Page 57 of Breadwinner

“Really?”

She nodded. “Stephanie—Steph. We met right after college. I was interning with Angela Dupree, and she was already working on Wall Street. Even back then, Steph was the kind of woman people noticed when she walked into a room. Always heels and power suits and ambitious as hell. Exactly my type.”

“She sounds intense.”

“She was, in the best and worst ways. I was drawn to her confidence. She moved through the world like she belonged in every room. I thought if I stayed close enough, maybe that would rub off on me. We clicked immediately. We had the same values, same ambitions, same obsession with control and success.”

A small puff of breath pushed past her lips as she continued. “So we built a little life together. Or at least started to. We had the condo. A shared calendar. A close group of friends. And a cat. On paper, it was perfect. The next step was marriage. We had already talked about it, so I proposed.”

Sarah was silent, letting her speak at her own pace.

“I kept waiting for it to feel real, but it never did. I chalked it up to being numb to the feeling of love after everything I had been through with my family. But I still kept waking up beside her every day, thinking,Is this what love is supposed to feel like? Is this all there is?”

“What did she feel like to you?”

“Like a reminder of where I had come from. She was a safe choice, and she looked at me like I was everything. And I couldn’t look at her the same way. I tried, but there was always this disconnect, like I was standing outside of my own life, watching it play out and feeling zero connection to it.”

She sank into the pillows as the honesty of her words sat heavy on her tongue.

Sarah’s brows drew together, empathetically. “So you ended it?”

“I had to. I watched her one night across the dinner table,” she said, staring into the fire. “She had this look, like I was the prize she’d been waiting for her whole life. And I remember thinking,I don’t know how to deserve that. Pretending for so long was starting to catch up with me. And Steph deserved better than that.”

“Were you heartbroken?” Sarah asked quietly.

“I wasn’t. She was. And that made me feel like something in me was broken. I feel like I’m wired differently from everyone else because I never felt the same way about Steph as she did about me. Like I wasn’t capable of being loved that way... or loving back.”

“Or maybe she wasn’t the right person.”

Nell considered those words for a moment, lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. “Maybe.”

Sarah might have been right. After all, Nell operated under the assumption that anything was possible until proven impossible. And a part of her wanted to believe that there was still that chance, but a bigger part of her, the part that she trusted the most, had given up that belief long ago.

After another long stretch of silence, Nell spoke again. “I’ve never told anyone that whole story before. Not even Nate.”

Sarah’s voice was thick next to her. “Why tell me?” she asked, with a yawn, eyes heavy with sleep.

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re here, in my bed, talking about terrifyingly vulnerable shit.”

Sarah smiled at her sleepily. “It’s a good bed for that, apparently.”

“Apparently,” Nell agreed, as she listened to the sound of Sarah’s breathing begin to slow as she fought sleep.

“I’m going to go back to my room,” Sarah said a few moments later. But Nell surprised herself as her hand reached out, fingers wrapping delicately around Sarah’s wrist.

“No. Please stay. I want you here,” she said softly.

“Yes, ma’am.” Sarah smiled, getting comfortable under the covers.

Nell reached out and gently tugged the duvet higher around Sarah’s shoulders.

“You’re not so terrible at relationships, you know,” Sarah’s sleepy voice said.

“I have my moments.”

“This is one of them.”

ELEVEN