Clean Girl Spring (Magnolia Springs #2)

CHAPTER ONE

The good thing about road trips was they gave you plenty of time to think.

… Maybe a little too much time.

If she’d stopped driving at hour one, perhaps she wouldn’t have spent hours two and three listening to “Before He Cheats” on repeat while she sobbed over the top of her steering wheel on the near-empty freeway.

If she’d stopped after that, then maybe she wouldn’t have felt the all-consuming desire for chocolate and, oddly enough, Milk Duds, that made her pull into the rest stop gas station.

Well, maybe she wouldn’t have been standing in the heavily-graffitied restroom, waiting for her hair dye to be ready to wash out.

She was a woman scorned, unmoored, and, yes, a little dramatic, but she desperately needed a change, to be in control.

Because ever since she’d walked into the apartment she’d shared with her fiancé and found him literally with his pants down, April had been existing in a state of shock, anger, and desperation.

Quite frankly, she was sick of seeing her red-rimmed eyes and the pale-blonde limp waves of her usually luxe hair.

That was the reflection of a woman she no longer recognized, whose life belonged in New York and began and ended with that man, in that apartment.

The face staring back at her in the mirror looked washed out, tired bags under her eyes made worse by runny make-up, and a splotchiness to her nose and cheeks from crying that only made her white skin look paler.

In the movies, the women scorned were somehow miraculously put together, or at the very least they cried prettily while drying their tears with the ends of their long, flowy hair.

April had burst a blood vessel in her left eye from crying until she was red in the face, and there was a slightly wild look about her that was unnerving.

She blinked, and the girl in the mirror blinked back at her, as if to remind her that this was reality. Her fiancé had slept with another woman, in their bed, and had the gall to offer the naked woman April’s robe while she’d stared in shock from the doorway.

She hadn’t waited for an explanation—not that there was one he could have given to excuse cheating on her—and had instead got in her car and started to drive.

The outfit she’d put on for the office, a tasteful silk blouse with a pussy-bow collar and a form-fitting pencil skirt in charcoal gray, now looked as wilted as she felt, crumpled from hours on the road and smudged with hair dye from her clumsy fingers.

Her phone had been blowing up since she’d walked out the door. Tyler’s texts ranged from apologetic to anger-fueled denials, words like you’ll regret this coupled with I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean it with only minutes in between, giving her whiplash.

Numbers slowly ticked down on the timer on her phone and April stared, barely seeing them, as her mind did its best to dissociate from the world.

The cashier had looked alarmed at the state of her when she’d walked into the gas station for snacks, the wariness increasing when April had stumbled upon the dye and dropped it onto the counter alongside a large amount of chocolate and candy. She couldn’t blame him. She looked a mess.

While she waited for the time to end, she did her best to clean up her face.

Mascara had pooled and streaked down her cheeks, giving her eyes a raccoon effect that had been heightened by the elegant chignon she’d been sporting earlier that day but which had started sagging off to one side.

Of course, the chignon was gone now in favor of a twisted ball of hair on top of her head coated in hair dye.

She could fix the mascara with a little water and damp tissue.

If only the rest of her problems could be cleaned up as easily.

The blue had been a risky choice. Not something New York April would have ever considered.

It was bright, fun, and not at all suited to the life she’d led in the city.

There, she’d been the perfect partner, the perfect employee, the perfect friend.

It had all been perfect, perfect, perfect—until it wasn’t, of course.

A cheerful jingling signaled the end of the countdown and she swiped away the notification without looking at any of the others popping up on her home screen. She wasn’t ready to read more of Tyler’s texts.

It was funny, really, what three hours with only your own company could do to you.

She’d almost walked past the dye on the shelf altogether, dismissing the desire to grab it in an internal voice that had sounded a lot like Tyler’s.

So she’d made herself go back and pick up the box that proudly proclaimed the color to be sky blue.

The faucet was awkwardly positioned, a little too low for her to get a good angle to rinse out the dye.

But it wasn’t like she could look any more of a wreck than she already did, right?

