Chapter Twenty-One Kelly
Chapter Twenty-One
Kelly
Nicole, Brit, and Mona show up on Tuesday with wine, snacks, and what Nicole calls "emergency friendship supplies."
That was four hours ago. Now we're in my living room, spread across the couch and floor, two empty wine bottles on the coffee table and a third one open. The fire is going—Travis came over this morning to build it before he left for a call with Dave—and the house feels warmer than it has in days.
"Okay," Brit says, scrolling through her phone. "The Reddit thread has mostly died down. The top comment now is someone saying the whole thing is obviously a family dispute and people should mind their own business."
"That's progress," Mona says. "Yesterday the top comment was calling Kelly a succubus."
"A succubus?" I almost choke on my wine. "That's a bit dramatic."
"The internet is nothing if not dramatic." Nicole refills my glass. "But Brit's right. It's dying down. The news cycle is moving on."
"It's only been four days."
"Four days is a lifetime online. There's already a new scandal—some influencer lied about being at a charity event. Everyone's talking about that now."
I should feel relieved. And part of me does. But there's another part that can't quite let go of the past few days—the panic, the exposure, the feeling of being watched and judged by thousands of strangers who didn't know me at all.
"How are you, really?" Nicole asks. She's sitting next to me on the couch, close enough that our shoulders touch. "And don't say fine. I can tell when you're lying."
I take a breath. "I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm relieved it's dying down but also terrified it's going to flare up again." I stare into my wine glass. "And I feel stupid for being this upset about it. People deal with worse things every day."
"Your feelings aren't stupid," Mona says. "You had your privacy violated. Your name dragged through the mud. That's traumatic, Kelly."
"It doesn't feel like trauma. It just feels like... embarrassment. Like I got caught doing something wrong, even though I didn't do anything wrong."
"That's how they want you to feel." Brit sets down her phone. "That's the whole point of stories like this. Make the woman feel ashamed, make her question herself, make her doubt her own reality. It's gaslighting on a massive scale."
"When did you become a media critic?"
"I took a class in college. Also, I've been reading a lot of think pieces since this happened." She shrugs. "I wanted to understand what you were going through."
"The worst part," I say, "is knowing his family did this. People who are supposed to love him. They didn't care that they were hurting him too—they just wanted to hurt me."
"They wanted to control the narrative," Nicole says. "You're a threat to them. You're someone he chose over them, and they can't handle it."
"I didn't ask him to choose me."
"You didn't have to. That's what makes you dangerous." She takes a sip of wine. "Real love doesn't ask for loyalty tests. It just shows up. And Travis showed up for you. His family can't compete with that, so they're trying to destroy it instead."
I think about that. About Travis cutting off his family for me, about the phone call with Savannah, about everything he's sacrificed just to be here. It still doesn't feel real sometimes—that someone would choose me over their own blood.
"How's your mom handling it?" Mona asks gently.
"Better than I expected. She was upset at first—called me crying, asking why she had to hear about my boyfriend from a gossip site.
But once I explained everything, she was actually really supportive.
" I smile. "She wants to meet him. Said anyone who's willing to stand up to his own family for me must be worth knowing. "
"Smart woman."
"She has her moments."
Something warm spreads through my chest. These women—my friends, my people—drove four hours to sit on my floor and drink wine and tell me I'm not crazy. I don't know what I did to deserve them, but I'm grateful every day.
"Okay, enough doom and gloom," Nicole announces. "We came here to cheer you up, not make you more depressed. Brit, tell Kelly about your Hinge disaster."
"Oh god." Brit groans. "Do I have to?"
"Yes. It's hilarious and Kelly needs to laugh."
Brit takes a long sip of wine, steeling herself. "Fine. Okay. So I matched with this guy last week. Cute, seemed normal, had a bio that wasn't just his height and a fish picture. We talked for a few days, decided to meet up for coffee."
"This sounds promising so far," I say.
"It was promising. Until I got there and realized he'd used photos from ten years ago. And I don't mean like, slightly older photos. I mean this man looked like a completely different person. He'd gained fifty pounds and lost most of his hair."
"Oh no."
"Oh yes. But here's the thing—I'm not shallow. I was willing to give him a chance. People change, right? Maybe we'd still have chemistry." Brit shakes her head. "We did not have chemistry. Because within five minutes of sitting down, he started telling me about his ex-wife."
"His ex-wife?"
"His ex-wife. In detail. How she left him for his best friend.
How she took the dog. How she's probably a narcissist, according to a quiz he took online.
" Brit finishes her wine in one gulp. "I sat there for forty-five minutes listening to this man process his divorce.
I learned more about his marriage than some of his family members probably know. "
"Please tell me you escaped."
"I told him I had a work emergency. He asked if he could call me. I said my phone was broken." She sighs. "Then I went home and ate an entire sleeve of Oreos while watching Say Yes to the Dress."
I'm laughing. Actually laughing, the kind that makes my stomach hurt and my eyes water. Nicole is cackling beside me, and Mona is shaking her head with a look of profound sympathy.
