Chapter 26
I WALK THROUGH THE doors to The Rundown Monday morning, and the name has never felt more fitting. This magazine and I are both completely run-down. The scene with Wilson lives permanently at the back of my mind, a constant ache that trickles down to my heart. He hasn’t texted, and I don’t want to push him, so I’ve been giving him some space. And Julie and Jillian haven’t come home.
It feels like I’ve reached exile status.
So when I step into the office and see Jillian there, seated at her desk, I nearly collapse on the floor. It’s the first time I’ve felt that there’s a chance everything will be okay.
I walk to my desk on wobbly feet. Jillian is my sister, but at this moment she may as well be a complete stranger. “Good morning,” I say professionally, taking a seat at my desk.
Jillian glances at me from the corner of her eye. “Hey,” she says before returning her attention to the computer.
I mean, lasers didn’t shoot out of her eyes and annihilate me on the spot, so a win is a win.
For the next hour I busy myself with online shopping. I had an email waiting from Camilla, asking me to compile a list of links for different office chairs. I need to keep the budget under three thousand dollars, and I email her the list by end of day. It keeps me preoccupied for a while, right until the door to Camilla’s office opens and she calls Jillian in. I try to make eye contact with Jill before she walks away, but she deliberately averts my gaze. There’s a thinly veiled twinge of sadness to the set of her eyes, and I know they must be discussing her promotion further—or rather, her lack of a promotion.
The realization feels like a finger pressing on an old bruise.
I peer behind my shoulder into Camilla’s office. The door is open the slightest crack, but not enough for me to make out anything other than the back of Jill’s head.
I just want to be able to ask her. To ask Jillian if the promotion is fully off the table. If there is anything—anything at all—that we can do to make it possible again.
Then it dawns on me.
Maybe it’s not too late to save Jillian’s promotion.
I lower the brightness on my laptop and pull up iDiary . Simply having it open in public feels so risky, but this can’t wait any longer. After my unread messages load up, I scroll down, down, down, until I find it—Jillian’s second message, where she asked to interview me. I type out a quick response, nothing more than two sentences:
If the offer still stands, I’d love to. Is it too late to get you that promotion?
I expel all the air out of my body and hit Reply.
I exit out of iDiary the second I hear the door to Camilla’s office creak open. My heart is beating so quickly, I barely risk a breath. Jill takes a seat at her desk and begins typing on her computer. I wait for some indication that she’s seen it: a look my way, a smile, the smallest raise of an eyebrow.
Then it happens.
I feel Jill staring at me. I don’t dare to look, but I can physically feel her eyes on me. My cheeks burn hot enough to rival the sun.
I wait until she finishes typing and then refresh my iDiary inbox.
One new message. And it’s from Jillian. Her response is even shorter than mine:
6pm. Let’s meet here .
The word here is underlined. I click on the link, and it takes me to a Google Maps page with directions to our house.
After Michelle drops me off at home, I run inside, grateful that I have a moment to gather my thoughts before Jill arrives.
My parents are out in the backyard. My mom is reading and my dad is lying in the sun with his shirt off. I raid the fridge, thankful for the peace and quiet, then take a quick shower. When my hair is wet and falling in ringlets over my shoulders, I look in the mirror and see this perfect blend of Jillian and Julie. That’s the strangest part—I don’t see my mom or my dad. It’s like I’m entirely made up of my sisters.
And there, nestled between them, is me—the person I am. Different from them, but the same in the ways that matter the most.
At two minutes to six, the front door opens. Jill must have texted my parents and told them to lay off, because—to my complete shock—they don’t immediately barrel into the house. They must be giving us space. I can hear the fridge open and close, then the squeak of the leather cushion when Jill takes a seat on the couch.
My hands shake when I walk down the stairs. I cross my arms, tucking them between my armpits. When I walk into the room, I stare wordlessly at my sister.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
I resist running over and hugging her.
I take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, gently tucking my legs beneath me as Jill flips open her notepad.
“What changed your mind?” she asks.
When I peer up from my legs, she’s watching me.
