Page 128 of My Lucky Charm

She purses her lips.

Wait.

“Raya, am I in trouble? Did I do something—”

She cuts me off with, “I talked to Amber Johanssen yesterday.”

My stomach sinks. “Jay’s girlfriend Amber?” Why is she bringing her up?

My cheeks are on fire. The words I was the other woman race through my head. A stark reminder that my so-called “best trait” is sometimes also my worst.

“They broke up,” Raya says.

I do a double take. “Whoa. For real?”

“After she heard what you did,” she says.

I straighten. Maybe I should feel badly that I came between Amber and Jay again, but I don’t. She deserves better too.

“She said it was a wake-up call,” Raya says. “I didn’t realize he was so—”

I pull my hands into my lap. I don’t want to think about Jay or the things he said to me. And I especially don’t want to think about the fact that I believed him. It was like he saw my insecurities and he figured out how to weaponize them.

I was never anything more than a game to him.

The embarrassing thing is that I was so desperate for his attention that I went along with it. Ignored the red flags and warning bells and let myself get swept up in a fantasy.

I glance at my sister and see a pitying look on her face. “I took care of Jay, remember?”

Raya softens, like she can see through my brave face straight to the girl hiding in the back corner, wishing someone would love her. The girl who keeps putting herself out there, who keeps getting her heart broken, over and over again . . .

Every new relationship holds the promise of possibility. And every time that promise breaks, I have to check this brave face in the mirror.

Raya must see it faltering because she reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrink under her gaze, knowing this admission will make me seem weak. Especially to my always smart, always put-together sister.

“El?” Her eyes plead.

“Because I wanted to believe him,” I blurt, then look away. “I wanted to believe that I was—” I stop, not wanting to go to wherever reliving this is about to take me.

I expect my sister to judge that, but she doesn’t. She smiles sadly and squeezes my hand.

“He had this way about him, this—” I search for the word— “this charm. But he also had a way of making people feel small,” I say. “And it was easy to make me feel small because I wasn’t very secure in that job. I was so intent on proving myself, and I think he saw that as a weakness.”

Raya shakes her head, like she understands, even though there’s no way anyone would ever view Raya as weak.

“People like Jay do that to make themselves feel important,” she says. “It’s his problem, El, not yours. He put you down to keep you from realizing that you deserve so much better.”

I nod because I know this, but also, there’s something blocking me from really knowing it. It still feels like I’m the one who did something wrong.

She takes a drink of her latte, then clears her throat. “The truth is that in these sorts of relationships, it’s often hard to realize power dynamics are in play. Jay was your boss, and you were conditioned to want to please him.”

“But I’m fine now,” I tell her. “I don’t want anyone to make me into a victim.”

“Eloise, nobody wants to be a victim. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t one.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But if I am, I just want to forget about all of it and move on.”

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