“Oh, my sweet girl,” an unfamiliar woman says. “Oh, honey. Come here. It’ll be okay.”
“She’s so mad at me, Mom. She practically ran away as soon as she saw me.”
Jitter whines.
My gut twists and I angle closer to the wall.
“She’s working through a lot of things right now,” Sabrina’s mom says.
“She used to work through them with me. Both of us. Laney and me.”
“Is she talking to Laney?”
“I don’t know. She’s talking to Theo. So she’s at least seeing Laney. And Laney told her what Chandler did. I didn’t. I should’ve told her.”
“Sabrina—”
“I should have told her. And I didn’t. And now she hates me.”
That’s not just my gut twisting.
It’s my heart.
I shouldn’t listen to this. It’s not my business. Not my place.
But she’s hurting.
I know that hurt. The sting of rejection. Of regret. Of helplessness.
And I want to hug her.
I want to hug her and soothe her and find a way to take away the pain, even knowing how dangerous she could be if she decides to use everything she learns against me to get me to leave this place without the satisfaction of seeing Chandler’s reaction to me destroying what was once his.
“She’s basically the most non-famous famous person in the world right now, and not for a flattering reason,” her mom says. “Give her time. She has a lot on her plate.”
“I’ve never not known what to say to her before. I’ve never not known what to say to anyone before.”
“You’ve both had a lot of hard change lately. Don’t expect yourself to be the same person you were two weeks ago either.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sabrina.”
“I am. I deserve this, so I’ll take my punishment.”
Shame and regret twist my heart region.
I’m punishing her.
She’s the accidental bystander in my quest for justice.
I’m hurting her.
“You do not deserve punishment,” her mom says. “Your heart was in the right place, and you did what you thought was right.”
“I just wish—I just wish I could go back and make Emma not hate me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“I hate myself. If I’d said something ten years ago, she’d be happily married, living the life of her dreams with someone who didn’t go from a decent guy with potential to a complete asshole.”
I take exception to the idea that Chandler Sullivan was ever a decent guy. And more than once this week, I’ve wondered what a woman that everyone seems to adore ever saw in him.
“Or Emma would be married to someone who’s terrible with kids and in an even worse situation now,” her mom says. “You can’t second-guess the past, and you have to believe good things are coming.”
The dog whines again. Actually, I’m not sure he’s stopped whining.
Jitter’s hurting because Sabrina’s hurting, and I’m hurting because they’re both hurting.
The worst part?
It would be so easy to despise her as much as I despise Chandler.
She has everything I’ve ever wanted.
Friends. Family with one black sheep instead of a whole crumbling mansion full of them. Community. Home. A mission and purpose that she’s never had to question and never had taken from her.
Until now. Until me.
I could hate her for making me second-guess everything I thought I stood for.
“I’m second-guessing everything I thought I stood for,” Sabrina says.
I jolt and stare at the wall.
Did I—did I make that up?
Did she just say exactly what I was thinking?
Their voices fade.
I angle closer to the wall, straining to hear while a familiar sick feeling churns in my stomach.
Shame.
I am the assholiest of all assholes.
I’m hurting her.
And I know it.
And I can’t stop.
The world isn’t balanced.
My world isn’t balanced.
It wasn’t until maybe four years ago, while I was still married to Felicia, that I consciously realized my siblings and parents were nearly through their trust funds. That when they manipulated me into using my ever-growing bank account, it wasn’t old habits to blame and shame me for being an accidental inconvenience in their lives. They needed the cash I was raking in from my patent to save face in front of their friends.
Having Zen show up on my doorstep asking for a place to live without judgment was the biggest wake-up call of my life.