Page 93 of Slash & Burn

The sound of my name, from a familiar voice, startled me. I’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk on the way to my car, and when I looked over my shoulder, LeAnn was trotting up to me with a giant smile on her face. It vanished instantly.

“What’s wrong?” She took my arm, as if she worried I might actually collapse. I wasn’t quite that far gone, but her embrace was warm and sturdy and for a second it snapped me out of my spiral.

“Is it Adam?”

I laughed under my breath, satisfied in knowing that the days of him upsetting me this much were over. Even with what was actually wrong, that was a seemingly small but meaningful victory.

“I got fired for a computer lab.”

“Wait. What?” She hooked our elbows and guided me around the corner. I heard the beep of a car opening and she ushered me into her passenger seat. “Pause,” she said, shutting the door and running on her little legs to the other side.

“Okay,” she huffed, shutting her own door and spinning to face me. “What did you just say?”

I sighed, some of the tension holding me upright slipping out of me as I slouched into the seat. “Cleo just fired me. They need the money for a computer lab, so they can’t afford me.”

Her mouth dropped open, her wide saucer eyes more apologetic and concerned than the woman who’d just let me go from my job. “That’s not okay, Jill. You worked so hard to make sure you’d be safe. I thought they were getting a state grant or something?”

My shrug took every ounce of energy I had. “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t enough? I didn’t really get a full run down on the finances.”

LeAnn looked out the windshield at the brick wall in front of us. “Joey is going to flip.”

Why that struck me as funny isn’t totally clear, but the image of my brother getting red-faced with anger at his little sister’s layoff was just the kind of absurd image that would push me over the edge.

“It’s not funny,” LeAnn chided, watching me laugh like I had actually lost it. “He was so sure you and Grady killing that program would mean a promotion. Not this.”

Instantly I was reminded of the time Grady said the same thing; that I’d get a promotion because our program did so much better than expected. It hurt now to think about how happy I’d been when he said it. How everything had been different.

My laughter faded. “Well, we were all wrong, I guess.”

“Jill . . .” LeAnn looked like she didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t blame her.

“It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.” Though what the hell that was, I didn’t have a clue.

Her tiny gasp drew my gaze back to her in time to see her eyes light up. “The store! This is a sign. You’re supposed to open your bookstore.”

I’d never believed in signs like she did, and honestly this wasn’t going to be how that kind of faith was born in me. Breaking my heart and taking away my income was a pretty shit way to recruit someone to your belief system, if you asked me.

“I don’t think that’s the message here,” I mumbled, annoyed by her enthusiasm.

She bounced in her seat. “I know it seems bad. I get it. But if not now, when?”

“When I’m not unemployed and no banks would ever loan me the money. I couldn’t get them to give me the time of day back when I had an income to help me. I’m pretty sure being jobless is a nonstarter for a large line of credit.”

She shook her head, determination on her face just like it was every time we’d gone to the gym. “You have to at least try. What else are you going to do?”

It irked me that she had a point. My prospects weren’t good. So, unless I wanted to commute to another town—possibly a lot farther away—I didn’t have many options.

“Just look into it,” she pressed. “Then you can decide what to do next.”

The blue sky above us was dotted with big fluffy clouds slowly cruising across the horizon. They looked the opposite of how I felt: dense and heavy and stuck.

“Fine,” I muttered, not seeing her letting me out of the car unless I agreed. “I’ll look.”

“Good.” She sat back in her seat and gave me a sympathetic smile. “This sucks, Jill. But you’ve got us, and you’ve got Grady. You’ll get through it.”

The sound of his name pierced me right in the heart. I hadn’t told anyone that he and I were basically done. And now it felt like too much to say out loud. So, I gave her a wordless nod, pulling my door handle.

“I’ll see you later, okay?”

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