Page 13 of Keep Me Close

It hits me all over again just how much trouble I’m in where this woman is concerned.

5

Cheyenne

It’s the buzzing of my phone that wakes me the next morning. I grab it off the nightstand and glance at the screen before swiping to answer.

“Hey.”

“How’s my favorite runaway?” my older sister asks.

I smile despite myself. “You heard, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Britt says with a laugh. “Mom’s furious, by the way.”

Of course she is. I would expect nothing less from Sharon Benson.

Not wanting to talk about our mother, I ask instead, “How are you feeling? Baby number three is right around the corner.”

“Actually, I feel pretty good.”

“And the other kiddos? How are they?”

“Avery refuses to wear anything that isn’t pink, and Maddox tried to feed the dog a Pop-Tart this morning. So, to answer your question… it’s just another normal day in the McNichols household.”

I laugh, and some of the tension from yesterday falls away. “I miss the little hellions.”

“The little hellions miss you too,” Britt says. “So, what are you doing in Chicago?”

I hesitate. There isn’t much I keep from my sister, but I’m not ready to disclose the real reason for ending up here.

“Oh, you know. I just needed a little break.”

“A break from the Dakota situation or a break from everything else?”

Both.

The show.

The cameras.

The constant scrutiny.

The way everything in my life feels staged. Including my relationships.

“I don’t know if I want to do the show anymore,” I admit. “I’m tired, Britt. It all feels so fake and a little pointless.”

There’s a pause.

“I get it,” she says. “It wasn’t all that long ago I went through the same thing.”

I know she does. Except Britt didn’t just take off. She totally disappeared. She walked away after wrapping the season finale where her boyfriend at the time proposed and ended up enrolling at Western University where she met Colby McNichols. One drunk Vegas wedding later, and their love story is history.

“But you figured it out,” I say wistfully. “You were brave enough to carve out your own path.”

“You’re right, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t scary at the time. Or that I didn’t have second thoughts, afraid I was making a huge mistake. You’re allowed to do the same, Chey. You don’t have to keep living this life if it’s not what you want. Despite what Mom says, you’re old enough to make your own decisions.”

Thick emotion clogs my throat because deep down, I know she’s right.