Page 4 of Cruel Lies

Ugh. Even the subtly condescending tone of that dumb message is getting under my skin. It's like when Simone Marquez's mom in middle school used to look at all us girls before dropping us off at the movies to praise our outfits and wish us luck. She'd always save me for last, pulling me aside from the rest of my friends to whisper in my ear, "You're just so brave to wear a tube top, hun. I wish I had your body confidence! Go get 'em!"

The little confetti animation every time I open the BioInfo app is just the cherry on top.You did it!Sparkle, sparkle, fireworks popping, champagne corks flying.You reached your goal!

Actually, ma'am,I want to sneer at the app,I did not.Someone else did it for me, in my bathroom, in the dead of night.

An email notification descends from the top of my phone screen, confirming my flight change. With it comes a wave of anxiety. Just like that, I'm right back to panic mode.

I'm throwing away a gilded, gift-wrapped chance at success for my new company. Emmett Glover has a calendar guarded more fiercely than the Crown Jewels, but he made room forme.If I just tell the alarm bells in my head to STFU, I could be chatting with him over croissants and coffee in just a couple of hours.

Who knows what would happen after that? Maybe he'd fund me, and the rocket ship of my dreams would be fueled up and headed for the stars. Don't I deserve that? Haven't I worked hard?

Hell yes, I have.

But instead of capitalizing on all the hard work I've put in… I'm going to ghost him.

On the back of a nasty littlehunch.

I open up a blank email and type out a bunch of gibberish.So sorry, family emergency, would love to reschedule at your earliest convenience.When I read it back, it sounds like exactly what it is: a Hail Mary lobbed by a woman whose life is detonating in slow motion. He'll skim it and be glad he dodged a bullet.She's flaky. Unserious. Probably one of those founders who can't separate the personal from the professional.

He won't be wrong.

But I hit send anyway.

Because I know, deep in the pit of my stomach where a woman's intuition lives, that I am not going to be able to do one single productive thing until I know for sure who stepped their manicured little toes on my scale. Even if I could somehowforce myself to zombie walk into that coffee shop, sit across from Emmett Glover, and nod at all the right moments, it wouldn't make a difference. I'd be a hollowed-out gourd of a woman, rotting from the inside, thinking about a stranger's bare, dainty feet on my bathroom tile.

So I jump out of bed and pack. I throw yesterday's clothes—battle armor undergarments included—into my suitcase without bothering to fold them, then hurry downstairs to check out at the front desk, where a very nice young man named Bryce asks if everything was to my satisfaction. I tell him it was lovely.

Uber to the airport, TSA Precheck line filled exclusively with screaming babies and illegally registered Emotional Support birds/ferrets/gerbils, then a four-and-a-half hour plane ride scented with the burps and farts of the passenger to my left, who's inexplicably eating a pretzel with mustard for breakfast.

By the time we land, I kind of envy the wailing babies. I'd like to scream, too. I've spent the whole flight running through the list of possible rationalizations in my head.

Maybe Todd stepped on by accident with one foot still on the ground.

Maybe a raccoon snuck into the house. Or two raccoons.

Maybe someone broke in, and while ransacking the house for all my worldly possessions, they decided to take a quick peek at their body fat percentage.

But then again…

Maybe not.

I let myself into the brownstone a little after four in the afternoon, New York time. The first thing that hits me is hownormaleverything is.

Hayden's tiny rainboots sit by the umbrella stand, the ones with the frog eyes on the toes. Isabella's, even tinier, much pinker, stand next to them. On the console table, Todd has once again dumped his keysnotin the bowl that I put there explicitly for that purpose. The Glade plug-in by the stairs is still pumping out vaguely lavender-tinged chemical sludge.

It's a home. It'smyhome. I am suddenly, viciously possessive of all of it.

"Todd?" I call, even though I know he's not here, because I checked his location as soon as I landed.

He's at the office in Manhattan, like I assumed he would be. So I have a little while.

I stand at the bottom of the stairs with my carry-on still in my hand and look up the stairs, toward where our master bedroom looms ominously.

If I go up those stairs, I won't come back down the same person. There'll be a Before Cali and an After Cali, with this staircase as the dividing line between them.

But I can't rest until I know.

I have to know. Ihaveto.