Chapter 11 #3
He inhales a sharp breath, clearly in relief.
“Thank you! I promise I’ll make it up to you.
I’ll be back by tomorrow night,” he says.
His voice is a ghost of the confidence he had ten minutes ago.
“I’ll just do the brunch, handle the Davis meeting, and drive straight back here.
I’ll make it up to you, Harl, I promise. ”
He hesitates, stepping toward me as if to lean down and kiss me goodbye. It’s the ritual. The “I love you” that’s supposed to bridge the gap created by his cowardice.
I don’t lean in. Don’t tilt my head.
Skyler stops mid-movement, seeing the lack of invitation. He sees the wall I’ve finally built to match his own. He looks at me for a long beat, his eyes filled with a desperate, pathetic kind of longing, and then he turns away.
The keys jingle in his hand—a small, irritating sound.
“I have to go, Harley. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Sure.”
“Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews,” he says to my father and Maria, both standing, arms crossed.
“Yup,” my dad says. There’s no warmth in it; just the cold politeness you give to a stranger who’s overstayed his welcome.
“Drive safe,” Maria intones.
The back door opens and closes. A soft click. A finality.
I stand perfectly still. A few seconds later, I hear the gravel crunching as his car reverses. The headlights sweep across the kitchen window, momentarily blinding me, and then the sound of the engine fades as he accelerates down the road.
Gone. Back to the museum. Back to the people who think a name is more important than a soul.
The silence that follows isn’t thick; it’s hollow. It’s a vacuum where a future used to be.
“You’re letting him go?” Dad asks, his voice low.
“I’m letting him be who he is, Dad,” I say, and I can finally breathe without the Thompson weight pressing on my lungs. “But tomorrow morning? We’re going to that florist. And we’re picking the brightest, wildest burgundy peonies they have.”
I pick up the Bergdorf’s bag. Out comes the five-hundred-dollar gift card. I look at the elegant script, the gold embossing, the promise of a “Coach experience.”
Suddenly, I have an idea.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“Do we have that shredder in your office?”
He lets out a small, dry chuckle. “We do.”
“Good.”
I don’t feel like crying. I feel too sharp.
I walk toward the office, the gift card between my fingers. The Thompson machine might still be turning, but I’ve just stepped off the assembly line. And for the first time in weeks, I can breathe without asking for permission.
The hallway to Dad’s office is a tunnel of shadow, illuminated only by the warm, buttery light spilling from the kitchen behind me. I hear the rhythmic clink of silverware as Maria and Dad start the dishes—a steady, domestic heartbeat that contrasts with the hollow silence Skyler left in his wake.
They understand I want to do this alone—my act of defiance toward the Thompsons.
I step into the office. It smells of graphite, old blueprints, and the peppermint tea Dad drinks while balancing his books. The shredder sits in the corner, a squat, gray plastic beast that has spent its life devouring junk mail and expired warranties.
I hold the Bergdorf’s bag under the desk lamp. The gold embossing on the gift card glitters, reflecting a light that feels cold and superficial. It is five hundred dollars of leather-bound silence. It is a tombstone for a version of us that never actually existed.
I don’t hesitate. I slide the card into the narrow mouth of the machine.
The engine groans, the metal teeth catching on the thick, stubborn plastic.
It is a violent, jagged sound—a mechanical snarl that feels like an exorcism.
I watch as the “Thompson apology” is dragged down, inch by inch.
The gold script is shredded into thin, meaningless strips of confetti falling into the bin below.
My hand doesn’t shake. Instead, a strange, crystalline lightness spreads through my chest.
I think of Skyler driving through the dark, his knuckles white on the leather steering wheel as he chases his father’s approval on a country club horizon. He is a man leaning into an exit, and I am finally done trying to be the door that holds him in.
I flick the switch. The silence that returns is heavier than before, but it is honest.
I walk back to the kitchen. The lasagna is put away, and my “World’s Most Adequate Social Worker” mug is clean, sitting on the drying rack. I pick it up, feeling the familiar, grounding chip in the ceramic against my thumb.
“Everything okay, kiddo?” Dad asks, drying his hands on a worn towel.
I study him and see the reflection of a life built on sawdust and integrity, not spreadsheets and bribes.
