Chapter 12
INEZ
12
This morning’s interaction with Nolan has left me feeling completely confused.
Did we get a little carried away last night? Yes.
Was the kiss a wee bit inappropriate? Maybe.
Yet, I thought we could at least be grownups about the whole thing. Apparently, I was wrong.
A simple conversation could have put everything to rest. Instead, he chose to run away, as if I’m spreading some sort of airborne disease. That’s not cool.
All I know is, Nolan and I are clearly not on the same page.
I’m ashamed to say that his reaction dug up all kinds of emotions I thought I’d buried years ago. Echoes of rejection and abandonment, of not knowing where I fit in this world.
I putter around the kitchen for a while, feeling bad about myself. A melancholic sort of nostalgia weighs me down like a brick. I scroll through my phone, hoping to distract myself but the contents of my inbox only make my mood worse.
The television studio is requesting a sit-down interview with me. And I use the word ‘requesting’ lightly. I know a thinly-veiled legal threat when I see one. I did breach my contract with them, after all.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I feel myself on the verge of spiraling into a panic attack. So rather than sitting around Nolan’s empty house until my shift later this evening, I call a taxi and head out.
With no real destination in mind, I ask the driver to let me out in the heart of town. There’s just something about Starlight Falls’s infamous farmer’s market that has a way of taking my mind off of things when I’m not quite in the right headspace.
I wander around the booths, checking out the produce and saying hello to familiar faces. But I’m careful not to let the conversations go on too long. I’m still trying to duck all the gossip and prying questions, to be fair.
When I make it to Rainbow’s stand, she’s thrilled that I’ve stopped by. I come see her whenever I’m at the market. Everyone knows she has the best fresh produce in town.Her jams and marmalades are delicious, too. Now and then, she even has a couple different nutritious homemade meals for purchase.
“Oh, my beautiful girl. It’s so good to see you,” the older lady comes out from behind her table to wrap me up in a warm hug. Her wispy multi-colored hair tickles my face. Still, her hug feels so comforting.
“It’s really good to be home.” A sense of relief rises up within me.
“I was worried there for a moment that you might not ever come back,” she adds, holding me at a distance and giving me a soft look.Her metal bangles tinkle and chime with her movements.
“Well, I sort of—” Before I can finish my sentence, another voice cuts me off.
“Inez Machado! Girl, what on earth were you thinking walking away from a man like Vance Cavendish?! You’ve got to be crazy.” I glance over and see the florist lady hanging out the window of her flower booth.
Miss Holly from the antique furniture store approaches, nodding along. “That man is fire!”
“I’d bet he’s fire in bed, too.” Another of Rainbow’s friends chuckles.
The bagel guy leaves his booth behind and elbows his way into the conversation. “And even if he isn’t, I’d be able to over look that. Because he’s Vance Freaking Cavendish!!! I’d definitely let him whisk me away.”
More and more nosy locals close in on me. Then somebody thrusts a magazine in my face and my heart plummets to the ground.
I read the title of the gossip article with my face attached to it. The Bride Who Ran Away From America’s Favorite Bachelor:Who is Inez Machado REALLY?
My head is spinning. A tabloid story? A tabloid story about me?! Oh god.
I’m barely aware of the chatter going on around me now. The crowd continues to discuss my poor decision-making but I’m too disturbed by the magazine article I’m staring at to respond.
“You have no idea how lucky you were that he picked you,” some lady chimes in, shaking her head at me. “You know we love you but someone’s got to say it.”
“Right? When will an opportunity like that ever come around again, Inez? Especially for a girl like you.”
I gasp at that one. A girl like me…? So this woman doesn't think that ‘girls like me’ deserve opportunities, too? What the heck?
“Seriously though, you’re a beautiful woman, but you’re not getting any younger. By this time next year, the bachelor will be hitched to a hot, little 21-year-old. And you’ll just be…here. One year older.”
“Why the long face, honey? We’re only saying this because we care. You had a golden opportunity. We don’t want to see you regret this.”
Everyone has an opinion. I couldn’t get a word in, even if I tried. Thankfully, Rainbow steps up and chases off her nosy friends. “Would the lot of you back the hell up? You’re putting bad vibes on my avocado display.” She gently pries the magazine from my hand and shoos the crowd away with the dirty gossip rag.
