Page 114 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

“Sunday.”

Two days since everything went to hell, and Astrid was positive she’d only left her bed to pee.

“How much do you know?” she asked.

“All of it,” Delilah said. “Simon told Iris, and then Iris told us, and then Iris called Jordan, who totally ignored her five million messages.”

“I’m a bit hurt, if I’m being honest,” Iris said, but her tone was light, joking.

Still, Astrid didn’t feel like joking. She had to resist the urge to pull the sheet over her head like a pouting kid. Embarrassment cloudedinto her chest, that hot, slimy feeling of shame she’d worked her entire life to never, ever feel.

She’d been fired.

She’d failed.

She’d hurt Jordan. She’dbeenhurting her for weeks. She just hadn’t seen it clearly.

Now, though, everything was painfully obvious—each grotesque and craggy detail of the past month of her life bloomed in full color for all the world to see.

“Honey,” Claire said, smoothing a hand over Astrid’s hair. “Are you okay?”

Astrid sat up, rubbed at her puffy eyes. She didn’t even think she’d washed off her makeup from Friday. And also, she didn’t give one single fuck.

“None of you have talked to Jordan?” she asked, looking at each of her friends.

Iris shook her head. “Simon said she’s been holed up in her room. She hasn’t even talked to him all that much.”

“What about the show?” Astrid asked. “Is Natasha really angry?”

Iris and Claire exchanged a glance, both of their mouths open. No words came out, though. Astrid looked at her stepsister pointedly.

Delilah sighed. “The show’s done, Astrid. Crew left yesterday morning.”

“Shit,” Astrid said, dropping her head into her hands. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to...” But even as she thought it, hoped for it, she knew Jordan simply stepping in as lead designer on a show that had been filming a renovation for five weeks now was impossible.

So she’d fucked that up too.

Jordan must hate her. Jordanshouldhate her.

She closed her eyes, trying to hold back all these emotions, themessy ones, the ones that Isabel had spent the last thirty years teaching Astrid how to control. But she was so goddamn tired of keeping it together, of knowing every next step and exactly how to execute it. She waslost,for fuck’s sake. She was ready to act like it.

So she did something she’d rarely done in front of her friends.

She cried.

As the warm saltwater streaked down her cheeks, she realized she’d only ever really sobbed in front of one other person—Jordan Everwood, on her back porch, as she fell apart, and then Jordan put her back together again with a love song.

The thought only made her cry harder, and soon, she was sobbing into her hands, her shoulders shaking with deep, bone-breaking breaths.

“Holy shit,” Delilah said, but Astrid only dimly registered her voice. All that mattered right now was getting everything out, every single thing she hated about herself, her life, what she’d done to Jordan. Her tears were like a detox, coursing through her body and wiping it clean.

At least, that’s what it felt like.

That’s what she hoped it was, but it all felt so impossible—starting over. What did that even mean for a person who’d already walked on the earth for thirty years?

Soon, she felt her friends’ arms around her, all three of them—Delilah included—wrapping her up and holding her while she right and truly broke down.

“It’s about time,” Iris said, but not unkindly. She said it gently, lovingly, as she pressed a kiss to Astrid’s forehead. “It’s about damn time.”