Page 25 of If The Shoe Fits

One day, Helene was going to win at being an adult. That day wasn't today.

She hadn't stopped running since her alarm at rang at ten in the morning. She woke up to an email from a rental agency, offering to let her visit an apartment she'd enquired about half an hour later. After a quick shower, she rushed out, arriving just three minutes late. The agent had been pissed about her tardiness, but he let her visit anyway.

The place was a dump. It smelled damp and the rushed paint job did nothing to hide the fact that the walls were falling apart. There were suspicious marks on the carpet that may or may not have been rat droppings. Helene was desperate, but not nearly that desperate.

Then, like every Sunday, she had the family dinner in Long Island. She was late for that, too. Usually, Cassie and Carter were here as a buffer, but they'd skipped today, no doubt because of the previous night's party. For the first time since the fire, Helene had to endure the full scale of their parents’ interrogation, and two hours of painstaking advice about the mess that was her life.

She didn't even have the strength to defend herself today.

By the time she made it back to the city, it was time for her volunteer shift at the animal rescue she supported once a fortnight.

Getting home at eight, after grabbing a dollar slice of pizza pie, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pretend the universe didn't exist.

"Helene, that you?" Cassie called from the media room.

Cursing under her breath, Helene nonetheless made her way to greet her sister.

Being a guest sucked.

Cassie and Carter were cocooned under a thick, fluffy blanket, watching what looked like a horror movie.

Oh. Never mind, that sounded like a wonderful idea.

"You wanna join us? We've ordered Chinese."

"Actually, that might be exactly what I need right now."

Tomorrow. She'd adult tomorrow.

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