Chapter One #2
There’s a peculiar clarity that comes with knowing exactly how fucked you are. The panic recedes, replaced by a kind of hyper-lucidity—a state I’d only ever achieved once before, during a final exam at Columbia after three nights on Adderall and red wine.
This time, the stakes were higher.
The morning after the bathroom epiphany, I made myself a cup of strong coffee and set up shop at the desk in my living room.
The space was a museum of austerity: one glass desk, a leather chair, a half-dead ficus from a failed attempt at “greening” the place.
No photos, no souvenirs, nothing sentimental except the goat meme calendar on the wall, which was already two months behind.
I powered up my laptop and began.
First, the assets. Grandfather’s trust fund—ten million dollars, unbreakable except by me and one spectacularly corrupt probate attorney who’d retired to Boca Raton.
Two vacation homes: Maui and Palm Springs, both listed in my name for tax reasons, neither ever actually visited. The condo itself, which I could sell in a heartbeat, though that would attract attention from the family’s army of accountants and informants.
I drew up a spreadsheet, color-coded and obsessively tabbed. For the first time in my life, the numbers didn’t make me feel small. They made me feel, if not powerful, then at least... dangerous.
I called my real estate agent—well, my father’s, but she owed me for not exposing her affair with the condo association president.
“Ms. Liebowitz? It’s Carter. I need to offload two properties. Discretion is not just preferred, it’s mandatory.”
A pause. “I see. What’s your timeline?”
“The quicker, the better. Cash buyers only. And no mention to my father, obviously.”
She coughed delicately, as if to say, “Isn’t it always.”
By the end of the week, she’d moved both properties, “as is,” for just under ten million. She didn’t ask questions. Her wire transfer memo was “consulting fee.”
I took a perverse pleasure in how easy it was to liquidate my life. Maybe I was better at this than I thought.
The next step: disappear. I ran a search on countries with the best privacy laws, cross-referencing them against prenatal healthcare, citizenship options for unwed omegas, and the average temperature in December.
I created a ranking system, assigning point values for “low probability of Steele family infiltration” and “access to goat cheese.” Portugal came out on top, followed by New Zealand and Canada. I’d always liked Portugal, the way the air tasted of salt and old stone.
I booked tickets for a scouting trip—first class, but with a fake surname.
I’d never used a fake name before, and it felt like buying drugs from the internet.
I used an encrypted email service, paid with a new credit card in the name of “Jameson Carter,” and set up a forwarding address in Toronto, just in case anyone decided to get creative with their subpoenas.
For two weeks, I moved like a ghost in my own home. I packed only what I could carry: laptop, important documents, a few sets of clothes that wouldn’t show the bump for at least another month.
I didn’t tell anyone, not even Vivian, who texted daily with offers to “do brunch and fix your hair, babe.” I ignored the invitations.
I ignored Barrett’s emails. I ignored my father’s increasingly terse voicemails, though I did save one where he called me a “liability.” I played it back sometimes, just to remind myself that the world made sense.
I was almost free. Until I got the news alert about Victor Hargrove.
It flashed on my phone between emails: “Montana Cattle Baron Sentenced to Twenty Years for Attempted Murder.”
I almost didn’t recognize the name. Then I remembered: Rawley’s neighbor, the guy who’d tried to sabotage the ranch, the one my brother had mentioned in a rare, unguarded phone call.
I pictured the Hargrove spread, acres of fence-line bristling with security cameras, the house itself a monument to bad taste and new money. I pictured it sitting empty, a giant wound in the landscape.
An idea took root, fragile and absurd, but persistent.
I called a lawyer I trusted—a college friend, the kind of guy who wore Supreme hoodies under his Brooks Brothers jackets. He picked up on the third ring.
“Maxwell,” I said. “I need to buy a property, sight unseen, through a shell company. It has to close yesterday.”
He didn’t even ask why. “Send me the details,” he said. “And don’t use your regular email.”
Within forty-eight hours, the Hargrove ranch was in my portfolio.
Technically, it belonged to “Gorey Holdings LLC,” a subsidiary of a trust named after a character from a children’s book.
The transfer went through Melissa Hargrove, who was all too eager to liquidate and relocate to Scottsdale with her new tennis pro.
I didn’t tell Rawley. I didn’t tell anyone. I liked knowing that, for the first time in my life, I’d gotten ahead of the family game. No one could buy or threaten or outmaneuver me. Not this time.
