imminent danger, at least for now, but I've been in a nearly constant state of panic ever since. Sadie, of course, knows how rattled I am and doesn't need me to spell it out for her, knowing me well enough to see through the cracks in my armor. I suppose I'm too transparent for it to be obvious as well, as I've never been too great at faking my emotions around her.
"She's following us, you know," Sadie points out, closing her planner and stuffing it back inside her Givenchy bag, an accessory that probably costs more than everything I'm wearing today. "Her car has been following us since we left. I assume you know about this?"
Our driver, a twenty-something guy with a rattail, briefly looks back at us over his shoulder. "We're being tailgated? Should I pull over?"
"Drive, Petey." His name isn't Petey. I wouldn't be too surprised if this interaction ends up lowering Sadie's average passenger rating on the Uber app, but, at the same time, she gets away with things most people do not. "Harley?"
"Not here." I shoot a pointed look towards the back of Not-Petey's head, and she nods, immediately understanding. Los Angeles is the furthest thing from a small city where everyone knows everyone, but I stopped believing in coincidences and the power of fate years ago when I left, and I wouldn't be shocked to end up discovering this random driver is somehow connected to Adam. I don't want him to hear a word about what happened at the funeral and ruin things any further; mentioning Michelle has already been scandalous enough. "I think she wants to talk."
"That's convenient."
I sigh, running my fingers through my hair before pressing the heels of my hands against my closed lids. My migraine, caused both by my jetlag and my insomnia, refuses to give me a break from an already terrible day, and all I want to do right now is slide under my sheets in New York and sleep for an entire month.
I miss Nick.
I won't admit it to Sadie, especially not after all the stress I've been putting her through during the past week, but also because I can't take someone else judging me for putting myself first and following my own agenda. I've had enough of apologizing and letting other people guilt me into regretting decisions I've made for the sake of my peace of mind.
Missing Nick is a dangerous position to place myself in, but he's one of the few people in this world I can trust, and I need to have someone like that in my life who isn't the woman responsible for the state of my career. Whatever complicated feelings I have for him aside, he's been a constant presence in my life for years and I've grown used to our dynamic, even though half of our relationship is built on omission coming from my side of the street and, sometimes, my interactions with him don't feel genuine to me.
It makes me wonder if he can see right through me and pretends not to just to keep me around like a lap dog. It makes me wonder if he sees right through my bravado and knows I'm not ready to talk about it. I'm ashamed to even doubt his character, especially after he's shown time and time again he's someone I can undoubtedly trust, but it's part of my character to always be distrustful. I don't know how to live if not like that, and it's a big part of my protective shell. I need it to be there.
"Just leave it be," I beg her. "I can handle this."
"Can you?"
"See, it wouldn't kill you to have some faith in me every once in a while. I thought you were an apologist for facing my problems head first instead of running from them." The car speeds over a badly pavimented portion of the road, a clear indicator we're nearing the beach and, therefore, the Airbnb. Sadie and I both jump from the sudden loss of quality of the road, and vibrations buzz across my body. "It's fine. I'm fine. The quicker I get this over with, the quicker I can say goodbye to my dad and the quicker we get to go home."
Sadie sighs, staring out of her window. Her hand, set on her thigh, twitches, like she wants to grab something. "Home, huh?"
"It'll be just the two of us in New York, Sades."
"The two of us and Nick."
I wrinkle my nose. "Don't tell me you're jealous of Nick."
"He keeps you distracted. I'm not sure how great of a thing it is." She still avoids my eyes, but her tone has softened considerably. "Sometimes, at least. I'm glad you have someone that isn't nearly as intolerable as me."
⊹˚. ♡
Sadie decides she wants to cook lunch for the three of us and, as I settle into the living room after changing into more comfortable clothes (and getting out of those beautiful, but highly impractical shoes), I remember she's a lousy cook. I'm used to it, but Michelle isn't, and, for whatever reason unbeknownst to me, I care about my sister's opinion of me.
Whenever we eat together—the rare times she's not scowling at her plate because nothing is ever good enough for my girl Sadie—we either eat at one of three extremely specific places (Little Ways on West Broadway is her personal favorite), we order takeout from also specific places (the burritos from Electric Burrito are my favorite), or we get those subscription boxes of prepackaged meals or fresh ingredients that come with instructions so not even we can mess up. Having her try to cook something from scratch, with the ominous clanking sounds of pots, pans, and cutlery coming from the kitchen, doesn't look like a promising omen.
Michelle sits next to me, legs crossed in a lotus position over the couch, and, for a second, I almost forget we're estranged and haven't spoken in years. For a second, this almost feels normal, and we're not speaking simply because there's a petty argument looming over our heads instead of my deep-rooted trauma and her fear of abandonment.
