MY EYES PULSED. THE BACK of my head felt ice cold. I had never known my back could ache so much. This was misery. This was the worst I’d ever felt.
And then my mom showed up.
“Get. Up. Cecilia.”
I lifted my head off the cold metal bench inside my teeny, tiny jail cell. There were only four barred cubicles inside the police station, and I had been given my very own, while everyone else had been crowded into the other three. The police had been worried about my personal safety. Now was when they really needed to be worried. My mother looked murderous.
Slowly, I lifted myself off the bench and made my way over to the metal bars.
“Congratulations,” my mother said. “You have sunk to a new low.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you noticing,” I muttered.
“Don’t be smart,” my mother shot back.
The two officers working the desk on the far side of the room looked up.
“I’ve posted your bail,” my mother said. “And you are coming home with me.”
“Home to Boston?” I asked, my voice breaking.
“No. Thanks to you, home is here now. You’re coming back to the house your father and I have rented, and you will stay there until we can figure out what to do with you.”
She yanked down on her jacket. I waited for her to tell me that I was ruining her career. That if I kept this up and lost the election for her, she was going to make my life a living hell.
“Guard! We’re ready.”
Okay. So maybe that lecture was going to wait until we got “home.”
“What to do with me? I’m an adult, remember?”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” my mother said with a sniff.
An older officer shuffled over and unlocked the cell door. When he shoved it aside, it made a clang that was somehow worse than the one it had made when he locked me in here a few hours earlier.
“You, my dear daughter, had better start thinking about what sort of person you want to be,” my mother said through her teeth. “And what sort of life you intend to have. Because from where I’m standing, you are going nowhere fast.”
She flicked her fingers at me, and when I didn’t move, she grabbed my arm and steered me out of the police station ahead of her.
* * *
My father gave me a look I’d never seen before. It wasn’t just disappointed—it was pitying. My father pitied me. As I trudged through the gleaming modern kitchen of the huge colonial they’d rented, trailing behind Tash, whose heels click-clacked primly, I kept my head down so I wouldn’t have to see his face.
Tash led me up the freshly waxed stairs, lined with detailed paintings of the Tennessee plains, and paused outside the first bedroom door.
“This is your room.”
Her lips pursed and she seemed to be holding her breath. I was sure I smelled, but not badly enough that she was caught up in some kind of toxic cloud. I wanted to tell her off, but I just didn’t have the energy.
The room was large and airy, with a huge bed covered in puffy white pillows and a down comforter. There was a dresser and a vanity table, but no TV, no computer, not even a desk.
“What does she expect me to do in here?” I asked.
“Sleep it off, I imagine,” Tash said.
Then she closed the door. I wouldn’t exactly call it a slam, but she did it with conviction.
“Welcome to your new ivory tower, Cecilia,” I whispered.
Then I careened facedown into the bed. It smelled like lemon and lilac, and after spending all those hours on a cold metal bench, it was heaven. I groaned and rolled over, pulling the comforter around me like I was a veggie wrap. I wasn’t going to let my mother lock me away again. I wasn’t going to let her control my life. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t sleep. Just for a little while.
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans and I quickly fumbled it out. Jasper’s face smiled at me.
“Hello?” I said, my heart already hammering in my chest.
“ ‘Sweetheart Threesome ’? Are you for real?”
I sat up straight. “What?”
“Have you even been on Perez today? Buzzfeed? Twitter?”
“Ummm . . . I haven’t exactly been near a computer.”
“Oh, right. Because you spent the night in jail.”
Wow. I’d never heard him sound so bitter.
“You want to run around kissing French guys and tangling with Duncan Taylor? What is this, payback? Real mature.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Fine then,” he spat. “Message officially received, Cecilia. We’re done.”
The line went dead. It was the first time he’d called me Cecilia. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. I was the one who’d thrown him out of the hospital room. I was the one who’d told him to go have fun on his tour. What did I expect? For one of the most sought-after new stars in America to pine away for me forever?
Okay, yeah. Maybe I kind of did.
I brought a pillow to my face and cried. What the hell was I doing? How had I ended up here? Why did I keep doing and saying all these things when I knew they weren’t the right things? And why did I feel so angry all the time?
