Chapter 28 – Brinley
brINLEY
I picked a good night to pop a Xanax and let my phone die.
After Beau’s text about telling Luke, the panic swept over me in a cold sweat.
After the baby shower talk, after Giulia, after everything, I couldn’t even think.
I haven’t taken the panic attack meds since my doctor prescribed them, just in case.
Instead of just calming me down, the pills made me fall asleep on top of the covers in yesterday’s make-up and my underwear.
I woke up groggy and confused, blissfully unaware of anything that happened last night.
Now that my phone is charged and I’m dressed in the first pajamas I could reach, I’m starting to get the picture.
My world has already ended.
My phone is a disaster. Notifications are stacked so deep that the screen is just a wall of text. I missed six separate calls from Beau, not counting the texts from him that I haven’t opened.
Beau
Pick up.
Brinley, please.
They know. Everything. Call me.
I gnaw on my lower lip, pacing the five steps between the bed and the closet while I take in the damage.
Five steps. The width of my entire life right now.
If I were reading this on a Kindle I'd be on the page where the heroine has hit rock bottom and has to make a choice, and I'd be tabbing forward to skim past it because the suffering chapter is the worst part of every romance novel. Turns out it's even worse from inside.
While Beau has been desperately trying to reach me, the rest of my friends haven’t.
The group chat with the girls—the one where we were planning baby showers less than twelve hours ago—has gone silent.
And it’s not the comfortable silence of people who are busy.
It’s the loud silence of people who have nothing to say to you.
There are no private messages from Cat. Nothing from Maura. Pippa sent me a single text, but I can’t bring myself to open it. Nobody can deliver a venomous putdown like Pippa, and as much as I deserve to read it, I’m just not up to it. There’s nothing from Luke, either.
Somehow, his nothing feels the loudest of all.
My texts are full of messages from unfamiliar numbers.
The first one I open reads, What the hell is wrong with you ?
The rest, I’m guessing, are more of the same.
I start swiping them away, marking them as spam, but they’re populating faster than I can delete them.
Finally, I give up and put my phone on do not disturb.
I wish I could throw my phone away and pretend all this wasn’t happening, but I can’t.
I own a business, and I need to check its socials.
Of course, the Copper Cup’s Instagram comments are filled with cruel insults and threats.
Those, I have to delete. It’s just unprofessional to leave them up where the Ms. Grimsworths of the world can see them.
Which means I have to do the thing everyone wants you never to do—read the comments.
Fucking traitor.
I’d rather die than have a bitch of a sister like you.
You’re going to get what’s coming for you. Karma is real, bitch.
I clench my jaw as a tidal wave of strangers’ hate washes over me. My hands shake, or maybe I’m just shivering, because despite the mild temperature I feel so cold. Just when I delete another comment, more come in. I can’t stop the ride. It’s happening, whether I like it or not.
After twenty minutes of pacing and deleting, I give up on that, too. I’ll have to deal with it later, once the whole thing dies down.
If it ever dies down.
I can’t think about that right now. I can’t think about this hate going on forever, or I won’t have the strength to leave my bedroom.
When I open my emails, there’s a bad surprise waiting for me—an email from the Copper Cup’s leaseholder, Whit Bradford.
Normally, Whit and I have a great relationship.
He’ll stop by the store for a coffee a few times a year, nominally to check on the place, but really because he loves our croissants.
It can’t be a coincidence that he’s emailing me today, after the world learned my name.
Subject: Your Lease Renewal
Dear Ms. Windsor,
As you are aware, the lease for your business, the Copper Cup, is up for renewal next month.
Unfortunately, concerns about the nature of your business have come to our attention.
I am forced to reconsider whether your tenancy is desirable, due to reputational considerations for the building’s other tenants.
Please make yourself available at 10:00 a.m. on Monday so we can discuss your plans going forward.
Best,
Whit Bradford
It’s the professional language of a man who’s just found out his tenant is the anonymous blogger who’s been trashing Toronto’s most powerful social circle. He’s telling me, in so many very polite words, that I’m about to lose my building.
I sit on the side of my bed, and the world seems to tilt.
I knew Peppermint might lose me my friendships and relationships, but I never expected to lose the Copper Cup.
The place I built, my safe space, the whole community I built, will be gone.
I’m dizzy with the knowledge. I feel like I’m about to fall, even though I’m sitting down.
