So I just cried. And cried. And then cried some more.
I’d stuffed the contents of my desk unceremoniously into a box, and every time I glimpsed it in the corner of my room, more tears gushed out.
I felt like a failure. A disappointment. A complete and utter fool.
Even Damian, the man who was supposedly so close to me, so enchanted by me, couldn’t be convinced of my worthiness.
I didn’t understand how Kendra’s job atBig Apple Magcould have led to me being fired, especially when she barely knew I worked thereandhad only spent one night here so far. That wasn’t enough time to dig up any dirt. The hardest hitting question she’d asked me was whether the brothers were as hot in real life as they were in photos.
Nothing made sense. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from combing through everything in my mind, trying to find the turning point, the moment when I’d fucked it all up. I certainly hadn’t leaked information to anybody. So how could Damian be so convinced I was the breach?
It was almost four o’clock by the time I felt like I could breathe again. The universe must have sensed my ability to function, because a phone call came in just as I tossed out my last tissue and took my first clear breath.
Tara.
I deflated, staring at the vibrating phone as I debated whether answering. Did I have the strength for this? I considered just letting it go to voicemail but changed my mind at the last second.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” Her voice sounded flat. She was pissed about something. Anxiety snaked cold and foreboding through me. “Thought you’d like to hear the latest.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a small laugh. “Do I?”
Tara cleared her throat, and I could practically see her adjusting her position in her chair the way she always did when she sat down to tell it like it was, a scowl on her face. “Probably not. Mom relapsed.”
The words settled in me like deadweight. Though I’d been hoping for the best, I’d also been expecting this. But I’d never admit it.
“Shit bricks,” I whispered.
“And I think we can safely say it’s your fault this time,” Tara went on, her tone snippy as hell. “We came up short on the halfway house payment, so she got kicked out. Her being back on the street, where do you think she ended up, Jessa? So thanks a lot for turning your back on your family. Is this what you wanted? Because you got it.”
The line went dead, and I was left gaping at my bedroom wall.
The tears returned in full force a moment later.
Back to crying, moping misery.
The logical side of me knew that my mother’s relapse couldn’t possibly be my fault. But Tara’s words cut deep all the same, regardless of my understanding of addiction. Because if she thought that, others thought that. Tara would be telling her kids the worst lies about me, leveraging my absence as proof that I was ruining the family. That my decision to follow a different path had left the rest of them on the road to disaster.
I didn’t want to believe it. But maybe she was right. Maybe she’d been right all along. There was still the chance that I’d simply been the one too foolish to recognize the truth.
I was on my way to the bathroom for another box of tissues when Kendra came home. The big grin on her face dropped immediately when she spotted me.
“Yo, new roomie. Everything okay?”
I laughed in spite of myself. My eyes were swollen, my face red, hair mussed. I was the dictionary definition of a hot mess. “Not really. But I’ll be okay eventually.”
Kendra dropped her bags near the front door and came up to me. “Want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know. I’m so tired of thinking about it and crying about it. My life just completely imploded, Kendra. And you just moved in. I don’t want to scare you off.” I dabbed at the corners of my eyes with a tissue, emotion still bubbling inside my chest.
Kendra squeezed my arm. “I hear that. If you want to talk, I’m here, okay?”
I nodded. “Off the record, right?”
She tipped her head. “What do you mean?”
“Like if I tell you something, you wouldn’t use it at work or anything…right?”