There was a knock on my door. Had to be my mom. I lifted my face.
“Go away,” I said, my voice thick.
“Cecilia, it’s your father.”
Shit.
“I can’t talk right now, Dad.”
There was a pause, and I waited to hear his heavy footsteps retreat down the hallway. They didn’t. Instead, the door creaked open.
“Cecilia, are you all right?”
What do you think?
“No.”
My father blew out a sigh. His white shirt was tucked neatly into gray slacks that were fastened with a shiny black belt. Even in the midst of crises, my dad was dressed for a business lunch. He stepped inside and sat down on the edge of the bed, with me behind him. I didn’t want to move. He reached back and patted my thigh, which was wrapped up in the blanket.
“Sweetie, you know I’ll always love you no matter what, and if there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m here.”
I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying again. “Not right now, Dad.”
“Okay then. That’s fine. You don’t have to talk. But you do have to listen.” He took a deep breath and talked to the wall ahead of him while I curled farther into myself at his back. “It’s . . . well . . . I always thought that you had a good head on your shoulders—that once you were given the independence that comes with adulthood, you’d make good choices. But that’s not what I’m seeing here.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and two tears slipped out.
“Maybe we coddled you for too long, I don’t know.”
Coddled me? Try controlled me.
“But if there’s any advice I could give you, it would be . . . from here on out, try to look before you leap. It’s an adage for a reason.” Another pause. “And it’s something I wish I’d done more of when I was young.”
I held my breath. What had he ever done wrong when he was young? The man was an angel—a saint. He won a scholarship to Harvard. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He’d graduated number one in his class from Georgetown Law.
Was he . . . was he talking about marrying my mother? It was pretty much the only impetuous thing he’d done in his life—popping the question at the age of nineteen, when they’d been together for only eight months.
God, my family was so screwed up. If he regretted marrying her, then why was he still with her? Why did he always let her have everything she wanted when it came to her career, their life? When it came to me? What about what he wanted? Why didn’t he matter?
So many times when I was younger, I sat alone in my room and imagined what my life would be like if my dad took me and left my mom. I imagined us in a little apartment, making dinner together and eating on the couch in front of the TV, going to the beach or to ballgames every weekend. The two of us—we’d have had actual fun. We would have had a life.
But that would never have happened. Nobody left a Montgomery. Except maybe Jasper. But even as I thought that, I knew it wasn’t fair. I’d broken up with him. And then, when he wouldn’t accept it, I’d done to him exactly what he’d done to me—shown up on social media kissing someone else.
I wished my dad would look at me. I wanted to ask him about a zillion questions. But then the weight on the bed shifted and he walked out, closing the door silently behind him.
* * *
The next morning, I texted Tash as soon as I woke up, in answer to about four thousand texts and e-mails from her demanding to know where we stood with the hiring of a country act for the gala. Now that Jasper was done with me, there was no more putting it off.
Jasper unable to find band for gala. Need new plan.
Her response came five seconds later.
I already hired a classical quartet and a cover band JIC.
Nothing like a mocking smiley-face emoji to start your day.
I knew that if I spent more than one night at my parents’ house, I’d end up staying there forever, so I got up, stole a mug of French-press coffee made by the staff, and snuck out. It was a long walk back to town, and I spent the entirety of it composing a speech to Britta containing all the reasons she shouldn’t throw me out. Or trying to.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with many.
How badly had we trashed our apartment? Had anyone gone back to clean it up? How horrible was I for hoping that Fiona or Duncan or anyone had done it? It was my responsibility. My home. And once again, I’d disrespected it.
By the time I found myself trudging up the stairs to the apartment’s front door, the speech-brainstorming was over. Instead, I was imagining how I’d manage to carry all my stuff back to my parents’ place with a broken arm.
The door opened the second I pushed my key into the slot. Britta was standing there with a rolling suitcase. It took me five seconds to process the fact that it was hers and not mine. That she wasn’t about to shove it in my face and tell me to get lost.
“You’re back,” she said flatly.
Silence. I had no idea what to say. Finally, she angled herself to one side.
“Come in.”
Relieved, but still very much on edge, I stepped inside the apartment. It was mercifully clean, aside from the pile of tabloids and newspapers that always covered the kitchen island. Maybe Fiona had come back to clean up.