"I have extra clothes if you feel like changing into something not straight out of a runway," I inform her, tucking my hands between my knees before I give into the urge of letting my addictions get the best of me. There's alcohol in the house and my purse is just a few feet away from me, where I've stuffed my pack of cigarettes, and I just need to get up from the couch and complete a few extra steps to relax. However, I don't want to give Michelle more ammunition to vilify me. "You don't have to—"
"I'm fine," she snaps, throwing her head back to rest it against the couch, eyes closed. "Stop trying to act like everything's fine."
I scowl at her childish attitude, though I'm not surprised by it.
I know I shouldn't let her talk to me this way—abandonment issues aside, I'm still her elder, even if the age difference isn't that big—and I shouldn't let her take advantage of the nature of the situation to air her grievances, but the sentimental part of me thinks I should maybe let her have this one, just for once. I can't forget the look on her face when I was screaming at her in that bathroom, or the way she forced herself to believe my issue with her being around Adam boils down to jealousy.
I know Michelle well enough to know she doesn't believe that, not really, and said it because it was the easiest answer to something she can't control. Whether I like it or not, she's been stuck in Los Angeles with our mother, all by herself, and the woman is a bigger control freak than I am, so it's no wonder she's grasping at straws to find something she can control. She can fabricate her own narrative all she wants for the sake of an illusion of control, but that doesn't change the truth.
"You're right," I confirm. "Everything's not fine. You looked me in the way and pretty much told me you don't believe a single thing I said."
She looks at me from the corner of her eye, arms firmly crossed in front of her chest. "That's clearly not what I said."
"Just because it didn't directly come out of your mouth that way, it doesn't mean it wasn't your intention to imply it. I don't want to sit here and waste my time trying to explain the worst event of my life to you if you're not willing to believe me over fucking Adam."
Michelle huffs. "I can't believe you over Adam and I can't believe Adam over you because I don't even know what happened. I overheard tidbits of a conversation when you were at each other's throats, like you always are, and my brain has learned to tune it out because you always fight with everyone. That's who you are. You like the attention, so you'll do anything in your power to divert the spotlight back to you—slapping him, scratching his door, arguing with him at Grandma's funeral."
My stomach has coiled into a knot so tight it's a miracle I haven't thrown up all over her.
I'm aware she's talking out of her ass simply because she wants to hit me where it hurts and it shouldn't bother me nearly this much, but this is my own sister. I can deal with the fact that I will never have a normal, healthy relationship with my mother, but Michelle is the one person in the world I was supposed to take care of and nurture, and I've failed to do the one thing that was expected and asked of me. It makes not caring about this place and these people so much more difficult.
"Listen to me," I mutter. "This has never been for attention."
"He was here. You weren't. You left, Becca. I've always had this . . . gut feeling he knew why you were gone and refused to say a word, so all this time I thought you had trusted him over me. I would've understood, you know." She gulps, still avoiding my eyes, but I don't think she would have. She's so unwilling to hear me out now that I can't believe she would've given me a chance back then, especially with how devastated I was. "Maybe he's the literal worst, I don't know, but at least I had someone."
"Michelle."
"I guess running away is in your DNA. You're just like Dad."
"Chelle."
"What?"
"Adam . . ." Tears prickle the corners of my eyes. The fact that I'm even talking about this in Los Angeles, out of all places, is baffling to me, but my courage is what frightens me the most. All this time, I was convinced bravery meant forgetting, pretending it didn't exist; after all, it certainly didn't make me stronger. It just ruined my life. "You have to understand it wasn't just my decision to leave. I was coerced to leave. I was terrified beyond belief. I was all alone."
She scoffs. "You had me."
"No, I didn't. You were too young, and he had me convinced no one would believe me, anyway." My voice sounds robotic, even to me, like I'm reading a script and this is just an audition. Sometimes it makes it easier to distance myself from this, pretending none of it ever happened to me personally. It happened to Rebecca Kane, the character I'm playing. "It's what this has been about for years—him exerting power and influence over me, operating on threats and my fear. He had an entire team of lawyers fighting me when I pressed charges, and he told me he would make my life a living hell. I thought . . . I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, but I didn't want him to go after you. I didn't want Dad to find out about it and be disappointed. I was scared out of my mind, Michelle. It was just me in a dark room, being told over and over again that my version of events didn't matter. That what I was doing was classified as defamation."
She's frozen in place, an image reminiscent of nineteen-year-old me, sitting in that room all by myself. "What did he do to you?"
"Don't make me spell it out."
"I want to know. I need to know."
I inhale.
⊹˚. ♡
this chapter had to be chopped in half because it was getting too long and you know how i feel about long chapters (here's a hint: i love long chapters. readers usually do not. sometimes i make sacrifices for your sake)