She nods and pulls the fuzzy comforter up to her chin. “You do.”
“But you don’t?”
“I’m already up.”
I snort as I watch her electric teal eyes slide closed. “Well, I’m convinced.”
“Shut up.” Eve giggles and gives me a playful shove. “I’ve been up, slaving over the stove just so you can have a nutritious breakfast for your very last first day.”
“Mhm.”
“I have,” she says with a pout as one eyeball opens just enough to glare at me. “Eggs, bacon, the works.”
I arch a brow. “That you made all by yourself?”
“I ordered it by myself, that’s basically the same thing since I normally have a panic attack when I have to?—“
“Act like an adult?”
Evie scowls. “I don’t know why you’re my best friend.”
“Because I still love you even when you let your anxiety turn you into an infant.”
“You’re one to talk, missI’m still in bed just so I don’t have to face my asshole dad who can’t do anything about my choices but will try even though I’m twenty seven years old.”
Frowning, I roll to my back and stare up at my ceiling.
She’s not wrong.
That’s exactly why I’m still in bed.
It’s been two months since I’ve seenthe dean, glorious months where I didn’t have to worry about him, or any of his bullshit because he was thousands of miles away.
I made some pretty big changes in his absence, though, and when I meet with him this morning, he is going to blow a gasket.
At my age, that shouldn’t matter.
His preferences and rules, his reaction, none of that should make a damn bit of difference because I’m an adult capable of running my own life, but it all does. It all weighs heavily on me and the direction my life could take, and there’s a very real possibility of today going so horribly I end up homeless, penniless, and exiled from everything I’ve busted my ass to have the last ten years.
All because I found a loophole in the ironclad contract he had drawn up when I was born.
“You have to face him, Maggie.” Evie gives me a soft smile, one full of genuine understanding because sheknows.
She’s been my best friend since we were in diapers, both of us victims of circumstance and bonded in trauma, so even if she hadn’t seen the way my father treats me, she’d get it because Eve’s father does the same to her.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I give her theyou’re seriously asking me thatlook, to which she sighs and throws the blankets off of both of us before she gets to her feet. “So what if he hates your hair. The shaggy layers are adorably sexy on you, and those purple streaks are perfect with your natural inky black strands.” Eve grabs my ankles and pulls until my legs are hanging off the side of my bed at the knees. “Aside from that, your physical appearance is the same, you just don’t care anymore.”
“Thanks,” I grunt as she gives me another tug, my butt now sitting on the edge of the bed while my head is where my ass previously was.
She’s a strong little thing, I’ll give her that.
I might have a couple of inches on her in height, but we weigh about the same, and we share clothes like we get paid to do it, but Evie’snew hobbyhas really turned the cute little blonde bombshell into quite the badass.
My best friend is moving my dead weight around like I’m a rag doll without breaking a sweat.
“You know what I mean.” She rolls her eyes and reaches for my hands, pulling me upright until I’m finally sitting. “You put the hoops back in your nose full time, you bought an entire new wardrobe that fits your personality to a T, and you threw out the stupid makeup that covered your tattoos. Dean Reynolds is going to lose his damn mind, and we couldn’t care any less.”
We,I,shouldn’t care at all, not with the way my father acts like a raging psycho when it comes to me, and while I all but hate him for it, it’s hard for me to try to break the cycle after twenty seven years of living it.
