Page 1 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
ONE
Merritt
I am a fraud.
The words loop in my head as I run mile after mile down the beach. I can’t go fast enough to escape their refrain. Or the truth behind the words.
I am a fraud. I’m a fraud.
Hello! Nice to meet you. Just call me Ima Fraud.
I haven’t committed the kind of fraud that could land me in the clink—do people really call jail that?—but more the personal kind. I haven’t defrauded investors or committed mail fraud or any of the other kinds of fraud out there. No—I’ve just been pretending to be someone else for, oh, I don’t know … almost ten years of my life.
With absolutely no warning, I stumble, my ankle turning sharply as I pitch forward onto the sand.
I lie there for a few seconds, panting, ankle throbbing, pride stinging mightily.
Even the universe—not that I believe in woo-woo stuff like that—is judging, finding me in need of punishment for being such a little liar. What other explanation is there for what seemed like a picture-perfect life on the outside—successful career, relationship on the path I thought would lead to a ring and beyond—becoming a dumpster fire?
No—a dumpster fire isn’t big enough. My life is more like a whole landfill engulfed in flames. Stinky. Disgusting. Burning out of control.
Even worse: at its core, my life was trash to begin with. Just trash.
Drama much?
Yeah, normally I leave the theatrics to my sisters. Eloise and Sadie aren’t drama queens by any stretch, but comparatively, I’m the last one people would expect to throw a pity party lying facedown on the beach.
And yet, here I am.
Groaning, I sit up.
Unwilling to deal with my ankle yet, I focus instead on all the sand. It’s on my chin, my palms, down the minimal cleavage inside my sports bra.
Is it in my teeth?
Yes. Yes, it is.
I squeeze my eyes closed and try to focus on my breathing, matching it up with the sound of the surf pounding a few feet away. I want to laugh at the enormous one-eighty I’ve done in the past month. More specifically, in the last week.
Before, on a normal day, I looked like the kind of woman who would walk into a conference room and cut you with my stiletto if it meant getting a contract signed.
A woman who had accomplished more by twenty-six than most.
Who could run for ten miles at a seven-minute pace and still finish with enough energy to hit up a cycling class later.
But I don’t know what a normal day is anymore.
Because right now, I do not recognize the sandy, sweaty woman in a panting heap on the beach in front of my recently deceased grandmother’s beach house.
Maybe this is the new normal. Maybe THIS is the real you.
I snort. I’m not sure where this snarky inner voice is coming from, telling me I’m dramatic and directionless. That this messy failure of a person with sand in her molars is the “real me.” Let’s hope not.
Something tickles my cheek, and I reach up, expecting to brush away sand. When my fingertips come away wet, I’m horrified.
TEARS?!??
Oh, no. Nope. We are not CRYING over this.
