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Toni holds up a hand, silencing Lyla’s defense. “Cat, you’re never going to break free if you keep doing this.”
“I-”
“No. You listen to me now.” Taking my shoulders in her hands, she gives me an angry shake. “You need to wake the fuck up. Lizzie and I…Cat, we helped you. Okay? We were there for you.” She looks at the girls. “We all were.”
Neither Jules nor Lyla is going to help me, I realize with sick finality. They both just stand there, quietly passive underneath Antoinette’s decision.
And it’s at that moment, watching the three of them unite against me, that the person I have built over the last four years simply fractures. Everything that I have told myself, everything I’ve used to justify staying sober is a lie. Everything that I am—my job, my family, my home—isn’t real.
It’s all a pretty illusion, and I don’t know who I am without the fantasy.
I am nobody.
I am a lie, the made-up parts of me so thin that they crumble without resistance.
“You have money,” Toni says, taking advantage of my momentary lapse. “And someone who you love, wholovesyou. You have a chance at a new life, Cat.”
“I don’t want it.” Lie.
“You do.” When Juliette talks, her voice is quiet, almost pained. Her dark eyes are glistening with tears, but she doesn’t swipe them as they begin to fall. “It’s okay to be afraid, Cat. But this…” she raises her hands, encompassing the room, “this will always be here. And people like Aiden…You have to take a chance at that kind of happiness. Not everyone gets that lucky.”
“Where am I going to go?”
“You own like two houses,” Lyla snaps.
My gaze, full of speechless hurt, drifts to her but she just shrugs. “I’ll break it off with Aiden.” Even as the words come out my mouth, I’m wondering how I can make this work, how I can keep my relationship with him a secret if I stay.
“You’re so fucking stupid.” Lyla starts to walk away.
“Fuck you, Lyla!” The words tear free from me. But once they’re out in the open, I can’t stop. “You’re in love with Rye!”
Lyla’s shoulders slump. Slowly, she turns to face me again. “I told him, Cat.” Her blue eyes are dry but filled with grief. “And Rye still didn’t choose me. There’s a difference.”
I run both my hands through my hair and grip them there as I try to make sense of what’s happening. “Toni,” I plead, knowing she’s the only one I have to convince.
“Enough.” That single word slices through us, neatly severing everything that I once believed bound us together.
Pain as I have never felt before follows; it’s as if the separation is ripping my heart from my chest. But my anger smothers the hurt with bitterness. “Fine.”
“Cat-”
I don’t run upstairs to grab some clothes or make a plan to start moving my things out. I ignore hercompletely, and I leave Clementine Lane without a backward glance, my feet moving towards my car robotically.
I slam the door and start the engine. When I’m driving, I circle the neighborhood a few times, trying to think where to go. I pass the neat little Georgian-style home, with the sweeping porch and short, white columns. I glance at the kids playing in the park on the corner. I wave and smile at Ms. Simps, our sixty-year-old mail lady, as if everything is fine, as if I’m just popping out to the grocery store and will come home momentarily.
But everything is not fine.
It’s gone.
The truth doesn’t feel real. This is myhome. This is the only home I’ve ever known. The loss of it is like a death of sorts, one that has sick desperation clawing at me. My home, my friends, my job—gone. And the only people who might have once cared are the three girls in that house.
I need Aiden.
I even turn towards the freeway, intending to go to him. But I find that I can’t. Not now when everything is falling apart.
He’d be there for me. But showing up when I’m at my lowest when I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him I loved him when everything was fine seems wrong. Disingenuous. Almost like I’d be using him. It’s something Lizzie would have done, I think. But even that just makes me angry because it didn’t matter what Elizabeth did, Toni never would have abandoned her.
My desperation makes my skin itch. It would be so easy to drive to Venice Beach, park my car, and wander until I found a middleman. I could climb in the back seat and get geared up for hours. I don’t even have to go thecommercial route. I could go to the beach house for the night, wait until dark and wander into the nearest bar until I found someone down to party.
