Page 59 of Untruly With You

“Laine,” Ophelia says gently, “today is Saturday. Itisthe end of the week.”

Impossible.

I pull up my phone’s calendar. Sure enough. My deadline is tonight. This week jerked me around, moving too fast for me to get my footing. Another round of thunder reverberates through the window, and I rush to it, stricken by the endless raindrops warping my view.

Sutton is out there.

On a horse, apparently.

And his phone must be dead—maybe out of service—because my texts stopped delivering hours ago.

Lightning brightens the entire sky, illuminating the treacherous clouds.

“Laine?” Ophelia says. “Did I lose you?”

I forgot I was even on the call for a minute there. “Hi, no, you didn’t. But—” Another streak of light stops me. “Sorry, Ophelia,” I say, trying to piece the right words together but coming up short. “Is there any chance I can have an extension?”

“Is everything okay?” Ophelia asks. “You evensounddistracted.”

I let out a joyless laugh, trying to play her words off. “I’m great!”

Ophelia isn’t convinced. “Alright…Tell you what, Adam and I are getting back to New York on Monday. Can you get the articles done by that night? You’ll still be in Montana, right? Let’s plan for a Zoom call next week. I’ll email you the information.”

“Thank you, Ophelia. I owe you.”

“You do. You owe me three polished articles. And I trust you’ll follow through.”

Immediately after Ophelia hangs up, I call my mom’s phone. It only rings once before she answers.

“Hello, favorite daughter,” she says, the sounds of cooking behind her voice.

“Hey, kid!” an unexpected voice yells at her side.

“Huh? Dad?”

I try to picture them, just the two of them, together, but the image is lacking. To my knowledge, the only time they’ve seen each other since the divorce was at my graduation.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Did someone die or something?”

“Your father invited me over so we could talk about you—the one subject we have in common,” Mom says. “It’s called beingfriends, something we think we should attempt. How’s our girl?”

My uncharacteristic silence is answer enough.

“What happened, Laine?”

“I think everything caught up to me,” I force out, retreating to the en suite bathroom and locking the door behind me. Still worried someone might overhear my conversation, I crawl into the empty tub, as far away from the door as possible.

Mom’s voice goes tight. “Did something happen with Sutton?”

“I’m in way over my head.”

“Speakerphone,” Dad begs.

“In over your head with Sutton?” Mom asks. It's no surprise that she wants clarification. During our last semester at NYU, Sutton practically became a part of our family. She doesn’t want to lose him any more than I do.

“Yes, with Sutton. With him and all the Davises. With this trip and this wedding. And with work.”

“Work’s not going well?” Mom says. Defeat is clear in her tone, and it doesn’t carry any touch of shock with it. She saw this coming, I guess. I never had much follow-through. “You texted me a few days ago saying you were loving writing forWonderings.”

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