But the damage has already been done. And now I’m wishing I’d just hidden under my bed instead of coming out in public today. But I don’t even own a bed. So there’s that.
Ugh. Why can’t these people respect my choices? Hearing all this shit-talk makes me doubt myself again and again.
After that tongue-lashing, I feel so dejected. I can’t help it. It’s bad enough that I already think those ugly thoughts about myself, but hearing it from other people?
Ouch. That really stings.
Deep down, I’m pretty sure I made the right decision. I shouldn’t be with some celebrity that I don’t even like. Much less, marry a man who’s not interested in getting to know me.
Even if I end up a lonely, lifelong bartender who works all day and comes home to seven stray cats each night, being lonely is better than lying to myself. Right?
Well, that’s what Nolan would say if he were here right now. But as I’ve already discovered, Daddy Grump Ass is not my biggest cheerleader today. I hate not having him on my side. He shut me out, leaving me truly questioning where I stand in this world.
I turn my attention back to Rainbow. The smile I’m wearing is faker than fake. “Anyway, I really just stopped by to say hi. I’ll get going now.”
“Well, it was so lovely to see you, dear.” Rainbow hugs me again. Then she whispers so no one else can hear. “Never mind those busybodies, moonbeam. Ignore them. You don’t owe them a thing.”
“Thanks, Rainbow.” I squeeze her a little tighter.
I’m a bit wobbly on my feet as I leave the farmer’s market. I still have hours to kill before my shift and nowhere to go. Except now, I feel even worse about myself than when this day began.
Hopping into the nearest taxi that’s parked on Morning Star Way, I ramble off an address that’s all the way on the far side of town.
Then I collapse back against the seat. Exhaustion hits me as my adrenaline rush withers away. I’m hot. I’m shaking. My mind is spinning. I feel like I just got verbally attacked.
But were all those people right about me? Was that tabloid magazine right about me?! Am I just an idiot for not sucking it up and marrying Vance?
“Ma’am. Are you okay?” the driver is asking me. I think he’s probably asked a few times, based on his concerned tone.
“Oh! Yes—of course I’m okay,” I chirp. My voice is an octave too high. “Thank you so much. Of course I’m okay.”
Except that I’m really not.
I drop my head into my hands and it takes all I can to not cry my eyeballs out.
My chest constricts when the car arrives at the last place I called home, right up until I turned eighteen. It’s a small house, with just two bedrooms and a fenced-in dirt yard out back. But it’s always been clean. Comfortable. Safe.
When the driver cuts the engine on the street, curtains flutter and curious eyes peer outside. Before I can finish paying the taxi, the front door to my former foster parents’s home slowly swings open.
“Inez?” An older man adjusts his square reading glasses and squints at me from the doorway.
I can hardly restrain the lump in my throat as I rush up the stairs and grasp him by his rounded shoulders. “Chen!”
A beaming smile lights up his face. “My god—it’s good to see you!”
An ache radiates through my chest. “It’s good to see you, too.”
He leads me inside, his frail arm braced around my shoulder. “Lian—you won’t believe who I found wandering around in the front yard,” he jokes.
“Is that who I think it is?” she questions, her voice already quivering with emotion. “Get over here, girlie.”
The tears I’d been holding back break free when I see my foster mother sitting in the living room. Without hesitation, I rush over and wrap her up in a hug.
The Wangs are really good people with the softest hearts. I’m forever grateful that they ended up fostering me after I bounced through a series of lousy homes around Starlight Falls and the nearby towns. If I hadn’t found them, who knows where I would have ended up.
While the older couple is happy to see me, the overall mood inside is somber. My foster mother’s health isn’t the greatest, and she’s almost entirely restricted to being in a wheelchair now.
It makes me sad. The Wangs have always been loving. Even though they don’t have a whole lot themselves, they’ve dedicated the last few decades to helping out kids like me. Kids who felt unwanted. Unloved.
After a few more rounds of hugs, I head to the kitchen and brew some fresh tea for them. When I return to the living room, they ask me about my reality show adventures. Then, they tell me about their newest foster child.It warms my heart to hear that they’re now caring for another teenaged girl.
