Page 88 of My Cosplay Escape
“What?”
She pauses. “You know, not everyone is as tough as you, Saire. You’re about to throw Adam a big curve ball. I’m all for it, but… Just, be patient with him.”
“I’m not tough.” I hand over the doodle to Laura, who squeals and immediately starts coloring the cake blue and the tutu purple.
Gwen puts up a hand. “Just promise to try, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. “I promise.”
* * *
Gwen drops me off at Mom’s so I can properly shower and get ready. As tempting as it is to hide behind a hoodie, I reach for a pretty yellow shift dress.
I’ve changed shoes too many times, waffling between wedge and gladiator sandals. I pick neither and grab my green Converse. My Lyft approaches. I need to get to the driveway before it drives away without me. I grab my keys and my backpack and bolt out the front door.
I nearly collide with the UPS guy.
“Sorry!” I say.
“Sarah Miller Jonson?”
I go cold at the mention of my married name.
The UPS guy holds a large, battered envelope in his hand.
My stomach sinks. The memory of that stupid phone call on that stupid night blunders to the forefront of my pathetic existence.
I fumble for my key and struggle to lock up. “Yeah. That’s me. Or it was…” I mumble. Trust Daniel to get my name wrong.
“I need you to sign.”
My Lyft pulls into the driveway.
I hesitate. I don’t want to sign. Not the UPS guy’s little black tablet thingy. Not the legal papers inside the yellow envelope. I don’t trust Daniel with my past, but… I really don’t want to relive it. I don’t want Daniel telling my story, erasing me and my love for my daughter with his hurtful words. If there was a way to outrun any of this, I would have done it by now.
My Lyft driver honks his horn.
“You have to sign,” the UPS guy says.
I’m not strong enough for the cascade of nasty, hurtful, terrible things that would come at me if I refused at this point. I want Daniel gone. Forever. “Yeah.” I press a hand to my forehead and wince. “Yeah, I’ll sign.”
My Lyft driver taps his horn again.
The UPS guy hands me the envelope. “Good thing I parked on the street.”
Like a shadow, I slip into my Lyft. Daniel’s name in his bold, careless scrawl stares up at me from the corner of the envelope. Laughs at me. Tells me what an idiot I am to imagine I could ever be more or do more than pretend I’m not a sad little failure.
* * *
Adam is waiting for me in the Student Union Starbucks, and maybe, for a moment, I think big silly thoughts about how my life has been building to this point, and all will have been worth it, because here is my Prince Charming and happily ever after.
I have the weight of Daniel and Daddy Ray’s stupid papers in my backpack, reassuring me that I am no fairy-tale princess.
I screwed up my life before it even got started, and for the rest of my life, I get to live with that failure—except for the hours on Thursdays and Saturdays when I pretend to be Catstrike at Adam’s escape room. Then I get to escape. Then I get to be sexy and confident. But that’s over now too. I’m here to tell Adam the truth, and he’ll see that I’m a sad, pathetic, little failure, and he’ll be gone. Like my dad, like my daughter. Like the future I tried to claw back for myself.
I thought coming here would be proof that I’m brave. But it just proves that Daniel is right about me. I am such an idiot.
“Hey, Adam,” I say, my mouth flicking into the briefest of smiles.
