Chapter 1
Carly
Yes,I am officially, technically homeless.
And I’m not sure I’ve ever hated a bathroom this much.
Not the one with the broken tile in my childhood home, or the shared one in my dorm at the University of Colorado, or even the one I threw up in one too many times at Folsom Field.
Nope.
It’s this one, tucked at the back of Boulder Canyon Cafe.
It smells like a combination of floor cleaner and spilled vanilla syrup.
I stare at myself in the mirror above the sink, trying not to obsess over the way the old, warped glass reflects my face as wider than it actually is.
My brown hair is still tucked up in the messy bun I threw it in after waking up so that no one on the street thought I was a drug addict on my two-block walk, my eyes a little too puffy, my lips a little raw and cracked from the dry winter air.
At least my work clothes double as activewear.
I look more like someone who was rushing off to the gym first thing in the morning than a homeless woman.
My reflection winces.
I dig through my work bag for my hairbrush and release the mess of waves from its prison atop my head, tugging the bristles through a little too aggressively, aiming for speed, not perfection.
Forty-five minutes until my meeting, and lord knows if I’ll have to vacate the bathroom for a customer in the middle of this and come back to finish later.
Zoe said the renovation of her bathroom would take two weeks. Two. But it’s been three so far because her landlord is impossible to get ahold of unless he’s begging for rent.
And as much as I’m grateful to her for letting me crash on her sofa for the last two months, going with her to her opening shift at the Boulder Canyon Cafe every weekday just to steal the bathroom is starting to actually drive me insane.
But I can’t complain.
At least not out loud.
My life has been spiraling down a storm drain, and Zoe graciously took me in like the actual angel she is.
It’s not like I knew my ex-boyfriend was about to break up with me — in fact, it was exactly the opposite.
We were about to sign a lease together, had plans to get a dog together, had window shopped for rings a week earlier, and the night he took me out to dinner at one of the higher-endrestaurants in Boulder, I was fully convinced he’d drop to one knee over drinks.
Or maybe after dinner.
Or after dessert.
Or on the walk back to the car.
But instead, he’d dropped the bomb that had made rubble out of my life: he’d been seeing someone else. Formonths. And he wanted to be with her.
Apparently, the ring-browsing had made him picture Sarah’s hand instead of my own, he’d had a sudden realization, and I needed to, as he put it,“get the fuck out of our house.”
I’ve never considered running someone over with my car until that day.
But Aaron is unfortunately not squished or dead or even maimed, and I am not in prison but instead living with my best friend from university until I can get my life back together.
And until then, I can at least pretend like I’m not a mess in front of everyone but her.