“Your promotion is more important to me than some blog,” I say easily. It’s true. Weeks ago, I choose my anonymity over my sister. Now I can’t imagine ever making such a foolish choice again.
I don’t expect her to thank me, and she doesn’t. But before she can get into the first question, I have one more thing to say.
“I’m deleting the blog,” I blurt out. “So I guess this interview is an exclusive tell-all. The rise and fall of pleasebreakmyheart or whatever you want to call it. Point is, whatever you need from me to get the promotion back on the table, I’ll do it.”
Jillian closes the notepad. “Are you deleting it because you want to or because you think it’s the only way Julie and I will forgive you?”
“Both,” I say. I’m moving forward with honesty here, and this is the purest form of the truth. “I can’t continue using that account knowing that every single post is going to hurt you and Julie. I won’t do that to either of you ever again.”
“Are you going to miss running the account?” she asks. Her notepad is still closed. I don’t think this question is part of the interview.
This answer isn’t as clear. “I will,” I say. “I’ll miss helping people and the validation that came with it. But...” In the moment, I come to a new realization. “I feel so different from the way I did when I began that account. I have my old waitress job back at Monte’s. I love working with you at The Rundown . Sure, running pleasebreakmyheart helped me unlock this new passion, but now I can find the right way to use it.”
I don’t mention my idea of starting an advice column at The Rundown . It’s way too soon for that. But I can’t stop myself from hoping that maybe, in a few days, once everything has settled, we can sit down with Camilla and talk about it.
Jillian opens her notepad and clicks her pen. I can see her enter journalist mode. She shifts her body, leans forward, her eyes narrow in on me. “Tell me about the moment you started the account,” she says.
The real interview lasts about forty-five minutes. I walk Jill through the entire process: my first post declaring myself a heartbreak expert, the first message I ever received, how the account went viral after @makeupbreakup reposted it. I don’t spare a single detail.
When she asks how the overnight fame made me feel, I tell her I soaked it in like a sponge. When she asks how much money I made off the account, I tell her zero dollars. I fire off an answer, and she fires off another question. She’s quick thinking, every question deliberate. She pokes and prods but understands exactly when to back off. Now, finally on the receiving end of her interviews, I get to see just how good she really is.
When the interview is done, Jill flips the notepad closed. Then she says the last thing I ever expected. “Don’t delete your account yet.”
“Why?” I say, bewildered. I was so certain she would be totally on board with the account being forever forgotten in the depths of the internet.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Just— For right now, leave it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I look over my shoulder and see our parents still sitting outside. “What did you say to keep them out there so long?” I ask, peering over at Jill.
“I told them if they gave us an hour alone, I’d move back home tonight.”
I suck in a sharp breath, my eyes immediately filling with tears.
Jill rolls her eyes. It’s the first thing she’s done in so long that feels so her . “Don’t cry,” she says. “God, I was gone for a week, and you’re turning into Julie.”
In the blink of an eye, my sister is back.
As if summoned by her name, the front door opens and Julie walks through. When I spot the overnight bag in her hand, I jump up from the couch.
“Hi,” I say. The word explodes out of me so forcefully that Jillian barks out a laugh.
“Hi,” Julie says. The moment she spots us on the couch together, she bursts into tears. “I missed you both so much.”
Julie and I collide in the middle of the room. She hugs me so tight I struggle to breathe, but it doesn’t matter. My tears fall onto her shoulder, and I don’t have to look to know that hers are falling onto mine.
Then she pulls back. I grow worried for a second before I see why: Jillian is standing awkwardly beside us, like she’s waiting.
My lip quivers. For the first time in a week, it doesn’t hurt to breathe.
I don’t poke fun at her. Neither does Julie. We probably will in a week or two. Right now, we open our arms and bring Jillian into the hug. Her arms fly around us, and we stand there hugging, crying, Julie slobbering all over everyone. I think we may stand like this for the rest of the night, but then the softest sound pulls us apart.
“Was that...”
