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“Do you really want to get involved in this mess?” Lilly asks. “The retreat is going to end soon enough anyway. I know I’m staying out of it. Drama isn’t good for my brand.”
“But it helps engagement.” I wink.
She laughs. “I think you and I both know that not all engagement is good engagement.”
She must have noticed the awful comments on my page, too.
“You’re right.” I sigh, getting up. “It’s best that I stay out of this.”
Enzo, Chet, whatever his name is—he’s going to have to deal with this Silvano situation on his own.
I’m still scrolling through my feed when my phone rings again. I instinctively reach over to cut it, thinking it must be Enzo, but it’s Laurie.
“Hey.”
“Hi, I thought I’d check in.” Her tone is worried. “I saw your latest post, and I was going to leave a comment when I saw what people were saying.”
“Has everyone read the comments by now?” Embarrassment creeps into my tone.
“Well, maybe not everyone. But all four hundred thousand of your followers? Yeah.”
“Perfect,” I groan.
The hate comments are so frequent that even if I delete them, they’ll still find a way back to my page again.
“Just wanted to see if you’re okay. Some of the comments were pretty nasty.”
My face falls.
“Oh Laurie, I wish the comments were the biggest problem in my life right now,” I admit with a sigh.
“They aren’t?”
“Not even close. My dad just caught me making out with his best friend. So, that’s how my day is doing today…”
She gasps loudly. “What the hell? How does that even happen?”
“I don’t even know. I found out that Enzo is Chet, the good friend my dad made when Enzo was on a business trip in the States.”
“Oh my god, Quinn. That is some luck.”
“Now my dad knows everything. I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to look at his face again.”
“Hey, I’ve met Michael before. He doesn’t come across as the most closed-minded guy. Maybe he’ll come to understand it.”
“I just don’t know what I was thinking getting involved with someone so much older. It was never going to go anywhere, and now I’m stuck in an awkward situation with my dad.”
Laurie is quiet for a moment. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Q. Give yourself some slack. You just went through a life-changing event with your divorce. So what if you had a little fun? Your dad will have to accept that you’re an adult, free to make your own decisions.”
Her words made me feel better, even if only momentarily.
Sometimes, I forget that I’m only just human, too. With my divorce with Liam, I shouldered most of the blame, thinking that there must be something wrong with me that our marriage didn’t end up working out.
Whenever I’d see couples around me, I’d resort to comparing my relationship with theirs. How was it that they seemed so happy when I wasn’t?
But Laurie had been a voice of reason even then and told me that I needed to stop comparing people’s surface-level appearances with my reality. Every couple has their problems, they just don’t broadcast them to the world.
I’m grateful to have someone like her in my life, always in my corner, and someone I can depend on.