Chapter 30: Vee

Things weren’t going too well.

Patti and Corey had broken up.

The owner of our apartment had given us three months to leave—a relative was moving in indefinitely. Finding a decent-priced apartment in Los Angeles was proving to be an odyssey.

We were still collecting rejections from every audition we attended.

Scott’s casting had closed, and they had chosen a girl I had chatted with while waiting my turn.

Blonde. Blue eyes. Angelic face. Sweet smile. The antithesis of what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

Yaron hadn’t called me.

Every time I thought about him, I felt a pinch in my heart. I missed him. Every day, I regretted my decisions—my choices—but at the same time, I told myself I couldn’t have done things any other way.

The feeling that I wasn’t good for him wouldn’t go away. I kept hurting him. I could tell just from the tone of his voice—muffled, broken, full of half-spoken words he struggled to pronounce and sighs that didn’t go unnoticed.

And me? How did I feel? I was so focused on making my life memorable that every passing day seemed to leave less room for anything else.

Was I being selfish? Maybe. But this was what I wanted. I wanted to succeed. Since leaving Seattle, it had been my priority. I wouldn’t let my love for Yaron hold me back.

After all, he was following his own path. He was smart and resourceful. I had no doubt he would succeed as a psychologist.

I was sure he blamed me for the rift between us—and he was probably right.

It was a February afternoon. Cade had changed my shift because one of the girls had found another job and left without warning, leaving him shorthanded. So, I was stuck behind the counter with Sandy, a young woman from Texas who treated me with a condescension that irritated me like few things ever had.

To top it off, I had just discovered that Scott hadn’t disappeared—he had simply changed his visiting hours to seven in the evening. He had been avoiding me. That much was obvious when our eyes met. His were filled with embarrassment.

I was fuming. As a result, my coffee maker locked up twice, I broke a mug, and I earned two muttered reproaches from Sandy.

During my break, I slipped through the kitchen and out into the back alley. I screamed and kicked over a stack of cardboard boxes. Then I shattered an empty bottle against the dumpster. Tilting my head back, I glared at the sky and let out another growl. My hands were shaking.

Footsteps echoed to my right, near the alley’s entrance. I turned and saw Scott watching me.