Chapter 1 Bella #2
Most importantly, Nessa never treated me like an obligation just because I was her boyfriend’s little sister.
She was my friend. And by extension, all her friends had become my friends, too—a chaotic, supportive little coven of people who texted each other memes about cursed dice rolls and emotional damage.
It was a novel thing, really—having people like that in my corner. Growing up, I’d mostly been the tagalong little sister or the weird kid who preferred practicing the cello to attending pool parties. But with Nessa and her crew, I never felt like the odd one out.
They made space for me, exactly as I was.
Nessa
Seriously, why are you still there??
They also didn’t pull any punches.
Me
I’m trying to figure that out myself. Paralysis? Politeness? Sheer horror?
June
Or maybe D, all of the above.
A beat later, Jo sent a GIF of someone dramatically tiptoeing out of a church. I smiled down at it, thumb hovering over the reply button, then froze as warm breath fanned the side of my face.
Every muscle in my body went rigid and my brain lit up with alarms that screamed too close, too close, too close.
“Are you seriously texting right now?” Jasper hissed under his breath.
“Er, yes,” I whispered back. “Just letting the group chat know I’m alive.”
Not the best choice of phrasing considering the circumstances, but true regardless.
“A little disrespectful, don’t you think?”
I blinked, genuinely stunned at the audacity. Disrespectful my ass. The man who’d dragged a near-stranger to his ex’s grandma’s funeral was suddenly the guardian of etiquette?
“Excuse me, but I think that ship sailed when you brought me to a funeral for our first date, Captain Oblivious.”
His mouth opened then closed again, like a goldfish mid-existential crisis.
“I’m sorry?”
I tilted my head. “I doubt that. No, you’re more concerned about me checking my text messages than the fact that you tricked me into attending your ex’s grandmother’s funeral.”
The color rose in his face, but I didn’t stick around to see what shade of idiot he turned. Instead, I slid my phone back into my bag, jumped to my feet, and smoothed out my dress.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Anywhere that isn’t here,” I said. “And preferably somewhere with the dinner I was promised.”
A few heads turned. I pretended not to notice as I walked down the aisle, each step reverberating louder in my chest than the last.
The organ swelled behind me, a droning, dramatic soundtrack to my exit, and for once, I didn’t second-guess myself. Instead, I made a mental note to pick up a loaf of sourdough on the way home and another to research “organ lessons near me.” After all, what was one more instrument?
I hurried across the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, boots echoing like punctuation marks on my freedom, and slid into the driver’s seat.
I tapped out one last text to Nessa.
Me
Escaped. Heading home. Tell Jare-bear I’m alive.
Her typing bubbles appeared immediately, but I tossed my phone into the passenger seat before I could see the response.
I needed noise, not conversation.
I pulled up my favorite playlist, “Soundtrack to your Quarter-Life Crisis,” and let the opening chords of an early-2000s pop anthem fill the car.
As I merged onto the highway, I started cataloguing this evening’s lessons:
Never trust men who use the phrases “low-key” or “family thing” without additional context.
Never leave the house without a book or toy of some kind—traditional dating etiquette be damned.
Try not to confuse being open-minded with ignoring every internal alarm bell just because he holds the door open and uses conditioner.
By mile five, I’d almost convinced myself this would make a funny story later, when the dashboard lights started flickering like the Christmas lights I still hadn’t gotten around to taking down.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
The engine sputtered in response, a metallic cough that made my stomach drop.
“You motherfucking cunt biscuit.”
It sounded harsh, sure, but I’d once read an article that said people who cursed regularly had higher verbal intelligence. So really, I wasn’t losing my temper—I was demonstrating advanced linguistic processing under stress.
Take that, college.
One long, wheezing sigh and then silence. The car lurched once, twice, before coasting to a pitiful stop on the shoulder.
I turned the key again, hoping that maybe the engine just needed a gentle nudge rather than divine intervention. It made a noise somewhere between a cough and a death rattle. Apparently, dying was the theme for this evening’s dating misadventure.
I let my forehead drop against the steering wheel. “Great. Love this for me.”
A few cars whooshed past on the highway, their taillights glowing like little red reminders that everyone else’s night was going better than mine. I took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the cold.
The icy wind slapped my skin, slicing through the thin material of my tights as I popped the hood and stared into the steam curling around the tangle of metal and wires.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “You’re the one who quit.”
Who was I kidding? I was the common denominator in all my own disasters.
In just one year, I’d gone from double majoring in business administration and environmental science at a top-tier liberal arts college to working part-time at my brother’s girlfriend’s bookstore and living rent-free in his spare townhouse.
Jared had offered to buy me a new car when I’d moved to Rose City. “A reliable one,” he’d said, “with safety features and heated seats.”
But no, I’d insisted on doing it myself, on proving I wasn’t just Jared’s freeloading sister.
Which was how I’d ended up buying a used clunker off Facebook Marketplace that had been proudly advertised as “having character” and “great mileage.” Apparently, that was code for “will die spectacularly during moments of personal growth.”
Still, I wasn’t helpless. I’d taken an entire weekend workshop on basic car maintenance last spring, and I had the certificate of completion displayed on my fridge to prove it.
“Okay,” I said, removing my headband and gathering my hair up into a messy bun atop my head. “I can do this.”
I grabbed my flashlight from the glove box, braced myself against the cold, and got to work. If tonight had taught me anything, it was that I could survive bad dates, worse funerals, and now, apparently, my own damn engine.
And maybe that was its own kind of win.