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“What the hell do you want?” I asked, voice cracking.
“That snotty-ass kid wouldn’t let me upstairs,” she snapped. “I’m gonna come back in, take a video of him, and post it to social media. Who does he think he is, huh? Telling me I couldn’t use the elevator to see my own niece!”
“Are you still here?” I asked, ignoring her insane comments. Telling her that Amari was only doing his job would be pointless.
“I’m out on the sidewalk, where he threw me outwith the trash,” she fumed.
“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
The last thing I wanted was Auntie Theresa causing a scene with poor Amari or, worse, somehow getting upstairs and in front of Cole. I had to act fast—I tiptoed into the bedroom while Cole snored. I grabbed some sweats and a pair of sneakers, hastily pulling everything on.
I sent Cole a text:
Going out for coffee before I die
BRB
I prayed he wouldn’t wake up before I returned—I didn’t want him to come looking for me and find me with my aunt.I took the stairs instead of the elevator, hurtling down to the ground level. Amari looked surprised as I burst into the lobby. “Hey,” I said, not stopping as I barreled past him, “sorry about that lady. If Cole comes downstairs, tell him I went for coffee, and I’ll be right back!”
Outside, the sun hurt my eyes. It was already mid-afternoon. People were milling around the Seaport, living their lives, running errands, and walking their dogs. My life felt far removed from anything so normal. My head pounded as I looked around, searching for my aunt. Finally, I spotted her—she stood across the parking lot, scowling at her phone and vaping.Fuck.My stomach plummeted. It had been years since I’d seen Auntie Theresa.
My luck had run out.
I headed across the lot, taking in her spandex leggings, crop top, and enormous sunglasses. Auntie Theresa was dressed for the gym, but the cloud of smoke billowing from her mouth suggested otherwise. Her thin, bleached hair spilled over her shoulders. She saw me coming and slid her sunglasses on top of her head, revealing prominent, dark, eerily symmetrical eyebrows. Her long, fake nails curved like talons—I was surprised she didn’t scratch herself when she moved her sunglasses. But like I’d said, today was not my lucky day.
The closer I got, the more I felt like I was having a nightmare—the kind when the familiar seems strange. That’s how it felt to see my aunt. She was the same, but she was different. The years had not been kind to her. She had bags underneath her eyes, covered by heavy, creasing makeup. Her false eyelashes were so thick I wondered how she had the strength to blink.
It struck me right off the bat that Auntie Theresa had been doing some upgrading. Her fake nails were freshly filled, her eyelashes were super thick, her newly symmetrical eyebrows were tattooed, and the sunglasses perched atop her headwereVersace. (I knew because one of Evie’s rich cousins/bridesmaids sported a similar pair in the Caribbean.) Someone had been funding Auntie’s glow-up.
Which meant I needed to be careful. Real careful.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she deadpanned.
“What do you want, Theresa?” I asked.
“I already told you. You owe me,” Theresa said. She took another pull from her vape pen and exhaled in my direction.
“I haven’t seen you in a million years,” I reminded her. “So I’m not sure why you’re showing up and making demands now.”
“You know why—because you can finally pay.” Auntie Theresa arched a tattooed eyebrow. “I seen your pictures online. I lost track of you for a while, but it’s finally my chance. And when your billionaire’s daddy called me, I knew I’d hit the jackpot.”
“There’s no jackpot.” Fuck, my headache was getting bad again.
“That’s not what he said.” She snorted. “Did you think I was ever gonna forget about the money you stole from me?”
“I took two hundred and fifty bucks from your nightstand. It was money you owed me, anyway,” I said. “And then I ran for my life.”
“I didn’t owe you nothin’. I took you in and gave you a place to live. And how did you reward me? By stealing from me and leaving that guy half-dead in my apartment!” she argued.
“He was lucky he was only half-dead. He deserved a lot worse,” I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out a wad of bills, petty cash Elena had given me from the office. “Here. That’s almost a thousand dollars. Consider yourself reimbursed.”
Auntie Theresa scowled, but she pocketed the money right away. “It’s not enough.”
I sighed. “That’s more than paying you back.”
“No way,” she said. “You left me with one hell of a mess to clean up.”
“It was never my mess, Auntie.” My temples throbbed. I wanted to scream at her, to kick and claw and say all the things I never could at sixteen. “I was just a kid.”