Chapter 2Wrecking My Own Wedding

I rushed after her into the hallway. “Maya! You took the wrong one.”

How do you describe the look on her face?

It was like she’d been struck by lightning. A kaleidoscope of emotions flickered across her features: three parts laughter, two parts surprise, four parts panic, and one part guilt.

She’d been in the middle of saying she didn’t want to leave, but the words died on her lips.

Maya stared at me for a long moment, then let out a laugh that sounded more like a sigh of relief. “Well, you made them look like such a perfect couple. For a second there, I thought I was officiating your wedding.”

I looked down at the little red dress on the rabbit in my hand. She was right. It did look better with the black suit.

A knot of discomfort tightened in my stomach, and my voice was sharper than I intended. “I have to go meet a client. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“They’re picking me up.”

I heard Maya sigh, a sound of weary resignation, but she didn’t press, didn’t try to explain.

It was the first time Maya had ever hidden something from me.

Our origin story was a cliché.

The invisible girl at school—parents who didn’t care, grades that were just okay—I was the perfect target. The kind of person who fades into the background is the easiest to bully.

But I got lucky. The very first time a group of girls cornered me in an alley, Maya was there.

She was two years older than me and had gone straight to work after her vocational high school program. Her family was a black hole for money, so she’d moved to the city and gotten a job as a hostess at a bar to escape them.

The day she found me, she’d just been kicked out by her manager to “think about what she did” after telling off a customer.

“Hey, kid.” Maya had a cigarette dangling from her lips. “Go home. What are you standing around for?”

It was fine when she was at a distance. But as she got closer, the smoke hit me. My chest seized up. I collapsed, gasping, pointing desperately at my backpack. My inhaler was in there.

But Maya, bless her heart, was an idiot. She didn’t understand what I was trying to tell her. She started giving me CPR with all the finesse of a jackhammer and nearly broke my ribs.

One emergency room visit wiped out her entire savings.

My parents weren’t around and I had no cash at home. Luckily, Maya wasn’t expecting me to pay her back. She just muttered something about her bad luck and left the hospital.

From then on, I was determined to repay her.

A few thousand dollars wasn’t insurmountable. I could pay it back over time.

I started making a point of walking by that alley every single day, just hoping to see her. At first, it was hit or miss. Then, she started waiting for me. And after a while, she always seemed to have a small cupcake in her hand when I arrived.

Just like that, Maya became my protector, and I became her little shadow.

No one at school ever bothered me again.

Maya was always watching her figure, so she never ate any of the treats. It seemed like all the “protection money” I gave her just ended up in my own stomach in the form of snacks.

We went on like that for a year, and then my parents came home.

They demanded I cut ties with the “trash” I was hanging out with, or they’d pull me out of school and put me to work.

I refused. I took my ID—proof that I was seventeen and could make my own choices—and walked out.

I didn't have an umbrella. I got soaked.

Maya called me a brainless idiot for fighting with my parents.

I just grinned foolishly and said, “You’re the best person to me in the whole world, Maya.”

And I was right.

She quit smoking because the smell triggered my asthma, and she’d change her clothes before meeting me. She gave up spicy food because I couldn’t eat it, sneaking out at two in the morning to get her fix at a late-night barbecue stand. Things like that, countless things.

She paid the rent, the utilities, our living expenses, and my tuition.

I wanted to drop out and get a job to help, but she tore into me, screaming at me for the first and only time. And even then, the harshest things she said were about herself.

“Chloe, do you want to end up like me? With people pointing at your back and calling you a slut?”

I didn’t.

“Don’t worry,” she’d said, her voice softening. “I can take care of you. I’ve got this.”

I remember her expression, her words, as clearly as if it were yesterday.

A wave of nausea churned in my stomach.

How did we get here? How did we end up like this?