Page 5 of Late Bloomer
“So, I talked to Laney a bit ago and—”
In a burst of movement, my phone is torn out of my hand and I’m gaping up at my sister.
“Snort glass, asshole,” Ophelia says into the microphone before ending the call.
“What the hell was that?” I shout, pushing to stand and looking at my sister with righteous indignation.
Ophelia gives me a bland look. “I think you know.”
My shoulders slump. Of course I know. Despite evidence to the contrary, I do possess some common sense and a painful amount of self-awareness. It’s just that, despite those two things, I still makeawfulchoices. Especially when it comes to Miles. Or most men, for that matter.
It sometimes feels like a curse to be attracted to men, seeing as I don’t generally like them. Now, women? I love women.They are creatures I genuinely want to talk to and also kindly ask to sit on my face.
“You need to block him,” Ophelia says. “I know what he’s doing.”
“You couldn’t even hear the conversation!”
Ophelia crosses her arms over her chest, cocking her hip. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. He spends your relationship using you and cheating on you, then dumps you and regularly booty-calls you, then a few hours after you win thelotteryhe misses you? Come on, Opal.”
I rub my fist against my aching chest. Ophelia is the brutalist type of honest.
“I know,” I whisper.
“Opal, sweetie, I know that’s hard to hear,” Olivia says, holding out her arms from the couch. I cross the room and collapse into her. “But whatever you do, don’t give that talentless ass clown a cent. I’m begging you.”
“I won’t,” I say, voice shaky and thoroughly unconvincing. I don’twantto give Miles money, but I have this disastrous tendency to give in when people ask me for something often enough. And no one is quite as persuasive as Miles. “I think Laney expects something since she got me the ticket.”
“Oh my God, that’s another person that can fuck all the way off.”
“She’s my friend,” I protest (rather weakly).
“She’s really not, Opie,” Ophelia says, pulling out my childhood nickname. “And you don’t owe her a dime. You’ve gone above and beyond with favors for her over the years.”
“She only calls you a friend because she knows it means she can get something out of you.”
And that’s my problem. I’m so hungry to connect with someone—anyone—I settle for crumbs and pretend like they’re a full meal.
Ophelia folds her long limbs onto the couch behind me, hugging my back. My sisters are quiet for a moment, letting me silently stitch the latest tear in my already broken heart.
“Whatdoyou think you’ll do with the money?” Olivia eventually asks, pulling back to smooth a hand over my hair.
The question catches me off guard. I’ve been so stunned at even the idea that I’d won, then tangled up in others trying to lay claim on this life-changing money, that I haven’t processed it’smine. That I can do whatever I want with it.
But whatshouldI do with it?
Believe it or not, I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming an ill-paid giant ice cream cone. I went to art school, getting my degree in fine art, which, in this capitalistic hellscape I was tragically born into, means that I spent a lot of money to be deemed unemployable by pretty much every job application algorithm out there.
Which is fine. Totally fine. Every artist has to struggle. After graduating with no plan, I tucked tail and moved back in with my parents, naively promising myself that I’d be staying six months, tops. Just long enough to save money and move to New York, where all real artists lived and suffered and thrived.
Sprinkle was temporary. A means to a (slightly degradinglyearned) paycheck. And I had been close—so close—to making the move.
And then I met Miles.
And I put the move off.
And kept putting it off.
And, holy shit,keptputting it off.
