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It's as I pull up to a stoplight that I realize my hands are shaking.

I was on autopilot for the last twenty minutes as I braced myself for impact against his reaction, and it was even worse than I’d expected. He won’t let me go without a fight, and I know this because I know him .

He’s angry now, but that anger will turn into bargaining soon. It’s the stages of loss, and he already hit the first one—denial—when I told him it was over.

But he can bargain all he wants. I’m not going back.

And what was with throwing out a spur of the moment proposal? Did he really think that was going to be the thing to win me over?

I don’t know if my hands are shaking in anger, in sadness, or in shock that I actually went through with it.

I didn’t bother calling my mom to tell her I’m coming over. Instead, it’s just the direction my car moved.

And when I get there, I spot my sister’s minivan in the driveway.

My heart seems to clench in my chest for a beat at the sight of it.

My sister is here, probably with her two kids. She’s living the life I want, down to the soccer mom vehicle.

I’m happy for her. Truly. But right now I just wanted a place to cry, and that’s not what I’ll get inside this house—not with a two-month-old and a two-year-old inside.

I head toward the front door anyway. I’m already here, and I need a place to stay.

I knock on the door even though I have a key. I don’t want to ring the bell in case the littles are asleep, and my sister answers the door.

“Tori, what are you doing here?” she asks. She’s the only person in the world who calls me by the middle part of my name, just like I call her Ness, the middle part of her name.

The two-month-old is asleep in some wrapper contraption around Vanessa’s midsection, and I can’t help it.

I burst into tears.

“Oh, jeez,” she murmurs, and she reaches out for me to give me an awkward hug around her sleeping baby. “What’s wrong?”

“I just broke up with Owen,” I manage between the sobs I’m trying to keep quiet so I don’t wake the baby.

“What?” she screeches, nearly waking the baby. “What happened?” Her tone is more demanding and less sympathetic than I need right now.

I try to brush away the tears, but they won’t stop falling.

I wanted to come here to talk to my mom, not my sister.

It’s a hard conversation to be having with my little sister considering it’s her boyfriend who introduced Owen and me. The two of them love the two of us together, and before they had kids we used to double date all the time.

Jake and Owen work together, and while Owen hasn’t been making the trip into the office, they’re still good friends. I can’t help but wonder how all this is going to affect their relationship…if at all.

“Who was at the do—” My mom’s voice starts asking a question from around the corner, but she cuts herself off when she sees me standing there in my sister’s awkward embrace.

“Oh, sweetheart,” my mom soothes as she rushes over to pull me into her arms. “What happened?”

“She broke up with Owen,” Vanessa says, filling in the gap for me, and my mom squeezes me tighter.

“That couldn’t have been easy. Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asks.

I try to heave in a deep breath, and she ushers me into the kitchen.

The kitchen is where people seem to gather in most homes, and my parents’ house is no different. Their kitchen is what I associate with home . My mom has a thing for cows, so the entire kitchen is decorated in black and white cow patterns down to the drapes hanging beside the window over the kitchen sink. It looks like something you’d see in an old magazine promoting country living even though the house is located twenty minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, which is about as far from country living as you can get.

I sit in one of the stools covered in faux cowhide at the counter, and my sister takes the stool beside me while my mom sets to making some lemonade for us—because, according to her, lemonade fixes everything, but I’ve learned over the years it only fixes stuff when you toss in a shot of vodka. Ice cream is much better for fixing things.

“So what happened, Tor?” Vanessa asks.

I draw in a deep breath to compose myself, the tears finally pausing for now, and I glance at baby Maverick tied up to my sister. “Where’s Colton?” I ask, referring to Vanessa’s two-year-old.

“Colt’s napping upstairs, Mav’s napping right here. Pure bliss getting these two boys down at the same time, and it only happens once every blue moon when all the stars align,” she says. “Now spill all the tea, girl.”

“Wait…what are you doing here?” I ask, cocking my head in confusion. Shouldn’t she be at home with her napping babies?

“We finally decided to get rid of the plain white walls and we’re having the whole house painted, and as soon as those are done we’re ripping out the flooring and replacing it, so Mom invited us to stay here for the next couple weeks.”