I sat at my desk and pulled up the spreadsheet. After taxes, fees, and the Hargrove purchase, I had just over fifteen million dollars at my disposal.
I leaned back in the chair, hands over my stomach. “Not bad for a ghost,” I said, and for once, the echo didn’t sound like a curse.
My first instinct was to run straight back to Montana, to the one place in the world where my name meant nothing except trouble.
I wanted to book a ticket, rent a car, and drive the last two hundred miles with the windows down, the cold air burning the scent of hay and pine into my memory before everything changed.
But then I remembered what else waited for me in Montana.
Macon.
The thought of him hit me in the stomach, harder than any punch I’d ever taken. I paced the living room, hands cradling my midsection, thumb rubbing small, nervous circles over the new bump that was just starting to show under my shirt.
Montana meant Macon. And Macon meant a lot of things—risk, pain, the possibility that he’d take one look at me and wish he could erase the last year of his life.
Or maybe he’d be relieved. Maybe he’d slam the door in my face. Maybe he’d tell me, in that slow, deadpan way of his, that he never wanted to see me again.
I didn’t want to find out. Not really.
Instead, I packed.
I’d never traveled light before. My luggage had always been more about armor than necessity: suits, shoes, watches, enough hair product to survive a siege.
But this time, I packed only the essentials—two pairs of jeans with elastic waists, three old sweaters that still smelled faintly of laundry soap, a folder of documents that proved my identity and my child’s, and one framed photo of my mother, young and laughing, hair caught by the wind.
I placed it face-down in the bottom of my suitcase, wrapped in a t-shirt so the glass wouldn’t break.
The whole process took less than twenty minutes, but I spent an hour zipping and unzipping the bag, each time re-evaluating whether I could live without this or that. Did I really need the passport? The old college hoodie? The ugly ceramic mug from a gas station in Wyoming?
I added the mug at the last minute. Go figure.
My phone buzzed again, this time an incoming call. I glanced at the screen, already knowing who it was. HARRISON STEELE, in all-caps. The family phone plan. The name had never changed, not even after I left for college, not even after the fights.
I watched it ring out, the green and red circles slowly shrinking to nothing. He left a voicemail.
I didn’t listen.
Instead, I sat on the edge of my bed and let the stillness settle.
For the first time since the test, I let myself imagine a future: me, a baby, a little cottage in Portugal or New Zealand, goat cheese and fresh bread and maybe a dog.
It was almost laughable, the image so soft and earnest it made my chest hurt.
I traced the curve of my stomach again, this time with less fear and more curiosity. I wanted to meet this person. I wanted to teach them how to bake bread and say “fuck you” to bullies and wear ugly sweaters in public.
I wanted them to feel visible.
I stood up, went to the window, and looked out over the city. The lights made a million tiny stars, more honest and unpretentious than any real constellation. Below, cars moved in orderly lines, never deviating, never risking a single surprise.
Not like me. Not anymore.
I went back to the suitcase, zipped it up, and set it by the door. I felt an irrational surge of pride, as if the act of closing the bag made everything official. I was leaving, and this time, no one could stop me.
Except maybe myself.
There was still the matter of Macon.
I’d spent weeks telling myself he didn’t deserve to know. That he’d left me in that barn, that he hadn’t called, hadn’t written, hadn’t cared.
But the truth was messier, as truths always are. Maybe he’d been just as scared as I was. Maybe he’d had reasons. Maybe he was as lost as I had been, standing in the bathroom at dawn with a positive test and no plan.
The thought made my eyes sting, but I wiped them dry before the tears could form.
I knelt by the suitcase, unzipped it, and dug until I found my passport.
I flipped through the pages, half-expecting to find some message scrawled in invisible ink, some directive from the universe.
There was nothing, of course. Just stamps and dates and evidence that I’d existed, at least a little.
I replaced it, zipped the bag again, and stood.
“It’s just you and me now,” I said to the room. “And I promise, you’ll never feel invisible.”
The phone buzzed a final time. Another voicemail. I let it go.
On the way out, I paused by the mirror. I looked tired, but not defeated. For the first time in months, I looked like someone who could start over.
I palmed the key, rolled my bag to the door, and hesitated.
Just for a second, I considered the detour. One flight, one rental car, one night in Montana. Did Macon deserve to know? Did I owe it to him? Did the baby?
The questions hung in the air, heavy as thunderclouds, waiting for a wind to break them open.
I stepped into the hall, suitcase in tow, and let the door close behind me.
If I ever came back, I decided, I’d have answers.