Page 75 of All the Beautiful Things
If I did it again, I’d probably end up looking equally crazy and I wouldn’t do that. Not in front of a woman Hudson used to date.
This was nothing. It had to be.
I stepped into the elevator and avoided looking at Hudson’s office.
So his ex-girlfriend was there.
Big deal.
He loved me.
But for how long? How long until he realized he could do so much better?
* * *
I made it home,burning hot beneath my coat and gloves and scarf despite the frigid December temperatures. We’d had three inches of snow the other day and the sidewalks were covered with slush and sand and salt that crunched beneath my boots.
His girlfriend.
Probably someone beautiful and perfect, so much like that woman Harper who caught me in the restroom at Brandon and Jenna’s wedding.
But she’d be more beautiful… because Hudson dated her.
It made no difference. Logically, it didn’t matter one single bit and yet it was only the reminder of how much life he’d had to live and how mine was still so barely getting started.
So his family accepted me, but what about other friends? What would they say when Hudson introduced me and I had to tell them why I was still getting a degree… a measly two-year one from a community college when they probably all had bachelor’s degrees, or master’s even. Or why I was only working part-time at Valor. Or where was I from?
The world was a small place, and the internet made it that much smaller.
One quick Google Search and Hudson would find himself constantly defending where I came from, who I was… what I’d done and who I’d killed.
“Enough,” I muttered, scolding myself as I entered my building’s main floor. A quick flash of dark hair on a pip-squeak-sized body grabbed my attention. “Yasmine!” I called out, guessing I had the right twin.
Her pretty little face peeked back through the elevator door. “I’m Amala. Silly Lilly.”
Silly Lilly indeed.
“Hold that for me?”
Her little hand came up and I hurried toward the elevator, not the least bit surprised when I entered and Samaya was there along with Yasmine.
“Hey girls,” I said to both of them. I didn’t ask about school. It caused fights. One of them hated everything about it and one of them loved it. “Samaya. How are you?”
“Can’t complain when it’s a Friday.”
I sure could, but I wouldn’t. “Tell me about it,” I said instead of dousing her excitement with my woe is me bullshit.
“Take care, girls!”
They stepped off the elevator and Samaya stopped. “You okay?”
“I’m good.”
She narrowed her eyes. Dressed in a black coat and jeans beneath, her headscarf was a beautiful eggplant shade. It matched the sweater I could see beneath her coat. “You sure?”
No, I wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. I was being ridiculous. I knew that, and yet as soon as the avalanche of thoughts started, I couldn’t stop them even while I tried.
I shook my head. Stupid, stupid insecurities. “I’m good,” I sighed. “Just a long day. Or morning, I guess.”
