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“It’s not a big deal,” she said. I didn’t know which one of us she was trying to convince, me or herself. “Adrien owed me a favor and I cashed it in.”
Wait a minute. “Heowed you afavorand you didn’t use it to keep your job? Or have him write you like a billion-dollar check?”
She turned her head to glare at me. “Are you hearing yourself? What part of ‘he was going to press charges’ do you not understand?”
My heart was galloping inside my chest, my fists tight at my sides. “It doesn’t matter! I—”
“It matters to me!” she snapped, cutting me off. “It matters tome, Ria!Icare if he presses charges.Icare if he goes after you with his lawyers.Icare if your life gets ruined.Ido! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
I had to remind myself to keep breathing. That a screaming match wasn’t a good idea when she was seven months pregnant. She was stressed enough as it was, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Look at you! Look at your life,” Alba said, pushing herself upright. Her eyes were wet with frustration, and it made me feel like absolute shit. “You’ve been on this prolonged self-destructive streak for years and I can’t sit back and watch you do this to yourself anymore. It’s fucking torture.”
She brought a protective hand to her stomach and swallowed a few times, trying to blink back her tears. “I don’t recognize you anymore, Ree… and it’s… scary. I don’t know what to do or how to fix it. I don’t know how to help.”
Alba paused, waiting for me to say something, but the only thing I could do was stare back at her, unmoving.
“I care,” she said again. “Icare about you.” Her lower lip wobbled and she wiped her leaking eyes with a shaky hand. “I know what happened with Josh was unfair. I know how… demoralizing it must have been for you. But it’s been ten years, and I just… you’ve let him win. Youkeepletting him win. You don’t care about work, you don’t care about meeting new people or making new friends. You don’t date. You don’t have any goals or ambitions anymore. You laugh and make jokes and pretend like nothing ever bothers you, but you’ve given up. You’ve numbed yourself to the point where you just… you don’t live. You exist and that’s all.”
Her voice softened near the end of her speech as she watched for my reaction.
I didn’t have a mirror in front of me but judging by the way her eyebrows pulled together, my expression was as blank and empty as I suddenly felt.
“Ree?”
“I didn’t ask you to fall on your sword for me.”
Her shoulders sagged with a deep sigh. “You didn’t have to, that’s the point. You’re my little sister. Not to mention you would have done the same thing for me.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Okay. Anything else?” I asked.
It took her a second to respond. “Huh?”
“Anything else I need to know or that you need to get off your chest?”
“Uh… no.”
“Cool. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Wait, what—you’re leaving?Now?”
I glanced down at my phone. 5:56. Adrien almost always worked late so if I took an Uber, I’d still be able to catch him before he left the office. Maybe. If security didn’t stop me.
“Yeah, I’ve got something to do,” I said as I ordered the car. Black Nissan sedan; less than a minute away. “We can finish this conversation later.”
She sighed again. “You’re mad at me.”
“You’re mad atme,” I pointed out.
“Is it because I brought up Goldman?”
I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “Yes. He’s on my off-limits list of topics for a reason. We’ll chat tomorrow morning.” After I’d fixed my mess.
I was out the door before she could argue.
5
