All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

“And you think that’s taking a job with Ethan? He’s manipulating you, Val. The only reason he’s even offering you this is to get back at me. He wants to hurt me, and if you say yes to him, he’ll end up hurting you, too.”

“I’m not stupid,” she said in a voice so quiet and chilled I strained to hear her over the gang of adolescent skateboarders who crossed the street. “I understand the risk I’m taking.”

I gripped the fence at my back and swallowed against the unfamiliar lump in my throat, against the pain of the accusation she’d just unleashed: that I was the bigger risk. “Please . . . we can figure this out. Please don’t do this.” Please don’t choose him over me. But even as I thought it, I knew I couldn’t compete with him. No matter what I offered, Ethan would always have something better and shinier to flaunt. Larger financial reserves, bigger career opportunities, far more stability for a single mom raising a child.

A muffled sob sounded on the other end of the phone, and my hope climbed. Maybe our friendship was worth more than all those things, more than the money or the job security or the—

“I want to thank you, Molly, for these last three years,” she said. “You took a chance on me when Tuck and I needed it most, and I . . . I won’t ever forget that. I’ll always be grateful for the time I spent working with you.”

The past tense of that sentence was too much. I moved to the edge of the sidewalk, my knees collapsing under me as my heart galloped a thousand miles in my chest. No! Stop! Don’t do this! were the only phrases cycling through my brain.

“Also,” she said, then cleared her throat, and I could almost imagine her slipping her glasses off and wiping under her eyes with whatever zip-up hoodie sleeve she was wearing today. “I’ll do everything I can to make the transition smooth. I can finish up editing those last videos you’re sending, and I’ll . . . I’ll update Rosalyn on your summer post schedule so you can stay on track after I’m gone.”

After I’m gone.

This time, I was the one without words. I didn’t care about a smooth transition. Or about Rosalyn being updated on my summer post schedule. I didn’t want her calling me or messaging me or pretending to know anything about me.

I wanted Val.

I tied off the hurt in my heart the way I’d done after my parents had left the States and after my Mimi had died and after Miles had devoted his life to a ministry that held little space for a sister who talked about fashion and makeup and social media campaigns, then simply said, “Fine. That all sounds fine. Thank you.”

And while I hadn’t been able to squeeze out a single tear for the loss of a man who hadn’t actually loved me, the pain of losing a friend I’d never even seen in person was truly incomprehensible. I’d hired an assistant three years ago when keeping up with the demand of my pages had become unmanageable on my own. But what I’d gained was the best friend I’d ever had.

In many ways, Val was my only friend.

And I’d just lost her to my ex-boyfriend.

19

Molly

If I’d worried about how I looked when I met Silas at the diner with my uneven tan hidden under a track suit, tonight was a new kind of low. After a wholly unsatisfying resolve to the Fresh Summer Faces tutorial I’d been working on prior to Val’s call, and a few mindless surf sessions on social media for anything that might pull me out of this funk, I simply got into my car and drove. And somehow, I’d ended up here. In the driveway of The Bridge, eating a supremely large sleeve of hot, greasy French fries I couldn’t even recall ordering. Yet the evidence was in my hand, a glaring reminder that while I’d agreed to shun wine for the duration of the summer, I certainly hadn’t agreed to turn my back on deep-fried potatoes covered in salt.

As the sun descended behind the old estate, the manor basking in shades of brilliant marmalade and sherbet, I counted the silhouettes that passed by the windows I could see from my parking spot. There were a total of eleven cars sharing the lot with me tonight—many of them older, unattractive vehicles, most of which likely belonged to the residents. Glo said several used public transportation to get around, but a few of them shared vehicles, carpooling to school, work, internships, and the like. Why hadn’t I noticed before tonight how much my car stood out in this lot? My new red Tesla Model X, with the wing doors that opened like a spaceship, was about as commonplace as a glittering pot of gold sitting in the middle of a junkyard.

I shoved another few fries into my mouth, remembering the cashier’s check I’d signed over to the dealer for the total purchase price of the car. The salesman had tried not to react when Ethan told him I wouldn’t be needing finance options. A top-of-the-mountain triumph had rushed through me. This is what success feels like, I’d thought. Because I, Molly McKenzie, the girl who’d worn secondhand clothes for as long as she could remember, whose parents always owned vehicles at least ten years old, had finally arrived. After navigating her way through a world so strikingly unfamiliar to the one she’d been raised in, she was now the proud owner of one of the most enviable cars on the market today.

Or so Ethan had told me.

The car-purchase date had been a celebration, a just-rolled-over-the-five-hundred-thousand-follower mark with another eight high-paying sponsors who simply couldn’t get enough of my influencer magic.

And yet here I was tonight: that same successful woman, sitting in her flashy, depreciating-by-the-minute car, with more than seven hundred fifty thousand subscribers to her Instagram, and nowhere in the world