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Brooke
Ishould’ve predicted this morning’s scene at the office. My mother’s pride had been bruised, and she wouldn’t allow such a crime to go unpunished.
“Another glass?” Addison asked, pouring herself more of the red wine at my kitchen island later that night. We’d gone to breakfast still giddy with adrenaline, but by afternoon the loss of both our jobs had sunk in. Now, we were lounging in my condo, drinking wine and eating Chinese take-out food.
“Yes, please.” Guilt gnawed at me over Addy’s spontaneous resignation. “As much as I appreciate the solidarity today, I’m confident if you were to go in tomorrow and ask for your job—”
She scoffed. “Please. I’m not going back to there.”
But I worried. While I had money in the bank, Addison currently lived at home with her parents in order to save up enough to move out.
“Soooo…” she hedged as if about to bring up something I might not want to hear.
“So what?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About?”
“Moving to Vegas.”
I was stunned. “What’s in Vegas?”
“My cousin Malorie. She’s looking for a roommate to share the rent for her apartment, and it would be nice to have a change of scenery. Get out of my parents’ house for a while and act like an adult. Stop hearing about how I should’ve gone to college, should dye my hair a normal color, eat healthier, do something with my life, and be more like the perfect daughter.”
“Babe, you’re perfect already.” While my parents had ignored me most of my life, Addison’s parents had focused all of their energy on their only child ending up disappointed when she’d fallen short of their extreme expectations.
She sighed. “You’re biased, but thank you. Living here with my parents has been comfortable, working in the office with my bestie was easy, but I crave something different. You know, YOLO and all that shit.”
A smile tugged at my lips. She was all of twenty-four years old and deserved an adventure. “Although I’ll miss you, Vegas sounds exciting.”
“It takes less than four hours to drive there, or you could hop a quick flight to visit. Better yet, find a clinic there to transfer to.”
“Who knows? I might have to leave California in order to escape my mother’s wrath.”
My mother had quite the reach and was obviously on the warpath. Since I had money in the bank, I had the option of taking time off, but I’d worked my ass off to become a doctor. The thought of letting my mother derail a career I’d invested years in creating— I wouldn’t do it. I wanted the freedom of doing things on my own, and now I had the chance.
My buzzing phone pulled me from my thoughts. “It’s my brother.”
Addison waved me off. “Take the call, so you can catch him up. I don’t mind.”
“Thank you.”
I answered, walking into my bedroom. “Hey, Caleb.”
“Hello. I meant to call you yesterday to see how you did with the whole wedding thing.”
“Well…” I proceeded to word-vomit the details, starting with me quitting on Saturday night to this morning’s events at my mother’s clinic. He either listened quietly the entire time or had fled to another country. Drama wasn’t Caleb’s thing, which is why he’d avoided the wedding and steered clear of my parents these days.
“Are you still there?”
He sighed into the phone. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Trying not to tell me I told you so?” He’d been vocal about me skipping the wedding from the beginning, and not putting up with my mother’s demands.
“You’ll never hear those words from me when it comes to our parents. Are you okay?”
My chin wobbled, and I admitted that under all the anger was a healthy dose of hurt over my own mother treating me this way. But if anyone understood, it was Caleb. He’d been under the same type of pressure from our father. “I’ll be all right. Being free of working for our mother will help.”