“I heard about your party.” Britta closed the door and placed her suitcase next to it. “Everyone on the planet heard about your party.”
“I’m so sorry, Britta,” I said, hanging my head. “I tried to make them leave, but I . . .”
I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t tried very hard. And I didn’t feel like defending myself. It made me feel like a jerk.
“It’s okay,” Britta said. “Nothing was broken or anything. I talked to Duncan and he said he’s pretty sure the action moved to the park before anyone got really out of control.”
She gave me this look. Anyone but you, it said.
“Oh.”
“So.” She paused and gestured at her bag. “I’m going to Austin to cover the Firebrand Three’s three-night stand at the Whiskey, and I need you to do something for me.”
“No parties, I promise.”
“Not that,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, yes, that. But also, I need you to take care of the wall.”
My heart thudded. “The wall?”
She couldn’t mean—
“Yes. The wall. I am the anonymous wall painter.”
I blinked. Britta looked me dead in the eye. She wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t believe it. All this time I’d been living with the person whose message on the wall of the bookstore seemed to speak directly to me? How was this possible? How had I not known? How the hell did she manage to do it when she was constantly attending concerts and going on the road? Did the girl never sleep?
I opened my mouth to ask all these questions, and she held up a silencing hand.
“Don’t ask. All you need to know is I started doing it at a time in my life when I needed inspiration. Direction,” she said pointedly. “And now, I think it’s your turn.”
“No. No way. I have no idea what I’d say,” I told her, flopping down on the couch. “And besides, I suck at painting. And I have a broken arm.”
And also . . . it means too much to me. I didn’t want to touch the wall because . . . because I wasn’t worthy.
“I could never come up with something that would inspire people.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
Britta moved to the door and pulled out the long handle of her rolling bag.
“Let’s put it this way, Lia.” She yanked open the door, her bangle bracelets clattering. “You don’t do it, and tomorrow there’s no message up there and thousands of people will be disappointed.”
She couldn’t be serious. “But you can’t . . .” I looked around the apartment as if it could somehow save me. “Where do I get the paint? And the ladder? How do I get it all over there without getting caught? What should it say?”
“That’s for you to figure out,” Britta reminded me.
“Oh, come on. You have to have a book around here somewhere. Something with lists of quotes and platitudes. For when you get stuck?”
“I am offended that you would even suggest such a thing,” Britta said.
And then she walked out.
I was exhausted, I was hungry, the only thing in my system was caffeine, and now, I was panicking. People freaked out when the message didn’t get painted. Fiona had told me that on my very first morning in town. What would happen if there was no message tomorrow and people somehow found out it was my fault? They’d slaughter me. I was already a joke. Now I’d be the joke who ruined a town tradition.
I walked into my room and opened my laptop to Google “inspirational quotes,” but as it came out of its sleep mode, it hit me: This wasn’t my problem. Britta had created this responsibility for herself. It wasn’t my fault she’d addicted an entire town to her wise words. Why should I be the one to stress about it?
By the time the screen came to life, I was already crawling into bed. But my heart was still pounding and my breath seemed superloud. Between the adrenaline and the caffeine, my body was on high alert. In the corner were piles of poster board and cloth samples, printouts of floral arrangements, and brochures from local vendors. The gala was one week from today, and nothing was getting done.
You need to start thinking about what sort of person you want to be, my mother’s voice said in my ear.
I didn’t know what sort of person I wanted to be, but I knew who I wasn’t. I wasn’t the person plastered all over those tabloids. I wasn’t some drunk slut looking for attention. I wasn’t a loser who shirked my responsibilities, who didn’t go to college, who had no future.
I’d hoped you’d make better choices than what I’m seeing: my father this time.
But how was I supposed to make good choices when everyone around me seemed to want me to do something other than what I wanted to do?
You don’t seem to be scared of anything! It’s one of the things I like best about you, Jasper told me.
And then it hit me. I knew exactly what the wall should say. I sat up straight and held my breath. Maybe if I did this, it would make me feel better. Maybe if I could complete this one task, I’d be able to face all the other crap I had to do.
Now I just needed to figure out how to get it done.