Page 1 of Unstoppable You

Chapter One

Delaney

“Fuck you,Connor. Fuck you, and the truck you rode in on!” I spoke through sobs as I added more items to the burn pile.

“Is that it?” my boss at Between the Sheets Bookshop and friend, Larison, asked.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my dripping nose. I know I looked like shit, but I didn’t care. Appearance was the last thing on my mind.

Larison gave Stace, the friend who offered to let me add my ex-boyfriend’s shit to the yard waste from her parent’s house, a thumbs up. Stace was the one setting and supervising the fire since she worked as a firefighter.

It took a little while, but soon Connor’s favorite shirts, his hats, shoes, and a bunch of other shit were reduced to nothing but smoke and ashes. Too bad I couldn’t have gotten my hands on his precious gaming systems. That would have really made him hurt.

Larison put her arm around me.

“Thanks for suggesting this,” I said. I’d wanted to get rid of Connor’s stuff in a dramatic way. Like throwing it out the window of my second story apartment along with a banner that said WELCOME HOME, CHEATER so everyone in the city would know what he did to me. Instead, he’d snuck in while I was at work and grabbed the essentials before he moved in with one of his friends.

“You’re welcome,” Larison said. “Stace was actually the one who came up with it.”

Stace saluted us and then went back to supervising the fire, her arms crossed, showing off her muscles. The first time I’d met her, I’d been in awe of her fitness level, but then I heard about her job and it made sense. Still. She looked like she could lift a car and not break a sweat.

“Thank you,” I told Stace.

She turned her head and smiled. “It’s the least I could do.”

The fire was still going, but all of Connor’s crap was nothing but ash and I’d lost interest. My relationship was finally dead and cremated. I wiped my eyes, which were still wet but this time because of the smoke. It was totally the smoke.

I’d been crying nearly every second since I came home to my apartment one Saturday night and found Connor in bed with someone else. I’d screamed and she’d screamed and we’d both turned on Connor, who had told her that we had broken up and me that he was going out with his friends. I’d been over at Larison’s, but her daughter had started feeling sick, so I’d canceled my planned evening with her and her girlfriend, Jo. Ever the dutiful girlfriend, I’d sent Connor a message about it, but he’d left his phone in his pants on the floor while he’d been fucking someone else.

If I was truly honest with myself, things hadn’t always been good with Connor, even from the beginning, but I’d just…I’d told myself that things were great. That was what I’d always done. Imagined that things were wonderful even if they weren’t. Always looked on the bright side. Found the silver lining. That was me, Delaney Budreau, the good girl, the sweetheart, the amazing girlfriend, the perfect employee, the ideal daughter.

And Connor St. Clair had fucked me over anyway. It didn’t matter that the night before I’d cooked his favorite meal. It didn’t matter that I’d bought ugly dark sheets because he thought that anything else was too “feminine.” It didn’t matter that I did his laundry and cleaned the kitchen and didn’t complain when he left his wet towels on the bathroom floor.

I had almost never complained. Had always smiled and rolled my eyes and swallowed my anger. Told myself that I was being dramatic, that I was being demanding, that I was asking for too much. That he worked hard (he didn’t), he was stressed (from staying up all night gaming), that I loved him (did I?).

Of course I had loved him. I wouldn’t have done everything for him if I hadn’t.

“You okay?” Larison asked me, squeezing my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said, but the word was an empty syllable. I told people I was fine all the time. If I shared how I really felt, I might open my mouth and never stop screaming.

There was sadness, yes, but there was another emotion under the sadness, wearing the sadness on top of itself like a cape.

Pure, distilled rage.

If you’d asked me before this happened if I was an angry person, I would have scoffed and told you that I believed anger was an emotion people used as an excuse. That anger was too accepted these days as the only valid emotion while so many others were shamed and hidden away.

That had been a different Delaney.

“Come on,” Larison said, pulling me back from the fire. “I think I know something that will cheer you up.”

* * *

“Well?”she asked a little while later as we sat at the sports bar with a pitcher of beer and a basket of wings in front of us. Normally coming here would have cured what ailed me, but tonight it wasn’t doing the trick.

What was wrong couldn’t be cured by honey barbecue wings and the best cheap beer in the city. The only cure I would even consider was something like murder, but I’d never be able to lie, and orange was not my color.

“Yeah, definitely better,” I told Larison, plastering a smile on my face that made my cheeks feel like they were stiff and cracking.

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