So she made the best of it and only hit the back of her head on the underside of the metal faucet three times—a victory as far as she was concerned, because the dye was out and the water was running clear and what could be more of a fresh start than hair a bright, beautiful—

“Green?!” she shrieked, hand thwacking into the mirror palm-first as she looked at the soaked strands of her hair. April forced out a breath and eyed the hand dryer clinging onto the wall. Maybe once her hair was dry …

The machine roared to life with a whoosh that smelled vaguely like warm carpet, and she grimaced as she bent over and placed her head under the stream of hot air.

By the time her hair felt close enough to dry, her hand ached from repeatedly slamming the start button on the machine, and enough blood had rushed to her head that she was more than a little woozy when she lifted it the right way up again.

Eyes screwed shut, she stumbled blindly to the row of sinks below the water-spotted mirrors and slowly peeked out at her reflection.

Well, crap. “Sky blue,” her ass.

Though, at least drying the wet strands had revealed a color more teal-like than ogre-green. Yep, you really showed him. Nothing says confidence quite like green hair.

She cleared away the tubes of dye that she’d used on her formerly blonde hair and dropped the box in the trash along with her used gloves.

Her reflection gave her a jolt every time she looked up and didn’t quite recognize the person standing there. In that, at least, the dye had worked as intended.

The bow on her shirt was loose and, in a fit of pique, she ripped it free and threw that in the trash too, stripping the whole blouse off of her arms and balling it up like it personally was responsible for the turn the day had taken.

Now clad in a tank and her skirt, with her freshly dyed hair forming waves from the harried blow-dry, her eyes looked brighter and the flush in her cheeks looked healthy rather than forlorn.

April sucked in a deep breath, held it for five seconds, and then pushed the air out of herself until she felt dizzy but more centered.

A vibration made her jump, her phone lighting up where she’d left it on the sink, and her jaw clenched as she strode over and saw Tyler’s name on the screen once more.

Instead of replying, she swiped to the left to open her camera and snapped several photos, before deciding on the one she liked best and dropping it into the group chat she shared with her best friends.

April:

The old April can’t come to the phone right now

Emma:

Oh my God

Emma:

I LOVE it

Emma:

New hair who dis

Izzy:

Only you could make green hair look THAT good

April smiled as Emma sent three GIFs in quick succession and Izzy clap-reacted to the photo she’d sent.

Emma and Izzy were ride-or-die friends. If she ever needed to call someone for help, no questions asked, it would be Emma.

Izzy was the same, though she’d probably ask some questions so that she could be best prepared for whatever the situation might be.

If April needed to bury a body, Emma would be there in a heartbeat, but Izzy was the one who’d bring the shovels.

She was glad that she’d put in the effort to maintain their friendship even after she’d moved away from their hometown.

She had a feeling she was going to need the two of them now more than ever.

April:

See you soon, girls. You can flatter me in person.

She locked her phone and made her way out of the restroom, raising a hand to the guy behind the counter in the store who looked relieved to see the back of her as she climbed into her car.

Her phone vibrated again and April glanced down, expecting to see messages from Emma and Izzy but instead finding another text from Tyler.

Ty:

Come on, baby. This is crazy. Come home. Please.

For half a second, she considered launching the phone straight out the window, before settling for throwing it down into the passenger seat and cranking up the volume on the car’s sound system as she pulled back out and onto the road.

“Maybe next time he’ll think,” she yelled, foot coming down heavily on the gas as the song came to an end, “before he … cheats.”

The song faded into a soothing instrumental melody of soft piano lo-fi and this time she didn’t hit the back button to re-listen to the same song.

Exhaustion finally hit her, making her blink blearily before deciding to open the windows so the cool air would keep her awake.

She didn’t have too far left to drive now.

Maybe if she’d been thinking clearly when she’d left, she would have waited till morning to drive off, because now she’d be arriving in Magnolia Springs late into the evening.

Late enough that her mom would probably have locked up for the night.

Kathy Jones was notorious for being early to bed, early to rise, always prepped, always in control.

April wished she could say the same about herself. She’d tried her best in New York but … look how that had turned out.