“Oh,” I murmur, thinking about how the two extra bedrooms in this house are full which means there’s nowhere for me to stay.

My mom slides two glasses of lemonade across the counter, and I take a sip before I launch into my story. “I guess I’ve been unhappy a while now, but I kept thinking we could get things back on track. I kept putting this pressure on myself to make it work since we’d been together so long and I’m ready for kids and marriage and my own family.” I glance over at Mav, and Vanessa tilts her head with sympathy. “It was my friend Mandy who made me realize that I’ve been coming into work every morning grumpy because of a different fight, and things just weren’t changing no matter how hard I tried.”

Vanessa reaches over to squeeze my hand, and I just know she’s going to start in with how we can fix things. But we can’t. I’d have to want to fix it, and I’ve given up wanting it after trying for so long. Now I just want to move forward.

My mom says, “Oh, sweetie. It’s better to end it now than to wind up with the wrong person as the father of your children.”

I twist my lips. I know she’s right, but it just feels like a cliché she’s supposed to say to me, and her words don’t do much to ease the ache.

We chat a little longer in the kitchen over lemonade, and then we all hear Colt wake up through the monitor. And then the attention is on the kids and not on Aunt Vic, so I sneak a covert text to Mandy.

Me: Can I stay at your place a few days?

Her reply is immediate, and she doesn’t ask a single question because I have a feeling she already knows the answer.

Mandy: Of course, for as long as you need.

I let her know I’ll be by after dinner with my family. My dad gets home from work shortly after that, and then Jake arrives, too. I stay for dinner, and then I head over to Mandy’s place.

She’s waiting with a hug and a bottle of Tito’s when I walk in, and I can’t help a small laugh. She directs me to her guest room, where I set my suitcase, and when I emerge, she’s poured two glasses of straight Tito’s for the two of us.

“Want to talk?” she asks as she hands me a glass.

I shrug. “What’s there to say? I told him it was over, he was epically confused for a minute, and then I told him in no uncertain terms that I was breaking up with him, and he told me to get the fuck out. I went to my parents’ house, but my sister is staying there with her two kids so there was no room in the inn, and, well,” I hold my hands up as if to say here I am .

“So I’m your second choice?” she asks, pursing her lips. I know she’s teasing me, and I offer a tiny laugh.

“Yes, second to my mom and dad.”

She heaves out a dramatic sigh and gives me a huge eyeroll. “Fine.”

I giggle.

“But seriously, are you okay?” she asks. She walks over to the couch and pats the seat beside her, and I sit with my legs curled under me.

“I’m okay,” I confirm.

“What made you finally do it?” she asks.

“I guess your words about how you hate it for me finally sunk in. You’re right. He’s a toxic douchebag and I can do better, but I was so obsessed with this idea of the sort of future I want that I was blind to the way he treated me. I want to get married, and I want to be a mom, and now I’m just pushing that future further and further down the road. I want three or four kids, and I want to be a young mom so I have the energy to keep up with them. But now it’s like I’m starting over again,” I say.

She reaches over and squeezes my forearm. “You know this is the right thing, though. I know it’s hard to see your dream go up in smoke, but what if you meet someone tomorrow now that you’re not tied to that douche anymore? Or, wait—what if it’s Travis Woods? I mean, I was sort of reserving him for myself, but it’s probably better not to bang a student’s dad even if he is a DILF.”

My brows knit together even though my stomach flips at the mention of his name. “Travis Woods? Uh, no thanks.”

“Oh my God, you so want him!” she badgers.

“I do not!”

“The way your cheeks are turning red tells a different story, Victoria Hartley.” Her tone is pointed, and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at the insinuation.

I cover my face. “Do not. He’s a dick, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I need time away from stupid men and their dumb shenanigans right now.”

“Fine. I’ll let it go. But you have twenty-four hours to recover. Tomorrow night, we’re going out and we’re getting lit ,” she says, and I have a feeling staying with Mandy for the next little while is going to mean a lot more alcohol than I’m used to drinking.