Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
More important.
“Sara, she hurt your confidence, but she didn’t hurt you. Do you get what I’m saying?”
She nods slowly. “I hear you, and you’re right about some of that. I know it. I’m not … totally pity-partying myself. I’m still grounded in reality.”
“Good.”
“But that reality includes a whole other side of the coin, Banks.”
“Like what?”
She takes a long, deep breath. It’s one of those breaths that someone takes in preparation for something—a speech, a negative review, something hurtful. A bomb.
A wave of emotions rise in my chest, and I try to think of what to say before she can get the next words out. But I fail.
“I am in my mid-twenties,” she says.
“So am I. It’s a great place to be.”
“Okay, yes, you are. And you have a house, two vehicles, a business—a career. You have a family and Sunday dinners and pizza nights at Moss’s house. A nest egg.” Her eyes fill with pain. “I have … me.”
“Sara, stop.”
“My life is in boxes at a woman’s house who hates me,” she says, hiccupping back a sob. “I have a car that makes a whole lot of sounds when it’s been running for a while, which makes me nervous. I have two friends that have their own lives to take care of, no job, and a hefty amount of debt.”
I watch her wrestle with her words. I want to interrupt and argue all of those points—explain how we can fix them and express how fixable they all are, but I know we’ll come back to this. We need to come back to this. This is the crux of the issue.
The same one I discovered during vibrator gate.
“What Sabrina said tonight is the same thing that Joshua said to me.”
I get up, shaking my head. “I’m not listening to this.”
“Why? Because the truth hurts? Because it’s ugly?”
“Because I’m not going to listen to you talk about yourself like that,” I say, staring down at her. “And you’re not giving either one of those assholes any … relevance. Nothing that either of them said is true, Sara. It’s what people who want to rip someone else down say because it’s the lowest hanging fruit.”
She leans away, and I realize I’m shouting. I take a deep breath and blow it out.
“Look,” I say, crouching beside the tub. “Everyone has things about them that make them insecure. We all have wounds.” I quickly try to come up with something to relate to her. “Okay, like sometimes Maddox will come home from work in his suit and tie, and I’ll think, ‘Shit. Maddox looks pretty handsome. I might not be the best-looking one in the family anymore.’”
Sara grins.
“And if I didn’t prove to myself that wasn’t true, I might believe it. But instead, I go to a mirror and take a good gander and realize it’s just my insecurities screwing with me. There’s no competition. I am the handsomest Carmichael.” I pause. “And that’s what this shit is for you. It’s not real.”
She touches my cheek. Water drips down my face and onto my shirt.
“But it feels real, Banks. It hurts me. And you must be stronger than I am because I can’t just look in the mirror and see this woman that I’m just not.”
I sigh, wishing so much that this never happened. That smiley, happy Sara was with me at Jess’s looking at the baby chickens.
“And do you know what else?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“It looks real.” Her bottom lip quivers. “Foxx and Jess saw what was going on. They had to have heard Sabrina laying into me, and that’s humiliating.” She leans forward. “I’m so embarrassed, Banks.”
“Why? Sabrina should be embarrassed—not you. You did nothing to be embarrassed about.”
She lies back again, dejected. “I told you. This is my life. I’m not like your mom, or Brooke, or Ashley, or Pippa. I don’t have my shit together. Hell, I don’t even have my shit. It’s at Sabrina’s. Probably at the bottom of her driveway by now. Maybe nothing will be left by the time I get there.”
I don’t think that was supposed to be funny, but I crack a grin anyway.
“This is just a glaring reminder that I have a lot of work to do,” she says, the words dropping into the water like a coin in a wishing well. “I have to figure out how to pull myself up by the bootstraps.”
“I’ll help.”
“You can’t.”
“The hell I can’t.” I stand again, my thighs burning. “That’s what happens in a relationship, Sara. They help one another. They’re there when it’s good and even more when it’s bad.”
She smiles sadly. “You don’t want to be in a relationship with me.”
I chuckle. “You’re right.”
Her face falls.
“I need to be.” I sit on the edge of the tub and let her see into my eyes. “This is what I’m built for. This is what best friends do. And you’re my new best friend and a hell of a lot more fun than Maddox when he held the title.”