Chapter 81
Chapter Eighty-One
Kit
I couldn’t get a flight back to Seattle until tomorrow. Just my luck. My only consolation? A suite at The Plaza—though even that feels like a cruel joke.
The room is quiet. Too quiet. That suffocating, overly pristine quiet that luxury hotels specialize in. It’s all plush carpet, bone-colored sheets tucked into oblivion, and dim art lighting casting soft glows over curated prints. Everything is elegant, curated, and calm.
And completely devoid of soul.
There’s no life here. Just expensive stillness.
The moment the door clicks shut behind me, I kick off my heels. One skids under the velvet armchair, the other lands sideways against the leg of the coffee table. They land like I feel—disjointed, thrown, tossed somewhere I don’t belong.
I want to shower. I want to cry. I want to chuck Serena’s fucking Fiji bottle out the window and hear it explode against concrete like a scream finally let loose.
Instead, I reach for the room phone. I press the buttons slowly, carefully. Like dialing will summon something more than just another conversation I don’t want to have.
Bernice picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kit.” I flop onto the bed, the stiff mattress barely giving beneath me. I stare at the ornate ceiling like it might offer me a sign, a sentence, a shove in the right direction. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course. Wait—how did it go? Did Serena make it through without firing the entire staff?”
“She made it.” I pause, the words catching in my throat. “I didn’t.”
There’s a long silence before she asks, “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t handle her meltdown,” I say, voice raw. “In fact, I can’t handle anybody else’s meltdown. I had to cancel lessons, walk out on my store, leave everything behind to babysit a woman who throws fits over room temperature and playlist fonts and goddamn Evian.”
“She’s our client.”
“We have other clients.” I sit up now, my pulse thumping in my ears. “And I don’t see you sending me to handle them. Laura’s on tour, and she’s lovely. I’d hop on a plane tomorrow if it were her. But, no—you send me here. To this.”
“Laura doesn’t need you.”
“Because she’s a decent human being,” I snap, pushing my palm to my forehead like I’m trying to press the heat out. “I’m over this. I quit.”
Silence. Complete and unforgiving, filled with all the words she’s about to say to make me feel bad about myself—about abandoning my father.
“I’m done, Bernice. With tantrums in green rooms. With water preferences and Skittles sorted by color and scented fucking candles that smell like despair.
With artists who throw their Louboutins across the room because their mic isn’t metallic enough.
I’m—” My voice breaks. Not out of sadness, but from the sheer relief of finally saying it out loud. “I’m just done.”
Bernice exhales. A long breath. “I was wondering when you’d say it.”
I blink, stunned. “What?”
“You’ve been holding on with white knuckles for months,” she says, her tone infuriatingly calm. “Though I hope you realize this is unacceptable and you can’t just walk out.”
Her voice, that measured corporate hush, does something to me. Something cold. My jaw clenches so tight I feel it in my temples.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I didn’t say anything because I thought maybe if I stayed long enough, pushed hard enough, showed up every time someone asked—maybe it would finally matter. Maybe I would finally matter.”
I’m not sure if I’m saying it to her or myself. No, this is totally about my father. How I’m still trying to get a sliver of love from him. It’s time that I realize that nothing I do will get me anything other than him asking for more.
I feel it all now—rage and shame and the bone-deep ache of someone who’s been trying too hard for too long. I want to scream, to punch a wall, to crawl out of this skin I don’t recognize anymore.
Because this isn’t about Serena or the agency.
It’s about my father. The man who built this agency with charm and grit and left it for other people to manage when the burnout came.
The man who told me I’d be his favorite if I just kept showing up.
If I just kept giving more of myself until there was nothing left but a fraying smile, aching feet, and silence no luxury suite could drown out.
It’s about me, dammit. For saying yes, every time. For thinking if I bent myself into enough shapes, someone might finally look at me and say, “There she is.” That’s the daughter he can be proud of.
The daughter he can love.
I want to cry, but I’m too angry. I want to blame them, but the truth is—I’m furious with myself.
For knowing this wasn’t sustainable and doing it anyway.
“I’m heading home tomorrow,” I say, voice flat now. “Then I’m done.”
“Kit—”
“I have to go.”
I hang up before she can pivot into obligation or strategy or one last plea for professionalism. I sit in the dim quiet of the room, the city humming far below, and wonder how long it’ll take before I start to feel like myself again.
Whoever that is.
My notebook’s buried at the bottom, between a dog-eared music theory book and a postcard from Cleo with a quote: “Don’t live the same year seventy-five times and call it a life.”
The hotel’s phone sits on the desk next to the laptop I hauled across the country. I plug it in, press the worn plastic keys, and wait for the dial-up to kick in.
It buzzes, clicks, hisses—like it’s arguing with the world before it lets me in.
That familiar mechanical melody fills the room. It’s annoying and comforting all at once. Like home, if home came with a 56k connection and a tendency to crash right when things got good.
The screen loads slowly, and the pixels drag like they're exhausted too.
And then—there it is.
A message from DeadStrings.
I sit up straighter. My skin prickles with something between anticipation and relief. I can’t wait to see what he wrote—what happened with Otis, his day, or whatever version of survival he’s fumbling through now.
The thing about this guy—whoever he is—is that something wrecked his life. Bent it in ways that still show in the way he types. But it didn’t erase him.
He’s still here. Still logging in. Still putting himself back together.
And that? That feels like something rare.
Something honest in a way most people don’t bother to be.
He’s trying.
Whoever he is, wherever he is—he’s fucking trying.
And maybe that’s the bravest, most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years.