Page 12 of The Exit Strategy

I don’t have a response for her, and she knows it. Nana Mae pats my hand and pockets her phone instead.

“Start adding oat milk to your grocery list too. She’s been drinking it since college.”

How she even knows that is beyond me. But I’m too lost in my own fucked-up emotions to call her on it.

Instead, I walk Nana Mae out to her golf cart with her ice packs and watch her drive off, then I sit on my porch just as Junie’s front door opens.

This woman is about to make my life significantly harder. She always has.

Yet here I am, on my porch like a goddamn idiot, watching her door and realizing I’d rather have the chaos than the quiet. That’s a problem I don’t know how to fix because I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to put her first a second time around.

3

FERAL, ALLEGEDLY

JUNIE

My high schoolguidance counselor once called me feral, but she justified it by saying she didn’t expect anything less when I was being raised in a frat house.

Turns out Miss Jones was only twenty-three and attended one of Fen’s house parties. The one where I dumped tuna juice on the crotch of some girl’s pants when she stripped naked to go down a Slip ’N Slide in my backyard after telling me I was bringing down the vibe by being there.

In my own fucking house. Three months after my mother had passed away.

Sometimes I wish I had inherited the failing business and Nolan got the haunted house instead of the other way around. Unfortunately for me, the one thing my mother did do was bequeath her ancestral possessions to her spawn.

Now, my house feels like the only thing my mother left behind that still feels…untouched. Like if I hold onto it hard enough, nothing else can disappear.

Closing my eyes, I attempt to meditate away those wild feelings that are crawling up my neck, but it’s intensely hardto do when I’m stuck in a garage apartment owned by Cole freaking Whittaker.

I mean, the ways I could fuck with him are endless. But there’s a thread of doubt that keeps me from going completely savage.

Pouring more wine into my glass, I groan because now I owe that pushy lady a thank you for this.

The apartment is much nicer than I was expecting when I first walked up those stairs, and I wish I could poke around a little, but my mind won’t shut up about what’s to come.

I can’t even count on Fen or Hudson as a distraction because they’re leaving in a few hours.

When my options are myself or Cole, who I know is still awake because I had the misfortune of looking up and making eye contact with him through my bedroom window earlier, I choose myself. Sighing, I make my way out to the stairs.

It’s cool out, but considering summer in Boston is like a gym rat’s armpit, the fresh air that flows in from the ocean is refreshing. I sit on the top step that overlooks the water and do the one thing Fenway told me not to do.

I scroll.

Today, Grace posted her baby registry along with a slew of photos. The cover photo is her sitting in a pile of her shit outside of my house, crying fake tears, gaining sympathy like it’s her job.

My heart splinters a little more. I didn’t think that was possible after Cole demolished the organ when I was eighteen.Thanks for reminding me it’s in there, Grace.

I scoff. Seriously, who sleeps with their best friend’s boyfriend?

Someone who was never your friend to begin with.

I swallow hard. That voice sounds suspiciously like Cole’s, and I can’t afford to have him in my head. Not here.

Knowing I shouldn’t focus on the wreckage of my life, I continue to scroll, feeling worse by the second. How long was I holding onto a one-sided friendship just so I wouldn’t feel so lonely?

The TikTok notifications are still rolling in, like an earthquake with continuous aftershocks.

Your video has 2M new views.