Chapter 2 #2
Because she wasn’t wrong. I did need money. Real money. A guarantee. Something to fund the thing I hadn’t figured out yet but knew I wanted to build.
But the trust? That wasn’t an option.
Marrying someone just to open a bank account?
Yeah. No thanks.
I wasn’t living in a rom-com, where that idea would somehow lead to love. In real life, that kind of thing turned into awkward dinner parties, silent car rides, and divorce lawyers who smelled faintly of mint Tic Tacs.
I’d seen my parents’ marriage. Their matching smiles that never reached their eyes. Their passive-aggressive comments. Their wealth had padded everything except their happiness.
I’d take broke over being trapped any day.
At least this version of broke was honest.
No safety net I hadn’t earned. No invisible strings. Just me, my choices, and the consequences that came with them.
Which left me … exactly nowhere.
I exhaled slowly and clicked back onto my laptop to start drafting captions for a flash sale on laundry hampers.
My life was glamorous.
As I typed, my mind drifted—annoyingly—back to Ledger.
The way he’d looked this evening. Heightened irritation wrapped around something softer underneath.
Worry? Sadness? Or was it just the exhaustion he’d been wearing like a second skin?
I didn’t know. It was hard to tell when his default expression to me was “glowering gargoyle.”
But he hadn’t been his usual self.
Not that I cared.
I definitely didn’t care.
It was just … weird. Ledger didn’t break patterns. Ledger didn’t forget petty nicknames. Ledger didn’t slip.
Whatever was going on with him, it had rattled him enough to forget to annoy me.
Which was unsettling.
I shook the thought away.
It didn’t matter. Ledger’s life was not my business.
And mine? Mine was a dumpster fire I needed to put out before worrying about dripping-wet, unfairly attractive swim-goblins with unresolved emotional baggage.
I spent the next few hours trying to concentrate on work—scheduling posts, answering emails, drafting replies to comments—but my brain kept circling the same drain.
I needed money. A real plan. A way out.
But how?
Quitting to take another entry-level job wouldn’t solve anything. It would just change the logo on my email signature.
What could I create? What could I build that someone would pay for? Something big enough to justify telling my mother, permanently, to back off.
Something that didn’t involve marriage contracts and signing my life away to some stranger with an approved pedigree.
My mind raced with possibilities.
A startup? A brand? A service? Something in content creation? Social strategy? Design?
Maybe something tied to animal welfare or local businesses or underserved creators.
I didn’t know yet.
But I wanted it. Badly.
Not just the success, but the proof.
Proof that I could build something without my parents’ money cushioning every risk. Proof that I wasn’t just playing at independence.
The desire sat heavy and glowing in my chest like a coal waiting to be fanned into a flame.
I closed my laptop and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
“If only passion paid rent,” I muttered.
My phone buzzed again, with a text this time.
Not from my mother. Thank goodness.
Not from a coworker.
From my landlord.
Hi, Roxie. Just a reminder that rent for next month is due in three days.
Panic clawed up my throat. Not just because of the rent, but because failing here would mean going back. Back to my parents’ house. Back to being “their daughter” instead of my own person.
I groaned into my hands.
This was fine.
Totally fine.
I was absolutely not on the verge of financially combusting.
I stood and paced my tiny apartment, trying to breathe around the rising panic.
Livvi would help me if I asked. She absolutely would give me the whole monthly rent instead of her half. She’d probably tuck me under a blanket, spoon-feed me homemade soup, and insist on paying our rent until I “figured myself out.”
But the thought made my stomach twist. Because asking her for money meant admitting I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. It meant being the messy friend. The dependent friend.
I loved her. I did. But I wanted to build something on my own. Not borrow someone else’s stability like a cardigan that didn’t quite fit.
I’d spent my entire childhood cushioned by other people’s money. If I was going to build a life that actually belonged to me, I needed to know I could stand without someone catching me every time I wobbled.
Something had to change.
Because if I didn’t choose my own direction soon, someone else—my parents, their expectations, their money—would choose it for me.
I needed to take control of my life. Soon. Today. Yesterday.
I needed—
A knock at my door.
I froze.
Another knock. Harder.
I approached the door slowly, cautiously, because some days it felt like the universe loved surprise attacks.
It couldn’t be Livvi—she obviously wouldn’t knock, and she was at her boyfriend Talon’s apartment tonight, probably eating Chinese and watching their shared pet fish, Sapphire, while they talked about romantasy books.
And I wasn’t expecting anyone else.
Which meant either a package delivery, a serial killer, or my landlord showing up early to remind me about rent in person.
When I opened it, I found—
Ledger.
Still-damp hair. Still-exhausted eyes. Still the man who set my temper on fire.
He held something in his hand—my forgotten water bottle.
I’d been so caught up in my interaction with Ledger that I hadn’t even realized I’d left it where I had been stretching.
“This was on the path.” His voice was low, flat, but not mean. “Thought you’d want it back.”
And then he handed it to me.
Like a normal person.
And for one baffling second, I forgot how to speak.
Not because he was Ledger Hayes, but because up close, damp and quiet and not trying to get a rise out of me, he was disarming in a way I did not appreciate.
Something really was off.
Something was wrong.
But before I could ask, before I could even decide whether to ask, he nodded once and turned to walk away.
I stared after him.
My heart did something weird. Something that felt like concern tangled up with an awareness I didn’t want to understand.
Absolutely not.
Nope.
I slammed the door shut and leaned my back against it.
No. I didn’t have the brain power to think about Ledger. I didn’t have the sanity for it. I had enough storms of my own.
But as I slid down the door to the floor, staring at the water bottle he’d returned, one thought dug its claws in and refused to leave:
If Ledger Hayes was coming undone … then something in my world was about to shift, too.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready.