3. Addy
CHAPTER THREE
Addy
Cheap motels have a very specific smell.
It’s a combination of industrial cleaner, stale air conditioning, old carpet, and bad decisions, which feels a little pointed, considering I'm currently lying on a bedspread with tiny geometric patterns that absolutely have not seen the inside of a washing machine since Obama’s first term.
Maybe that’s unfair.
Maybe it’s only been since his second.
I stare at the ceiling, one arm flung over my face, and try to decide which part of my life is the most insulting right now.
The mystery stain on the curtain.
The flickering bedside lamp.
The fact that I’m in Chicago, alone, in a motel that charges by the night and looks like it has opinions about tetanus.
Or the fact that Bryce Biggs, coward, liar, human embodiment of an overpriced blazer with nothing underneath, didn’t just dump me at the airport. He apparently lied about literally every single practical detail attached to our move.
Even the address.
A building he sent me like proof that this was real. River North. Something with a short-term lease while we “figured things out.”
I even looked it up. Googled the street. Imagined myself there.
When I checked yesterday, standing on the sidewalk with two suitcases and a rapidly dissolving sense of self, the building existed.
The apartment didn't.
I drag my arm off my face and look at the water-stained ceiling again.
I should've asked way more questions. Why did I trust Bryce so damn much?
Idiot. It's clear the airport panic was nothing.
He knew none of this was happening. None of it ever was.
Why the hell did he wait until that moment to end things?
Why did he lie to me for so long? Why not just dump me before I quit my job or gave notice on my apartment?
“Honestly,” I mutter to no one. “At this point, if it caves in, I might take that as a sign.”
The ceiling, unhelpfully, remains intact.
My phone buzzes beside me.
For one delusional half-second, my traitor brain thinks maybe it's Bryce. Ready to explain that the whole Chicago situation is a misunderstanding. That there is an apartment. That he somehow has a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
It’s not Bryce.
It’s a bank notification reminding me that my account balance is lower than I’d like.
I sit up too fast, and the room tilts. Probably because dinner last night was a gas station granola bar and a Coke, which, according to every wellness influencer on earth, isn't a complete meal.
I grab the little plastic-wrapped motel cup and pour myself some water from the sink, which tastes vaguely of metal and suds.
This isn’t how my life was supposed to look on a Thursday morning.
I was supposed to be in some cute little apartment with exposed brick or whatever lie Bryce sold me.
I was supposed to be unpacking my clothes, maybe rolling my eyes at his inability to organize kitchen cabinets, maybe texting Luci that yes, I’d officially arrived in Chicago and no, I hadn’t yet murdered my boyfriend over his obsession with decorative throw pillows.
Instead, I’m in Motel Sadness.
And somewhere out there, Bryce is probably being insufferable in public with his new girlfriend, acting like he didn’t torch my life with the emotional equivalent of a flamethrower.
I grab my phone before I can talk myself out of it and open social media.
This is a mistake, I know it is.
It doesn’t take long.
There he is.
Bryce, in a photo someone tagged him in at some rooftop bar, looking tanned and smug and tragically pleased with himself, one arm wrapped around a woman whose face I don’t even know… but I know what she is.
The “someone more stable.”
She’s pretty in that polished way that makes me want to throw things. Dark hair, white teeth, a tight dress. One manicured hand on his chest like she’s proud of the prize she’s won.
Congratulations, babe. Enjoy your haunted mannequin.
My throat tightens anyway, because the awful thing about humiliation is that even when you know the other person is garbage, it still hurts.
It still gets in. It still sits in your chest and whispers that maybe you were stupid, maybe you were na?ve, maybe you were too much, too loud, too messy, too emotional, too all the things he implied when he decided to blow up my life in public.
I stare at the picture until it starts to blur, then I throw my phone onto the bed like it offended me personally.
“Absolutely not,” I say to the empty room, wobbling just a little. “We're not doing this again.”
I’m not crying over Bryce Biggs.
I press my lips together, breathe in through my nose, and count backward from ten like I’m one tantrum away from needing my own nanny.
By ten, I’m mostly holding it together.
By eleven, I’m furious, which is much more useful, because here’s the thing: Bryce always did love intense drama.
Everything with him had to be dramatic, heightened, cinematic.
A normal disagreement couldn’t just be a disagreement; it had to be a scene.
A job couldn’t just be a job; it had to be a launchpad to some bigger, better life he’d invented in his head.
