Page 67 of I Love You, I Hate You

Victoria rested her chin on her folded forearms. “Can we pretend it’s not happening?”

“If you want. But talking might help, unless you’ve already talked it all out with your girlfriends.”

“Just call them friends, Mom. Calling platonic friends ‘girlfriends’ makes it harder for women in relationships with women to correctly identify their partners.”

“Okay then, your friends. Do they sufficiently have your back?”

“They do.”

“Is it a situation that requires murder, or just mild maiming?”

“Probably just maiming?” She was furious with Owen, but there was an odd tinge to her sadness, because even though she’d said goodbye to Luke—she thought—long before this, somehow it felt like losing them both again. She watched Kimmy chop up the hot dogs and toss them into the macaroni and cheese. Disgusting, yes, but also delicious. She remembered telling Luke about her favorite comfort food, and now she knew exactly the way he’d look while laughing about it. Owen’s eyes tended to sparkle when he was teasing her, and she missed that about him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m pissed as hell at him. But . . . I don’t know.”

“Could you forgive him for it?”

“Maybe? With sufficient groveling, I guess, but I may have given him the impression I never wanted to see him again, so I don’t think that would happen anyway. But really, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Honey, we should—”

“Mom, please.”

“Okay then. How’s work?”

“Ugh,” Victoria said. They tucked into their dinner, sitting side by side on the stools. “Ever since I got thrown off the case, things have been, I dunno, rough.”

“Your boss riding you about it?”

“More like I’m clearly not the favorite,” she admitted. Her ego could handle that blow, but without being the star litigator of the department she was questioning why she was doing it. The only thing going for it was the money, and that seemed like less and less of a reason these days.

“There must be another job out there for you,” Kimmy pressed. “With a resumé like yours you should be able to find something.”

Victoria shrugged. “Anywhere else would be a lateral move. I’d still be working for a big corporation, and it’s not like any other companies are much better, you know?”

“Then what about something else entirely?”

“Not with my loans,” Victoria said, and Kimmy winced. “It’s fine, Mom, really. I’m an adult and this is the choice I’ve made, even if Reproductive Justice would be—Never mind.”

“There’s a job at Reproductive Justice?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” Kimmy argued. “They offered you a job? You love them!”

“The pay cut would be too much.”

“How much?”

“Too much.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t have a spreadsheet of all your income and expenses. You’ve had one of those since you were a kid,” Kimmy chided. “Exactly how much are we talking?”

“Thirty percent.”

“You could still live on that.”

“Not with what I have earmarked for savings.”

Kimmy set down her fork. “You mean the money you send me.”