Chapter 13 #2
I tell her about how I’ve been living a lie so long I didn’t even recognize it as a lie until I walked in on him with his secretary.
And then I tell her the part that embarrasses me most.
“I wanted to talk to the artist,” I confess, cheeks hot. “I wanted someone to tell me something good and real. Because I felt like I was going crazy.”
Willow’s eyes soften.
“Clara,” she says gently, “you’re not crazy.”
I let out a shaky breath.
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand, warm and steady.
Then—the door slams open hard enough to rattle the windows.
A woman storms inside.
She’s slightly older than Willow, blonde, mascara streaked like she’s been crying for hours.
Her cheeks are flushed with rage.
She’s shaking.
“Kelly?” Willow says, standing.
But the newcomer is yelling before she even fully clears the doorway.
“That lying, cheating, two-timing piece of shit husband of mine left me and our son to run away with his twenty-year-old yoga instructor named Stormee—with two E’s!”
The entire Lunchroom goes dead silent.
Some guy at the counter mutters, “Damn,” like he’s watching live television.
Willow stands up so fast the booth seat squeaks. “Oh my God, Mike? Really?”
The woman—Kelly—whips her head toward Willow like she’s been holding herself together by rage alone and Willow is the one person she can finally fall apart with.
Willow moves around the booth and wraps her in a hug.
Kelly clutches her like she might collapse.
I sit there frozen, burrito halfway to my mouth, watching this emotional hurricane blow into the room.
Willow pulls back and cups Kelly’s face.
“Okay. Breathe. What happened?”
Kelly sniffs, wiping her cheeks. Then she turns to me.
Willow turns.
“Oh!” she says, like she remembers I exist again. “Kelly, this is Clara.”
Kelly’s eyes flick over me, sharp and raw and overwhelmed.
“Clara,” Willow says, “this is my sister-in-law and the best woman I know.”
“Hello Clara, I am so sorry to interrupt your breakfast.”
“No, that’s okay,” I begin.
“Well, I’m Willow’s sister-in-law—Kelly McCrae-Stevens…” She winces like the name tastes bad. “Or I was. Luckily I can drop that jerk’s name easy peasy.” She blows out a shaky breath and shakes her head. “Anyway. I married a man who deserves to be launched into the sun.”
“Okay, spill,” Willow says instantly.
I choke on a laugh, because Willow says it like it’s a courtroom ruling.
Kelly’s gaze snaps to me, and my brain latches onto sister-in-law like a life raft.
So—Thatcher’s sister.
So—Willow isn’t Greyson’s muse.
So—my dramatic, tragic soap opera is playing in my head for no reason at all.
My heart does a weird, relieved stutter.
Kelly sniffs hard. “I came home from the supercenter and Mike had the minivan packed.”
Her voice cracks on the next part. “He was leaving a letter on the mail table—right next to the electric bill—like it was the same kind of chore.”
Willow’s face goes tight. “What about Evan?”
“He’s in school.” Kelly presses a fist to her mouth. “I’ll have to tell him after.”
Something in my chest gives way at that.
The casual cruelty of it.
Packing up and leaving like he’s changing cable providers.
“I can’t believe it,” Kelly whispers. “We’ve been together since we were kids. We’ve been through everything.”
“I never liked him,” Willow blurts.
Kelly gasps. “What?”
“It’s true,” Willow says, dead serious. “He looks at food like it’s the enemy. And I hate the way he breathes.”
Kelly lets out a surprised snort.
I gasp.
Then Willow starts laughing—and somehow we’re all laughing, too, the kind of laughter that’s half relief and half disbelief.
But it doesn’t last.
Kelly’s laugh breaks and turns into tears.
Willow’s arms are around her immediately, holding her like she’s keeping her upright.
“I’m sorry,” Kelly says into Willow’s shoulder, voice muffled and raw. “I don’t mean to cry. I just… I feel like my whole life has been a lie. We were together so long. Then Evan happened—he was such a surprise.” She swallows. “We didn’t think we could have babies.”
My heart clenches hard, because I know that fear.
PCOS doesn’t just mess with your body—it messes with your hope.
It makes you wonder what you’re allowed to want, and whether anyone will stay when things get complicated.
And suddenly I’m thinking of my own life—of Geoffrey, of the future I kept pretending I didn’t care about.
Of the fact that I never let myself imagine motherhood because I didn’t trust the person I was with to catch me if I fell.
“He does breathe loudly,” Kelly mutters.
“So, this jerk breathes loudly, and he left you a break-up note after how many years together,” I say slowly, voice tight, “and he took your minivan?”
Kelly pulls back, wiping her cheeks.
“We started dating when I was fifteen. So that’s twenty-seven years. Almost three decades of my life.”
“And he threw you away for a yoga instructor named Stormee—two e’s? Oh, honey, tell me you changed the locks already,” I say.
“Not yet, but I’m on it. In fact, I might put the whole damn place on the market. It’s mine.”
Her eyes meet mine—sharp, assessing, like she’s deciding something.
Then she says, in a tone so calm it’s almost eerie, “Are you looking for somewhere to stay?”
My mouth opens. “Um—”
“I have an empty room,” Kelly continues, eyes blazing, “and a lot of shit to pack up and burn.”
I wince because I get it.
This woman has been personally scorched.
Then Willow looks at me, eyebrows raised in a silent question.
And in that moment—between the burrito, the warmth, the unexpected kindness, and the fact that I absolutely cannot go back to my life right now—I realize something simple and startling.
I might have just found a place.
Not forever.
Not a fairy tale.
But somewhere to land while I work through my own shit.
I swallow.
I nod, throat tight.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I think I am.”
Kelly’s expression doesn’t soften—if anything, it turns sharper with purpose. Like a woman who’s done being polite to pain.
“Good,” she says. “Willow—tell Thatcher not to kill Mike.”
Willow lifts both hands. “No promises.”
Kelly snorts. “He’ll get his. I’m taking Clara back to the house, then I’m picking up my son from school, and then I’m buying him the bicycle his asshole father said he had to wait until Christmas to get.”
Willow’s grin goes a little feral.
“That,” she says, “is a perfect plan.”
And for the first time in a long while, I feel—like everything is going to be alright.
And that’s a damn good start.