Every month, there was some new obsession, some new plan, some new version of himself he was convinced would finally make him happy.
He said he wanted a move to Chicago, wanted a future, wanted us.
And now, looking back, I can see the pattern so clearly it makes me want to scream. Bryce was never building anything. He was always chasing the next shiny thing, and this time, apparently, that shiny thing was cheating on me and fabricating an entire relocation.
I scrub a hand over my face and swing my legs off the bed. If I let myself keep thinking about him, I’ll drive myself insane.
I stand, cross to the tiny mirror above the dresser, and look at myself. I look rough.
My honey blonde hair is piled on top of my head in the world’s saddest bun, there are dark half-moons under my eyes, and my oversized sweatshirt's giving “woman in witness protection” more than “fresh start in a glamorous city.”
“Okay,” I tell my reflection. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We're going to stop acting like we got stranded in the wilderness. We're in Chicago. There are jobs in Chicago. There's housing in Chicago. Millions of people live here on purpose.”
My reflection remains skeptical, but saying it out loud helps a little.
Enough that I shower in water that can’t decide between lukewarm and punishment, put on jeans and a cardigan, and attempt to make myself look like someone a respectable agency might trust around children.
By the time I’m dressed, I feel almost human.
I sit cross-legged on the bed with my laptop, motel Wi Fi wheezing bravely under the pressure, and start making lists.
List one: money.
Bad.
List two: places to stay.
Worse.
List three things I'm not allowed to do.
1. Call Bryce.
2. Text Bryce.
3. Stalk Bryce’s stupid face online again.
4. Admit defeat and go crawling home so everyone can look at me with pity.
5. Get murdered by renting a room from Craigslist serial killers.
That last one's very important.
I open a search tab and type in nanny agencies in Chicago, housing for nannies, live-in childcare positions, temporary housing options, and affordable sublets. Then I fall into an internet rabbit hole so depressing I’m pretty sure the algorithm starts feeling sorry for me.
Every apartment listing is either wildly out of my budget, clearly haunted, or in a location described as “up and coming,” which is realtor language for “bring pepper spray.”
“Cool,” I mutter, highlighting another listing that includes the phrase cozy studio and appears to mean a closet with plumbing.
I try agencies next.
That’s more promising.
I have experience. Good experience. References.
Years of childcare, including difficult schedules, special routines, bedtime wrangling, emotional support, school pickups, meal prep, and the incredibly specific skill of convincing a four-year-old that yes, broccoli can be magical if we all commit to the bit.
I’m good at what I do, I know I am, and the minute that thought lands, my chest steadies.
Because Bryce may have lied about everything else, but he didn't invent me. He didn't invent my competence. He didn’t create the part of me that knows how to build safety for other people, how to make madness feel manageable, how to walk into a household and make things softer, calmer, and kinder.
That part's mine.
He doesn’t get to take it.
My phone lights up with Luci’s name before I can decide whether I’m emotionally stable enough for a call with my super smart sister.
I answer anyway.
“Well,” she says immediately, “you sound tragic.”
I close my eyes. “Good morning to you too.”
“It's not morning anymore, you goblin. It’s almost one.”
I glance at the clock. It is, horrifyingly, almost one.
“That feels fake,” I say.
“That’s because you’re depressed.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“You’re in a motel doom nest, Addy.”
“That’s such a hostile phrase.”
“And yet accurate.”
I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling again. “I hate that you can hear my environment through the phone.”
“I can hear despair,” she says. “And possibly a vending machine.”
I sigh.
Luci softens a little. “How bad is it?”
And because it’s her, because she’s always been the one person who can ask that without making me want to perform okayness for her, I tell the truth.
“It’s really bad,” I say quietly. “There’s nothing here, Luce. No apartment. No job. Nothing. He made all of it up.”
There’s a beat of silence, followed by a level of fury so intense I can practically feel it through the phone. “I’m going to kill him.”
“That does sound nice.”
“No, seriously. I will drive there myself. I’ll wear gloves. I’ll be smart about it.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
“There she is,” Luci says. “I was waiting for that.”
“Barely,” I admit.
“I always hated him.”
“You hate everyone I date.”
“Incorrect. I'm highly selective. I hated him because he had the energy of a man who says ‘circle back’ in casual conversation.”
“He did say that once,” I mutter.
“See? Prison.”