Page 35 of The Beach Trap

Photo albums.

I choose one, then settle cross-legged on the creaky wicker sofa and flick on a lamp. Soft yellow light falls across my lap as I open the album. The first page is a picture of a chubby toddler with big brown eyes and curly pigtails. Kat. She’s sitting on the beach, a sand shovel in one hand, laughing at the camera.

Quickly, I turn the page; the image of Kat as a tiny, vulnerable child makes my heart hurt in a way I don’t want to analyze too closely. I continue turning pages, seeing more pictures of Kat that must have been taken that same summer. I identify her mother, because she looks a lot like Kat does now, and her grandparents, who look sweet.

But what draws my attention are the pictures of my father.Ourfather. I’ve known for fifteen years that he’s Kat’s father, too, but this photo album drives that home.

Every picture is another burst of pain in my chest. He looks like I remember him, handsome and smiling, but it’s all wrong because in these pictures he’s here, on this beach, with a woman who isn’t my mother, and a little girl who isn’t me.

Anger bubbles inside me, hot and sharp, and I slam the album shut. He was amarried man. Kat is only six months older than me. While her mother was home alone, dealing with morning sickness or heartburn or swollen feet, he was wining and dining my mother. And just a few months later, when my mother was pregnant with me, alone and scared in our shitty apartment in Nashville, he was back in Atlanta with his wife and newborn baby girl.

How convenient for him. How nice that he could skip back and forth between two lives, between two women, never caring enough about either of them to commit to one. Until my mother died, and he didn’t have that option anymore. Did he ever think about me, after she died? Did he ever feel guilty about abandoning me?

And did Kat realize how lucky she was to have him? I immediately squash that thought. I donotwish I’d had more time with him—he was a liar and a cheater, and I’m ashamed of everything he stands for. Ashamed of who I am, too, and that’s his fault. It’s allhis fucking fault.

I need to hang on to this anger, because beneath it is a deep, yawning emptiness that frightens me. Anger is easier, cleaner. That’s what’s going to get me through this summer, through all my interactions with Kat, through fixing up this house and selling it.

Selling this house won’t compensate for a fraction of the pain he’s caused me. It’ll never balance out the scales—not even close.

But I’ll take what I can get.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KAT

As I cross the mid-bay bridge toward Destin, my shoulders relax and a smile settles on my face—a far cry from my normal state the past six weeks since my dad died and my life imploded.

My spirits dim slightly when I realize I’m stuck in pre–Memorial Day traffic. It takes three times longer than it should to get to my stretch of Old 98—and I’m about to pee my pants when I pull up to the house. At least Blake’s old clunker is nowhere in sight.

I hop out of the car, not even bothering to pull into the garage or grab my suitcase. Inside, I make a beeline for the downstairs bathroom, pulling down my bolero pants as I go. The house smells musty—more like an old attic than a house on the beach. I’ll have to open the windows and get some of that fresh, salty air in.

I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a good week. I don’t have to worry about Mom—she got invited to three different Memorial Day parties—and while I have an agenda, it’s not so full that I won’t have room for downtime. Plus, I’m excited about what’son my to-do list, things like doing research on potential vendors for furniture partnerships and taking “before” pictures around the house to maximize the impact of the “after” shots for the Worthington application.

As I wash my hands with the decade-old seashell soap, I start redecorating the bathroom in my mind. Wallpaper is making a comeback—the designs are practically high fashion. It might be nice to have a highlight wall with deep-blue textured wallpaper so it feels nauticalesque without hitting you over the head with an anchor.

The other walls can balance it out with a cool shade of white. My followers can help choose the exact color—engagement always skyrockets when I let people help me pick shades of lipstick or nail polish. So why not paint?

If I can show the Worthington team that my home décor content is just as compelling as my wearable fashion posts, they’d be crazy not to pick me.

Feeling parched from the long drive, I head to the kitchen for an ice cold Pamplemousse LaCroix. Last week, I stocked the fridge with my favorite sparkling water, spiked seltzer, and canned rosé. I considered leaving a Post-it note with my name on them but thought that might be a little extra. I didn’t count the cans either, which I thought was big of me.

I can practically taste the sweet bubbles with an essence of grapefruit when I walk into the kitchen and—“What the actual fuck?”

The room looks like it was hit with a singularly focused tornado. The floor is destroyed. Literally. Every single square of linoleum has been hacked up, leaving a dirty wooden floor beneath. The cabinet doors have been removed, including the broken one. They’re all lined up against the wall like headstones, andBlake has painted them the most boring shade of white on the planet. It’s so bright it’s blinding, and I start seeing red.

I take a deep breath to try to calm myself but end up inhaling a bunch of dirt and debris. The source, I now realize, of the dank aroma that’s settled in the house. Eau de Blake.

I agreed to let Blake renovate the house, not to ruin it, and I explicitly told her that I wanted to be involved in every decision regarding the design of the house. Last I checked, the color of the cabinets fits squarely into the design category—and ifthisis the color she thought would be best, then it’s clear I’m the one who inherited all the style genes.

I take a step back and survey the disaster of a room. So much for getting a before picture. It’s like Blake is sabotaging me every chance she gets.

For a brief second, I wonder if she’s doing this all on purpose. Maybe she doesn’t really need the money; maybe she just wants to leave me holding the debris of this house the way she left me holding the broken pieces of my heart when we were twelve.

My frosty LaCroix forgotten, I retrace my steps, stopping to open the windows a crack, and get back in my car.

The engine hasn’t had time to cool down yet, and I sure as hell haven’t either. Which is probably good. Blake deserves my full fury, not a watered-down version.

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