Page 70 of The Masks We Break

I’m not sure why I said that. Maybe I’m deflecting, or perhaps I just find it fascinating to meet a father that loves his daughters. Either way, the room feels smaller, and at least a few degrees warmer.

“Yeah,” he huffs out a laugh. “Never a dull moment. They’re my world.”

I think he starts telling me more about them—one’s in soccer, or maybe it was volleyball, another does art at a private school, but my mind shuts him out. All I vaguely gather is he’s a proud father.

I hope they know how lucky they are.

“But as I was saying, your mother was a very smart woman. She invested well with her private income. She—”

“Does my father know any of this?”

The banker folds his hands across the desk, and I focus on the sunspots staining his skin. “He does. He’s the executor of the trust. I suppose with you being here without him, that he hasn’t told you.”

My eyes burn a hole into the wood grain in front of me as I shake my head. Of course he wouldn’t tell me. He likes to hold me under his thumb, controlling things about me in all the wrong ways. And all this threatens his ability to continue doing so.

I mean, I’ll definitely need to meet with the financial advisor again to make sure, but the idea of freedom is enough to hold me up the rest of the meeting.

* * *

“Why amI still so fucking bitter?” Amora slams her pan of cupcakes on the stove. “It’s been over a month. I’ve gone back to my regular rotation of pussy tasting connoisseurs, and I still think about that guy.”

I twirl my finger around the faux marble designs in the linoleum bar top, watching Amora pace the kitchen. Part of my consciousness is still back at the bank with Mr. Ferguson, while the other is trying to focus on Amora’s current fit.

She has about two a week.

They usually begin with her beating herself up, asking how she could ignore all the signs. Then she has a nice five-minute cry right before she flips through a baking recipe book. After picking one, she disappears, coming back with a fresh face of makeup and Lizzo playing in her headphones. It’s as if she goes through the stages of grief all at once, but not in the right order.

I wonder how I’ll cope when Blaze and I end.

My stomach twists at the invasive thought. There’s still a chancesomethingcould change. It may be only one in a million, but even that small piece is worth holding on to for dear life.

“You loved him, Amora. Stop being so hard on yourself.” Lily wraps her hair into a loose bun, glancing at her phone.

She’s been checking it periodically, and the way she keeps biting the corner of her lip and twisting her bracelet has me worried.

“Love? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It was heavy on the lust, sure, but in the end, it’s not about him. I’m mad atmyselffor letting some good dick and a sweet mouth fool me.” Amora grabs her shot of tequila and throws it back in one gulp. “We should go to Anger Valley.”

“What’s that?” I ask, finally looking up from the counter.

“It’s a facility right outside of downtown with these ‘anger rooms’,” Lily explains. “You suit up and basically beat the shit out of old cars, big trash cans, and break windows. It’s a healthy therapeutic exercise that really does help alleviate some built-up tension.”

“Can we go?” Amora braves the hot pan and snatches up a marble cupcake.

“I’d love to,” I say, probably a little too enthusiastically.

Amora and Lily look at each other in unison, then to me.

Lily’s voice takes the familiar softness she uses when talking Amora off the rails. “Do you have some things built up you’d like to reconcile with, Rem?”

Amora peels the paper backing on her dessert and I wonder for a moment if she has any sensation at all in her hands. “I mean, all she does is read, study, and work for that dickwad.”

“First, Dr. Humphrey isn’t that bad. And secondly, I do other things, Amora.” Heat flares up my neck, thoughts of those other things making my core clench.

She waggles her eyebrows. “Oh, I know.”

Lily holds up a hand before I can say anything. “Let’s not talk about my friend’s dick again, please. The last time was enough.”

We all laugh in unison, a light air floating through the kitchen. But it’s quickly snuffed out by Lily’s therapist-in-training gaze.

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