Page 28 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Then I did what I knew I would do all along, on some level. I called Margo. Well aware that it was almost midnight on Christmas night and I would be interrupting something, either sleep or something worse—or better—I was too panicked to stop myself from tapping in her two-digit code.
It was time I told her about everything. She was the one person who knew everything, knew what this failure would cost me and who wouldn’t judge, not really. I felt like I was letting her down, but it was only me who was let down, wasn’t it?
It was time to throw my pride out the window about failing to do what I’d set out to do, about squandering my legacy, the fortune I’d been left by my birth family. And because I knew I couldn’t stay here, still didn’t belong here, I had to ask her for help. That was the worst, most sickening thought of all.Damn pride.
“Melissa? Is everything all right?” She sounded more alert than I’d expected.
“Yes, I’m fine. We’re fine.” Shame filled me at causing her worry and realizing that this call probably could have waited until the morning, but I forged on. “Or physically, I’m fine,” I said. “Where are you? Am I interrupting—”
“No, no. We just got home a few minutes ago from the Regal family Christmas extravaganza. I was making hot cocoa. Tell me what’s going on with you. Is it Lucas?”
“No, he’s fine.” I decidedthatconfusion was a story for another day. “I’m at Mom and Dad’s. They say hello.” She told them hello back while I figured out how to tell her about the crash and burn of my adolescent dreams.
“Margo, I don’t know how to tell you this. I—”
“Are you dying, Lissy—?” The high octave of her distraught voice made me cut her off with the brutal truth.
“I’m broke. Almost worse,” I joked, but I knew it was lame and marveled at how low that well of self-assured poise had dropped.
“Wait—what are you talking about?”
“I know. Crazy, right? But it’s true. I lost my business. It’s all gone. All my money. All my assets. I moved out of my apartment, sold all my things.” I took a deep breath. “I have $527 in the bank. But on the bright side, I avoided bankruptcy. So my credit is still good.” I gave a nervous laugh and then pulled it together again when I heard nothing coming from her end of the line. I checked my phone to see that I hadn’t lost her.
“Or my credit will be good as soon as I get a job. I’ll work at a bank. I have a degree in finance and a dozen good contacts. It should be a cinch—”
“Oh, Lissy.” Her voice was low and strangled and spoke of her full and thorough understanding of the implications, of what it meant to me to lose everything. To lose what I had always thought was my true life, the legacy of my birth family.
“I’m so, so sorry, honey.” I heard the strangle in her voice.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” I felt stronger in the face of her distress. She sniffled on the other end of the line. Then she cleared her throat and spoke again before I could muster the courage to go on and ask her for the biggest favor of my life.
She said, “Are you staying at your parents?”
“No—”
“Stay with me—with us, with George and me. We have more room than we need here. I won’t have it any other way.”
I let her ramble on with her insistent invitation, smiling and crying at the same time and thanking my lucky stars, or the friend gods, who’d bestowed undeserving me with a friend like my dear sweet Margo.
Maybe Lucas had been right. I hadn’t lost everything, had I? I still had my most precious friend.
I spoke through my tears. “You have no idea how much your invitation means to me. Because I just can’t stay here in Cold Springs. I love my parents, but it would be a daily reminder of my failure.” And of where I don’t belong.
“Don’t say another word about it.” She was crying in full force now too. “We’ll expect you tomorrow. Or when you’re finished visiting with your parents.”
“Tomorrow. Morning.”
Lucas would drive me back in his chic little Uber car. I listened to Margo blow her nose before she spoke again and put aside the thought of Lucas, which was disturbing and heart-thudding—both in a good and bad way. What to do about him…
“Perfect. You don’t mind that George’s cousin is going to be here for dinner tomorrow night, do you?”
“Why would I? I like Willie.” I pretended not to get the rub of the situation, but she pressed it and my nerves shot up again.
“And he likes you, but in a completely different way, I think. What about you and Lucas? Did you want to invite him?”
And here I was at the crossroads. Time to burst my bubble outside of time. I took a deep breath. I’d already decided to move back to the city, already decided to get a job in banking. It was time to commit to clawing my way back, all on my own this time. There would be no time, no place for extending my affair with Lucas.
The sharp pang I experienced thinking about the reality of the end surprised me. I had no idea how I could feel such an emotional tug at losing someone I’d only known for two days. It was nuts.
