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If you run with your eyes closed, you won’t know if you’re running toward danger or away from it.
I’m running right toward it, aren’t I?
Somehow, I have to figure out how to let go of this shit with my dad. He’s dead. I can’t let him rule over me anymore. I left home when I was sixteen. That’s three decades ago. And all this time, he’s still controlled me. He’s still been at the helm of this ship.
No more. I can’t allow it in my life. Not if I want to keep the people I care about around. I just lost Emma. I’m about to lose Rachel.
And if I’m not careful, I’ll lose myself, too.
Chapter 24
Rachel
Samantha is in the living room, practicing different shades of makeup on her forearm. She’s so focused on color blending, she doesn’t notice me coming in. I prepared two cups of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and I have a bag of crisps under my arm.
When I set down the cup, she looks up.
“Oh, this is great.” She picks up the cup and takes a sip. “Never should they allow anyone to have hot chocolate without mini marshmallows. It’s sacrilege.”
I giggle and watch her grab a handful of crisps, mixing sweet with sour. I shudder—I can’t mix my food like that, no matter how much I try.
“Why are we comfort eating?” Sam asks, her mouth full of crisps before she washes it down with hot chocolate.
“What are you talking about? I always snack when I’m here because despite the fact that we’re all in our thirties, you guys still shop like you’re in a college dorm.”
Samantha laughs. “It’s our lives. We decided as soon as we moved out that we didn’t have to eat anything our parents forced us to eat as kids. Perks of being an adult, and let me tell you, there aren’t a lot.”
I laugh and shake my head, sipping my own hot chocolate without the salty influence of crisps on the side. I love how carefree Samantha and Alex can be. Sometimes, I wish I could be like that, too. I’m also so damn serious about everything, sometimes, I wish I could just throw caution to the wind and live one day at a time. But I’m not hard-wired that way. I always think about the future. If I don’t have a five-year plan, I get anxiety. And if I don’t make an active effort every day to reach my goals, I feel like I might as well give it all up because what am I here for if not to achieve success?
“Never grow up,” I say to Sam and lean my head on her shoulder.
She giggles. “I’ll try to see that as the compliment it is and not the condescending comment it has the potential to be.”
“You see, you’re the boss of finding silver linings.”
Sam guffaws and I giggle into my hot chocolate. But my smile fades fast. I can laugh all day with my best friend, but that doesn’t change how things are going in my personal life.
“What’s up with you?” Sam asks when she notices how quickly my mood dissipates. “You’ve been down all day. Is work going okay?”
“Yeah, great, actually,” I say. “I had a consultation with a new client and it looks like I’ll get it.”
“Oh, wow,” Sam says. “That’s really good.”
I nod. “I can start doing my own thing if I can keep it up. I’m going to ask her if she wants to refer me to someone, get the whole word-of-mouth thing going.”
“It’s the best way to advertise because it doesn’t cost you anything.”
“And people love referring other people, right?”
“Yeah, for cool stuff like getting new clothes, for sure.” Sam tilts her head and stuffs more crisps into her mouth. The arm she lifts her cup to her mouth with is a rainbow of colors from her eye shadow pallet. But Sam has always looked like a walking artwork—since I met her, she’s been drawing on herself and trying out new things, using her own body as a canvas.
“So, what’s going on, then?” Sam asks after she chews, swallows, and flushes down another gulp of hot chocolate to complete the picture.
I sigh. “It’s Blake. I don’t know what the hell is going on with him. The one moment, he’s so open with me, confiding in me about serious things. And the next, he refuses to talk to me, to tell me what’s going on in his life, as if he has everything to hide.”
“What, like another woman?”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