"The worst part?" Brit continues. "He texted me the next day from a different number. Apparently his phone wasn't broken, so he 'knew' mine wasn't either."
"No."
"Yes. I had to block two numbers. Two."
"That's genuinely unhinged," Mona says.
"That's dating in your late twenties. Welcome to hell."
We spend the next hour trading horror stories.
Mona talks about a guy who showed up to a date with his mother—not to introduce them, but because he "didn't like driving at night.
" Nicole tells us about a man she went out with who spent the entire dinner explaining why women weren't funny.
Brit has approximately seven thousand more Hinge disasters, each worse than the last.
By the time we're on the third bottle of wine, my face hurts from smiling. The media story, the family drama, all of it feels distant—still there, but muted. Like something happening to someone else.
"Okay," Nicole says, settling back into the couch. "Serious question. How's Travis handling all this?"
"He's... good. Angry on my behalf, mostly. He wanted to drive to his parents' house and yell at them, but I talked him down."
"Probably wise."
"He's been really supportive. Helping me strategize, talking to his agent, making sure I don't spiral." I smile. "He built me a fire this morning before he left. Didn't even ask, just did it because he knew I was cold."
"That's disgustingly sweet," Brit says.
"It is disgustingly sweet. I hate how much I like him."
"You don't hate it."
"No. I don't." I lean my head back against the couch. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to decide this is too much, that I'm not worth the hassle. But he just... keeps showing up."
"That's what good partners do," Nicole says. "They show up. Especially when it's hard."
"Have you talked about the future?" Mona asks. "Like, long-term?"
I think about our conversation a few nights ago. The life he described—quiet, steady, me in all of it. The way he said I'll always choose you like it was the easiest thing in the world.
"A little," I say. "Nothing concrete. But we're on the same page about wanting... something. Something real."
"Something real." Nicole grins. "Look at you. A few months ago you were running away from your life, and now you've got a hockey player building you fires and defending your honor."
"I wasn't running away. I was making a strategic retreat."
"Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
I throw a pillow at her, and she catches it, laughing. Mona starts gathering the empty wine bottles, and Brit is already scrolling through her phone looking for more dating horror stories to share.
This is what I needed. Not advice, not solutions, just this—my friends, in my living room, making me laugh when everything feels impossible. Reminding me that I'm not alone, that I have people who show up for me no matter what.
"Hey," I say, and they all look at me. "Thank you. For coming. For this."
"You'd do the same for us," Nicole says.
"I would. But still. Thank you."
"You're welcome." She leans over and hugs me, quick and tight. "Now let's order pizza, because I'm starving and you have nothing in your fridge."
"I have things in my fridge."
"You have condiments and half a block of cheese. That's not food, that's a cry for help."
We order pizza—two large, one with everything, one plain for Mona who claims she doesn't like toppings—and eat it on the living room floor while watching a reality show none of us have seen before.
The fire crackles. The wine flows. The conversation wanders from work to relationships to that time junior year when Brit accidentally set her dorm room on fire trying to make ramen.
By the time they leave the next morning, hugging me goodbye on the porch and making me promise to call if anything happens, I feel almost normal again. Still tired. Still wary. But grounded in a way I wasn't before.
My phone buzzes as I watch their cars disappear down the driveway.
Travis: How was friend time?
Good, I type back. Really good. I needed it.
I'm glad. You deserve good things.
So do you.
I already have one. She's standing on her porch texting me right now.
I look up, and there he is—walking across the yard from the cottage, phone in hand, smiling at me in the gray morning light.
"Hi," he says when he reaches the porch.
"Hi." I put my phone away. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep. Kept thinking about you." He climbs the steps and pulls me into his arms. "You look better."
"I feel better."
"Good. That's all I wanted."
We stand there for a moment, wrapped around each other, the cold morning air biting at our edges. Somewhere in the distance, a bird is singing. The world is still turning. The story is still out there, somewhere, but it doesn't feel as heavy as it did.
"Come inside," I say. "I'll make you breakfast."
"You don't have any food. Your fridge is a crime scene."
"How do you know that?"
"Nicole texted me. Said I need to take you grocery shopping."
I laugh. "Of course she did."
"So? Breakfast out, then groceries?"
"That sounds perfect."
He takes my hand, and we go inside together. The house still smells like wine and pizza from last night, and there's a blanket crumpled on the floor where Brit fell asleep.
"Looks like you had fun," Travis says.
"We did." I squeeze his hand. "Thank you for giving me space. I know you wanted to be here."
"You needed your people. I get it." He pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around me from behind as I look at the mess of the living room. "Besides, Nicole was texting me updates all night. I knew you were okay."
"Of course she was."
"She also sent me a list of things to buy at the grocery store. Very detailed. Color-coded."
I laugh. "That sounds like Nicole."
"I like your friends."
"They like you too. Brit said you're disgustingly handsome, and Mona wants to know if you have any single teammates."
"I'll see what I can do."
We stand there for a moment, swaying slightly, the morning light coming through the windows. I'm tired and a little hungover and I probably smell like wine, but I don't care. This feels right. This feels like where I'm supposed to be.
"Breakfast?" Travis asks.
"Breakfast."