Page 102 of Pin-up Girl

Dee screwed up her face for a moment. “Can I come to your store after school tomorrow and help you design?”

This time Aubrey’s smile reached her eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay.” Dee was happy again.

When it was time for her to go to bed, she had more arguments than normal, mostly around what it would be like going to her new school tomorrow. I reminded her all of her weekend friends would be there, people she already knew, and that she would have a lot of fun, and eventually got her to stay in her room and go to sleep.

I didn’t want Aubrey or Brodie to go home tonight, but I had places to be in the morning too. Still, I could keep them here a bit longer.

Aubrey had promised a conversation, and it was one I thought we all needed to have, but first I needed to know what was going on with her.

When I asked, she gave me a similar shake of the head to what she’d given Dee. “I just have some things to think through.”

She and Brodie and I were in the living room, with the TV running softly in the background, more to keep our conversation from reaching the bedrooms than to watch.

I was pushier than Aubrey was, and wouldn’t wait her out the way she had with Sylvie. “You’re there for anyone who asks you for help,” I said. “Even if they don’t ask, you go out of your way for your friends, for us, for your sister. Whatever’s going on, you don’t have to think through it alone.”

“It’s not anything that needs to be solved. Just thoughts stuck in my brain.”

“Then say them out loud and unstick them,” Brodie offered.

She shook her head again.

I grasped her wrist loosely and tugged. She didn’t offer any resistance as I pulled her into my lap. “Talk to us.”

“It’s all jumbled. I’m just tired.”

“Of what?” I felt tired to my core after the last few weeks, but I wasn’t going to project my feelings on her or put words in her mouth.

Aubrey sighed. “Of expectations. Of assumptions. That if you look different or act different or think different… Everyone has an opinion about the right way to stop doing that. To not be different. And none of them seem to realize that every fucking person in the world needs to be their own person.

“But it doesn’t matter to most people. My grandma wants perfect little granddaughters who are capable of ruling the world and raising families at the same time. Anyone who isn’t pursuing one or the other—or God help me, both—must not be worthy. Sylvie was willing to surrender everything to live up to that ideal.”

Aubrey licked her lips. “And Regina… Dee thinking that if she’s not thin enough or talented enough—at ten fucking years old—that she’s not lovable. What the fuck?”

I felt the frustration pouring off her, and I understood. I couldn’t do more than hold her and listen and agree.

“I’m tired of people being cruel for the sake of it or to feel something,” Aubrey wasn’t done. “Tired of people who assume the world owes them something because they exist. Men like Peter. Women like Neva. I’m tired of constantly having to defend myself because I’d rather create and wear my art than make a Fortune list.”

“And that appearances mean everything.” Brodie chimed in. “That people take and take and use and use. That they project who they are and what they want, instead of listening.”

I was glad Dee didn’t have to hear this, and I wanted to chime in as well. “Even if you figure out who you are, the world tells you that’s wrong. Success for so many people means not caring about anyone else. You want to see people achieve their dreams, you help without hesitation, but damn it, you want the chance to do the same for yourself.”

Aubrey’s huff sounded like agreement. “I spent years pursuing a man who barely looked at me, and convinced myself he was the key to my happiness.”

“I built an empire and then had it taken from me, and I still don’t know what I want out of life,” Brodie said.

How was this all so relatable? “And there’s never a chance to figure it out, because there are always higher priorities.” I didn’t mean Dee. She was more important than anything. But the career I’d abandoned. The spotlight I’d walked away from. I’d almost lost a chance at the two incredible people sitting with me because there was always something else going on.

Aubrey leaned into me and settled her head on my chest. “And that’s why I’m just fucking tired.”

I rested my chin on the top of her head and leaned us both into Brodie, who turned enough to press his back into my arm and hold us up.

I didn’t have the same frustrations they both did, but I felt all of this. Saw what Dee was going through. And I’d asked myself more than once would things be different if…?

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “The future isn’t set in stone. It’s not as if millions of years ago, some ancient beings saw visions of the whole of eternity and wrote it all down and now we’re bound to their prophecies.”

“That’s oddly specific.” Brodie sounded amused.

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