“Do you think you could maybe go talk to her?” Mr. Wang asks me quietly.
“Of course.” I nod. “But what’s going on?”
The aging man shrugs. “We’re just worried about her. She’s having a hard time adjusting.”
“She kind of reminds us of you at that age,” Lian adds, deliberately pulling on my already threadbare heartstrings. “We think she might respond better to someone who’s been through something similar.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’ll see how I can help.”
It takes two solid knocks on my old bedroom door before the girl opens up.
“Thalia?” I ask quietly when she peeks at me through the crack. She swings the door wider and stalks back to her bed, virtually dismissing me. “Can I come in?”
She shrugs a single shoulder and picks her sketchbook up. I decide that’s a ‘yes’.
Walking into her room, I gaze around the sparse space, noting that she hasn’t done a whole lot of unpacking. She’s living out of a suitcase, just like me. I get that. It’s a big step.
Back when I moved in here, it took me almost six months to finish unpacking my two measly suitcases and stick a few boy band posters on the wall. I was always waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. Why unpack if I’m just going to be shipped off to a new place at a moment’s notice?
I sit down on the end of the bed, near Thalia but careful to give her enough space. “The Wangs are good people,” I start.
The girl rolls her eyes, not bothering to spare me a glance.
Ah. The sweet joys of adolescence.
“It’s okay if you don’t believe me. Give them a chance, and you’ll see for yourself soon.”
She responds with nothing but silence.
I carry on. “Believe it or not, but I was right here in your shoes not that many years ago. Right in this exact room…” My voice trails off as I look around. “This place looks kind of sad and empty without my boy band posters now.”
Thalia snorts, finally looking up from the sketchbook in her lap. “You? You were a foster kid?”
“Yes. Since I was eight years old.”
She shakes her head. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?” I ask softly.
She lets out a rough sigh. “You can’t possibly know what it’s like to feel invisible. You’re a reality TV star. Everyone is talking about you. You’re practically famous.”
My eyebrow cocks up in surprise that she recognizes me from the show. But the surprise quickly wears off. My face is now plastered on trashy tabloid magazines, after all. Good grief.
“Looks can be deceiving.” I feel that familiar old ache beneath my breastbone. “I never knew my dad. And my mom, she’s…she’s a…an addict. She’d leave home and not bother to come back for days at a time. Eventually, I got taken away from her. In all honesty, she didn’t really put up a fight.” This is still really hard to talk about so I summarize it all as emotionlessly as I can.
I sit silently for a moment, waiting to see if Thalia will tell me her story or ask questions about mine. She doesn’t. She just sits there, chewing on the corner of her thumbnail. I decide not to push it.
Scooping my hair over one shoulder, I turn to face her fully. “Trust me, Thalia. I know it’s hard feeling like no one sees you. It’s hard feeling like you don’t matter to anyone. But that feeling won’t last forever. Once you’re an adult, you can be anybody and anything you want. You just have to hang tight in the meantime.”
She nods, her eyes beginning to flood with tears. “It is hard,” she whispers.
I’m fighting back tears, too.“I know. But you’re strong, and the Wangs are special. They really do care. You think I’d come back to hang out with them seven years later if they were jerks?” I ask with a watery smile.
She shakes her head, swallowing visibly. I think she’s starting to believe me, and her vulnerability hits me in the chest.
I wrap my arm around Thalia in a firm side hug, surprised when she leans into me. We sit there in a comfortable silence for several moments, before I pull out my phone.
“Can I give you my number? We should go for ice cream sometime.”
She grimaces at me. “Ice cream? I’m not a baby.”
And there goes my ‘cool factor’, spinning the drain again.
I roll my eyes at her. “Coffee, then, since you’re so old.”
Thalia chuckles. “Yeah, okay. Thanks…Thanks for being nice to me. I needed it.”
That’s when I realize that I needed her just as much as she needed me today. “Thanks for being nice to me, too.”
I may talk a big game, but I needed my own reminder. Thalia and I? We can both be anything we want to be. We don’t have to limit ourselves to the cards we’ve been dealt. I just need to remind myself every now and then.