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Chapter Twenty
Kris had a rock-solid strategy for managing emotional pain, which she dubbed the three S’s: Shopping, Spa, and Sex.
The morning after the MentHer gala and her breakup with Nate, she took her credit cards on a field trip to Rodeo Drive, where she racked up so many purchases the plastic grew hot to the touch. Once she maxed out her monthly limit—thank God her checking account remained flush—she unwound with a deluge of treatments at her favorite spa: an exfoliating body scrub, an oxygen facial, a ninety-minute deep-tissue aromatherapy massage, and a mani-pedi complete with paraffin wax treatments.
Except she didn’t unwind. She was tense and agitated the whole time, to the point where her massage therapist would’ve given up on her had Kris not paid four hundred dollars for the service.
The shopping and spa twofer had always worked in the past, yet the jagged spikes tearing up Kris’s chest remained. It scraped against her tender flesh every time she breathed until blood dripped from the shattered pieces of her heart. She’d look down every few minutes, half-expecting to see drops of red liquid glistening on her skin, but her exterior remained as flawless and well-groomed as ever.
It was only on the inside that she died.
Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it—Kris had another problem that distracted her from her metaphorical death: the Bobbi Rayden Tornado and Its Aftermath.
She’d woken up Sunday morning to a deluge of furious texts, missed calls, and emails from her now ex-boss because she’d completely forgotten about Sabrina Winters’Mode de Vieshoot…which had been on the same day as the MentHer gala. While Sabrina posed and preened in front of the camera, Kris had been running around, perfecting the centerpieces and liaising with the band at the YMCA.
Bobbi had not been happy, and she’d fired Kris in her last, all-caps text. Kris didn’t particularly care, though she experienced a frisson of guilt over her lapse of memory. She didn’t make promises often, but when she did, she kept them—for the most part.
The guilt had compelled Kris to call Bobbi and apologize. She managed to get the “sorry” out before the other woman hung up on her.
Bobbi told Roger about Kris’s fuck up, and Roger had been livid. The fact that Kris had been volunteering for a nonprofit had tempered his anger somewhat, but he’d still laid down his ultimatum: find a job for the rest of the summer or he’d cut her off. Again.
Never mind the fact there were only three weeks left before the fall semester.
It had been an epically shitty weekend, and her group video chat with Courtney, Farrah, and Olivia Sunday night only made her feel worse. As much as she enjoyed her friends’ company, they reminded her of the halcyon days of study abroad in Shanghai, when she’d been unencumbered by interest in the opposite sex. While Courtney got caught up in her drama with Leo, and Farrah and Blake turned into a total shitshow, and Olivia and Sammy became the world’s most nauseatingly sweet couple—though judging by Olivia’s current tone, there was trouble in paradise in New York—Kris had flown above it all, secure in the knowledge that she would never debase herself by falling for a guy.
Ha. Joke was on her.
However, she kept what happened with Nate to herself. She was so not in the mood to rehash her whirlwind romance and heartbreak. The wounds were too fresh, and she didn’t trust herself not to break down over Skype. Talk about Humiliation Central.
“I hate to cut this short, but we have to go,” Olivia said eighty minutes into their call. She sat next to Farrah, who was also interning in NYC, and they both wore casual-dressy black tops—standard attire for nights out in the city. “We have dinner reservations for a new pop-up restaurant in the Village that I had to practically sell my firstborn to get. But let’s talk again soon? I miss you guys!”
“Miss you, too.” Courtney blew a kiss through the screen. “We need to have an in-person reunion. Maybe a long weekend or spring break?”
Olivia brushed a strand of silky black hair out of her eye. “Sounds good to me. I’ll research and come up with a list of options.”
“Kris, when are you leaving L.A.?” Farrah asked. “Maybe we’ll overlap.” The girl was still twisted up over her breakup with that asshole Blake Ryan—Kris could see it in her eyes—but she made a valiant effort to appear upbeat and cheerful.
When Kris gave her the date, Farrah’s face fell. “Damn, so close. You leave the day before I get back.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” Kris said, trying on Upbeat and Cheerful herself for size. Nope, not happening. Probably because she wasn’t an upbeat and cheerful person even on a good day. “I have faith in Liv’s scheduling skills.”
Olivia dipped into a mock bow. “Why, thank you.”
After a few more minutes of idle chitchat and goodbyes, Kris’s friends signed off, and she lay on her four-poster bed, trying and failing to find solace in her luxurious surroundings. The things that used to fill her up—the designer clothes, the fancy furniture, the knowledge that she possessed the triple privilege of being young, hot, and rich—left her cold.
Not even Harry Winston could make her feel better.
Kris owned things that most girls would kill for, but they were just that—things.They couldn’t fill the hole in her heart, soothe her when she cried, or infuse her with a pleasure that went far deeper than the short-lived dopamine hit she got from a new handbag.
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it away angrily.
“I don’t cry over guys.” Her voice echoed in the silence and sounded unconvincing to her own ears.
Fuck this.
Kris refused to be one of those girls who couldn’t get out of bed because she was heartbroken. It wasn’t like she and Nate would’ve lasted, anyway. He was right. They were too different, and her initial misgivings about long-distance relationships were correct. They would’ve broken up eventually.
At least, that was what she told herself.