The door opens. Even the click of the door knob sounds wrong. Eden appears, her honey blonde tangled around her shoulders and sleep still in her eyes.
“I saw the comments,” she says. “I know what happened, and you’re freaking out, but we’re going to handle this.”
I shake my head the tiniest bit. There’s no handling this. There’s no world where all of this ends up okay.
Eden sits down next to me and rubs my back. “Breathe with me, Brin. Copy it. When I inhale, you do. Then we exhale.”
She grabs my hand and puts it on her chest. I can feel her lungs expanding, and instinctively, I breathe out when she breathes out. Even as my mind spirals, my body copies hers. We breathe in and out, in and out.
“Good,” she says. “Let’s keep going while you give me your phone.”
“No, Eden. I don’t want you to read what I read.”
“Don’t worry about me, Brin. I’ve heard every swear word in the book from my brothers already. At least let me clean up some comments on the Copper Cup Instagram, yeah?”
My stomach lurches, and I can’t tell if I’m going to throw up or just cry. “The landlord. He emailed. I’m going to lose it. He’s taking it away.”
Eden nods as she makes sense of my words. “You mean he’s ending the lease for the Copper Cup?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She pats my back again, like I’m a child. “Let’s not worry about that right now. How about I delete some texts for you, huh?”
I shrug and hand her my phone. It’s pointless, anyway. She won’t be able to delete them faster than they come, either. All the worst things are happening simultaneously. Peppermint is exposed. My relationship is exposed. My friends know. My brother knows. My lease is in jeopardy.
Five years of secrets detonated overnight and I wasn’t even in the room when it happened.
I didn’t get to control the narrative or explain. I didn’t get to frame it or soften it, or choose who heard what first. The secret got out, and now the whole world has declared me a villain. I built an entire identity around controlling the story, and I just had my story told by someone else.
“You missed some messages from Beau,” Eden says softly. “Do you want to read them?”
I shake my head. “I want to text the girls.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe you should eat something first. At least get out of this room. The longer you sit here, the more you’re going to spiral.”
“Give me the phone, Eden.”
“Only if you follow me to the couch.” She stands and walks away with my phone. She’s herding me, offering me a carrot like I’m an animal on her family farm. I’m too numb to be offended. I follow her on shaky legs. She only gives me the phone when I’m firmly seated.
“Just remember, you don’t have to say anything right now,” she says. “I’m gonna make you some toast, okay? And coffee, coffee sounds good, huh?”
I don’t answer her, because if she knows I don’t want coffee, she’ll know how thoroughly wrecked I am. I always want coffee. Instead, I compose a message to Cat.
Brinley
I’m so sorry. I know you can’t forgive me.
I deleted the words as soon as I typed them.
I don’t want to live in a world where sweet, gentle Cat can’t forgive me.
I open a new message to Maura, but I have no idea where to start.
What do you say? What words exist for I’m the person who’s been publicly dissecting your lives for years, and I’m also the girl who sat next to you at brunch last week and helped plan your baby shower, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but also you don’t know what they did to me, and I know that doesn’t excuse it, but it explains it, and I need you to know that I love you even though I did this ?
There are no words for that. Not yet.
Eden gently sets a plate of toast with strawberry jelly on the coffee table. “I really think you should eat this, Brin.”
“Maybe later,” I say dully.
Eden’s phone buzzes. She glances at it, and her expression shifts slightly. Fuck, did they find Eden’s number, too? Is she getting harassed just for being my friend?
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says brightly. “Coffee should be done. I’ll go get you a cup.”
She darts to the kitchen before I can ask more questions. I sink further down into the couch cushions. I don’t know how I could ever forgive myself if Eden had to deal with the Peppermint fallout, too.
A knock sounds on the door, and I practically jump out of my skin. God, what if it’s an angry stranger? If they found my phone number, they could find my address, right? I creep over and peer through the peephole, half-expecting a stranger in a ski mask with a baseball bat.
It’s not. It’s Beau. He’s standing there with a split lip and got bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept. I open the door.
“They know,” he says as a greeting. The world fell down, and he came. He came to stand next to me in the wreckage instead of siding with the people who are furious with me.
He chose me.
Not cleanly, not soon enough, not the way either of us wanted him to. But when everything collapsed, he chose me. Looking at his split lip and his exhausted eyes, I understand what it cost him.
I don’t fall into his arms. I don’t forgive him. I don’t say that I love him. But I open the door wider and let him in.