In sync, we all look down. Right there, standing on the carpet at our feet, far, far away from beneath the couch, is Mr. Chunks. He meows again, his large eyes blinking up at the three of us.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jill says. “He actually does look skinnier.”
A second of silence ticks by before we all laugh so hard we are wheezing. Jillian and I are doubled over, barely containing ourselves. Julie has given up entirely and sits cross-legged on the floor, her face smushed into the cat’s neck.
“I missed you the most,” she tries to whisper.
“We heard that,” I say.
Then Julie tugs on both our hands and pulls us down beside her. We sit on the carpet, each with one hand on Mr. Chunks’s soft fur. He flips onto his back, purring louder than I thought possible.
“What were you guys talking about before I walked in?” Julie asks.
Jillian explains, then adds, “And Jackie wants to delete the account.”
Julie grabs my hand, her eyes growing wide. “Because of us, or because you want to?”
“That’s exactly what I said,” Jillian says.
“Because I want to,” I say. “But Jillian told me to hold off.”
“I agree,” Julie says. She rubs Mr. Chunks’s belly, then quickly pulls her hand away when he tries to bite her wrist.
Collectively, we all ignore that.
“I’m confused,” I say. “I thought you both would want me to delete the account? Why the change of heart?”
“Change of heart,” Jill mumbles. She grabs her notepad and jots that down. “I like that.”
Julie ignores her and continues. “Because of what you told us, how this account meant so much to you, Jackie. You said it finally gave you some sort of identity. I don’t want to take that away from you.”
“Maybe,” Jill adds, throwing her notepad onto the couch, “we can find a way to run it with more transparency moving forward?”
I consider their suggestions, then come to a final conclusion. “I know what I want to do.”
I grab my laptop out of my bag at the foot of the stairs. My sisters watch as I click into the iDiary settings and deactivate my account. Julie screeches. When I look up, Jillian is smiling. I know then and there that she was putting me first. That even if she wanted the blog deleted, she would have put her feelings aside and let me run it if that’s what I truly wanted. But now it’s my turn—my turn to put them first.
“Julie, I don’t need that account to give me my identity. And Jill, I appreciate the offer, but you don’t need to be selfless right now. I’m done with that account, I’m done with hurting you both ever again. Can we please, please forget it existed and be sisters again?” My voice cracks on the last sentence.
Jill’s foot hits mine. “Yes.”
“We’re still sisters, even when we fight, you big goofball.” Julie leans across to hug me, but Mr. Chunks again tries to bite her arm the moment it hovers over his body.
“For safety reasons, everyone keep all limbs to yourselves,” I say.
Jillian chuckles. “This guy loses a few pounds and all of a sudden turns into a monster.”
Jill and I look at each other at the exact same moment, like we’re thinking the same thing. “Or maybe he was always a monster,” I say.
“And we just never realized it because he wouldn’t leave the couch,” Jill finishes.
Julie alternates between glaring at the both of us. “Stop bullying my cat.”
Just as she says it, he swats his paw at Jill. His nail gets stuck in the fabric of her sock. “Looks like your cat is bullying us ,” she says.
We sit there for another hour, sharing all the moments we’ve missed out on. Even Jillian shares a tiny bit of information about Camilla—that they started dating two months ago. We don’t dare ask about the cheating, but maybe in the future she’ll open up to us about that, too.
When it’s my turn, I tell them about Wilson. I tell them all of it: the blog, Kenzie, my confession. I tell them how terrified I am that I’ve lost someone who was never really mine to lose, that even this moment of forgiveness feels tainted by the lingering ache in my heart for him. Because even though my sisters have forgiven me, Wilson hasn’t. And a big part of me is terrified that he never will.
“People need time to process their feelings,” Julie says to comfort me. “Wilson seems like he’s got a lot on his plate, and I bet this is wearing away at him, too.”
“Give him some time,” Jill says. “And then, make it right.”
“How do I do that?”
Julie squeezes my hand. “I think you already know the answer to that.”
It takes a moment for me to catch on. As my sisters laugh, I groan.
I peek into my future and see that familiar shade of green.