31. Are you okay? #2
Collecting my thoughts is like catching fireflies.
They blink brightly and fade just as fast. “Um…I guess they should know I was wrong for waiting so long to stand up for myself. That by the time I did, the only way I knew how to move forward was to react. I want them to know that…I’m not who they tried to create. I’m not the villain.”
“Junie, you’re not the villain. You’ve just learned to be your own antagonist. We can work with this, keep going.”
And for the next two hours, we do.
“This is really good,” Fen says, stepping back from the storyboard we’ve created.
His phone chimes, The Clash’s “I Fought the Law” playing loudly in my small kitchen.
“Hudson hates this song.” He laughs while checking the message.
“Hudson says, and I quote, ‘Tell her Cole and I went through all Natalie’s old blackmail, and we can prove duress using her threats against Junie. We’ll handle the foreclosure, loan, and any legal ramifications once I obtain a warrant to get proof that Tommy processed the original loan illegally.
Cole filed an AIA ethics report, naming himself the documented author of three projects, and he included proof of authorship, so this goes beyond Meridian now—he’s going after Natalie’s license.
The article goes live at eight tomorrow morning.
Don’t be cute, Fen, tell her verbatim.’”
My stomach crawls into my throat—I was just dropped off the top of a roller coaster I wasn’t prepared for.
Cole is…all in?
“He filed,” I say.
“Without telling anyone,” Fen confirms. “Including me. We only found out because he listed Hudson as his attorney, so he received an email confirmation. Cole signed his name to the public record on his own work. He made a choice to go against Natalie. He made a choice to fight—even before the gala.”
He doesn’t say to fight for you, but that’s what I hear.
“Wait,” I say, standing, then clenching my fists at my sides while my brain catches up. “Can he get into trouble? He did, technically, give her those designs.”
“Under duress,” Fen clarifies. “And Hudson now has the receipts that prove it.”
“Receipts,” I say under my breath.
“Junie.” Fen sets down his marker. “Do you know what this means?”
“Cole chose spite?”
He laughs. “No, I think he chose you. Again.”
I stare at him warily.
“Think about it, Spite-Berry. Cole has just done the public-record version of what you did with the Meridian email. He matched your move and raised you another by going after Tommy too. He isn’t expecting you to do anything with that information—he doesn’t even know I’m telling you.
The only reason I am is because if you found out from tomorrow’s press release, you’d be furious we kept it from you. ”
He’s right. I know he is. So why do I still feel the mountain of emotion crushing my windpipe?
“Talk to me,” Fen says. Part of the reason he’s so good at his job is that he’s so damn good at reading people.
“There are so many people to be mad at right now, but I can’t figure out my next move because I don’t know whose voice is telling my story.
Does that even make any sense? I’ve been Spite-Berry for so long I genuinely don’t know what I want to say when I’m not bracing for impact.
I-I still don’t know who I am. The Junie who arrived in Porchlight Cove is gone.
I’m not even sad about that. I’m just— I don’t know who replaced her. ”
“I can understand that.”
“And, as much as I love Cole, I don’t think he knows who he is either. Not now, when the rules he’s lived by have just come crashing down. How could he?”
“What are you saying?”
“I-I can’t be here.”
“Junie—”
“At least, not right now. I need time, Fen. I need space.”
Fen looks devastated, but I can tell he understands. “Are you sure about this?”
I nod, even though I’m not. I’m not sure about anything except that I’m confused and hurt, and I need spreadsheets for my spreadsheets to sort through this mess.
With a heavy sigh, Fen tosses his marker onto the counter. “What do you need?”
I stare at the storyboard behind him. I know that’s step one.
He seems to understand because he nods. “What else?”
“After we do this, can—can you just…let me go?”
“Jesus, Junie.” It pains him, but I know he’ll do it. “I can, but I don’t know if they will.” He jerks his thumb in the direction of Cole’s house.
“I just need a little time,” I plead. “To figure out who I am without all the…everything.”
He crosses the room and hugs me so hard I can barely breathe.
“I’ll do what I can. But trust me, a week is possible. Two’s pushing it. Longer than that, and I can’t be held responsible for what any of them do. And you have to promise to check in. Every day.”
“I will.”
“They’re going to kick my ass.”
“You run faster than any of them.”
“Good thing too. One more thing. You have to tell them that you’re leaving. We’re not running away anymore, okay?”
The promise I made Cole pushes against my ribs, so I agree. “While I…record this, can you gather the guys?”
Fen purses his lips but does as I ask.
I’ve read the script that Fen and I created five times. I know it’ll take approximately three minutes to read, so I head to my bathroom to wash my face and do my hair the way I do every other day of my life—haphazardly, like an afterthought.
Then I place my phone in the tripod that Fen left, open the video app, and press record.
I deliver it in one take.
It’s not polished or perfect. My voice cracks in places I wish it hadn’t, but I own it when it happens. I stare directly into the camera, even when my eyes fill with too much moisture. There’s nothing practiced here.
It’s raw. Painful. Honest.
When I’ve finished, I watch it back, only once. It’s not pretty. It’s not viral-ready. But it’s me.
It’s my story.
My truth.
Then I send it to Fenway, knowing he’s going to splice it with proof of my timeline of events, then I turn my phone off completely and walk back to my bedroom in the dark.
Cole’s office light filters in through my window, not brightly but a beacon just the same.
My hand hovers over my light switch. If Cole’s light is a beacon, mine will send a message, and I don’t know what I want it to say yet.
I leave it off, but I do plug in a nightlight. The LED is meant for a child but illuminates the space just enough to say I’m lost, but I’ll find my way.
It’s as much as I’m able to give for now.
Then I pack a small bag and walk outside.