“Yeah, Dad,” I say, my voice finally sounding like my own again. “I’m just realizing I don’t have to fit anymore.” Skyler and everyone can either take it or leave it.
The next day, the dining room looks like the aftermath of a small tornado in a textile mill. We’ve moved past the “Spite Dad” phase of music and into the gritty reality of color
palettes.
I have two swatches of fabric clutched in my hands. Originally, I had my heart set on
burgundy and gold—a combination that felt royal, solid, and safe. But as I look at the gold
silk now, it feels like I’m trying to fit into a mold that doesn’t belong to me.
One swatch is that muted gold—sophisticated, the kind of color that nods to tradition. The other is a bold, almost defiant burnt-orange velvet. It’s the color of autumn in the country, of the fire in the fireplace.
I’m paralyzed. I can hear Elaine’s voice in the back of my head: “Orange, dear? How unfortunately vibrant. It certainly makes a statement about your heritage.”
“You’re doing it again,” Maria says. She’s watching my face, her expression a map of calm. She reaches across the table and hands me a thick black marker. “The Thompson Voice is in the room. I can see it in your frown.”
“I don’t want it to look tacky,” I mutter, staring at the velvet. “I thought the gold was the right choice, but what if the orange is too much?”
“Tacky is just a word rich people use to describe things that have too much personality,”
Dad says without looking up. He’s focused on a piece of graph paper, sketching in pencil.
He isn’t an architect, but he knows how to build, thanks to his construction days.
It was originally something he and Skyler had bonded over.
And while Skyler is off catering to his parents, my dad is laying out the ceremony space for the botanical gardens—the venue Skyler and I actually wanted before Elaine started pushing the country club.
“If you love it, it isn’t tacky. It’s yours. ”
“Circle the two that feel most ‘you,’” Maria says, gesturing to the swatches spread across the table. “Don’t think about the ballroom. Don’t think about the photos that Mother Thompson wants to send to the alumni magazine. Just circle what feels like home.”
I look at the gold and realize it was never for me; it was for the person they want me to be.
Because truthfully, they would have hated it, anyway.
They would have hated any color I picked, so I might as well pick the one I want.
Plus, Skyler’s not here. He knows today is the day we officially pick our colors so we can start ordering decor.
I stare at the burnt orange, then at the burgundy velvet from earlier. I circle them both with a thick, satisfying stroke of the marker. The ink bleeds into the fabric, permanent and unapologetic.
“There,” I say, and my heart gives a little skip of relief.
“Good,” Maria says. “Now, why does your phone look like it’s trying to vibrate itself off the table?”
I glance at the offending device. Five missed calls.
Eight texts. Skyler is drowning in Lake Forest and trying to pull me in after him.
I can almost feel the frantic energy coming through the glass screen.
The “management” voice in text form. Sky promised he’d be here by dinner, so I’d rather he text less and drive more.
Giving in, I glance down and read.
Harl, please answer. Something came up.
Let me guess, he’s not driving back after all. Guess I’m taking an Uber back to Lake Forest.
Maria shifts in her chair, the old wood creaking. “Harley. Tell me the truth. Is it just the wedding? Or are you realizing you’re fighting for a man who isn’t standing on the same side of the line as you?”
The question is like a needle prick to a balloon. All the air goes out of me. I lean back, my spine hitting the chair, and I feel the hot sting of tears behind my eyes. I’ve been so busy being angry that I forgot how much it hurt to be scared.
“I’m scared he’s slipping away,” I say, the words catching in my throat.
“His family has this gravitational pull. It’s from centuries of being told they’re special, that they have standards to maintain.
And Skyler doesn’t know how to exist outside of it.
I’m watching him slip back into that robot-version of himself, and I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull him out. ”
Dad stops sketching and sets the pencil down to look at me. He doesn’t look at Skyler as an architect or a Thompson. He looks at him as a man failing his daughter.
“Listen to me, Harl,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “I’ve only talked about this once or twice, but you need to hear it today. Your mother—your biological mother—wasn’t a
Thompson, but she had her own version of that gravity. Her family had money, they had a ‘Reputation,’ and she spent every second of our marriage trying to bridge the gap between who she was with me and who they expected her to be.”
I stay quiet, the air in the room suddenly still.