Boy meets girl, girl falls in love, blah-blah-blah.
Let me be clear with you from the beginning. This is not that kind of story.
My name is Cait, and I live in the great city of New York. Okay, so maybe I've only lived here for a week and a half...
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"So what are you going to do?" Val asked me, munching on a piece of ham and pineapple pizza.
Our original roommate plan involving The Lego Movie was scrapped the moment I walked through the door in tears, and - once I finally stopped sobbing - she ordered us a large pizza, cheese sticks, and two cheesecakes. Being smart, independent females, we ate the cheesecake first.
"I honestly don't know," I replied, polishing off my fourth piece of pizza.
Normally I paid more attention to what I was consuming, but let's be honest. There are exceptions to the healthy rule, and I firmly believed that having your bitchy blackmailer threaten you definitely constituted a damn good exception.
"Have you talked to your family?" Val asked quietly, unsure of how to broach the subject after I'd admitted that the relationship was still strained. What would they think about this?"
I frowned, "I haven't told them. I don't want to tell them. My sister would probably pack up the house and move back to Venezuela tomorrow to go into hiding if it meant helping me, but I don't want her to do that. I don't know, I just...I thought I could figure this out on my own, you know? I feel like I owe it to them after what I did."
Val sighed, taking another bite of pizza, and I took a drink of my Diet Coke. She made her thoughts on my guilt very clear, but I still couldn't help but feel guilty about my behavior. They're my family, and I abandoned them after my mother died. I was so angry that they'd lied to me that I couldn't see that they'd been trying to protect me the entire time.
Now it was my turn to protect them.
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While I definitely believed in protecting my family no matter the cost, I definitely doubted whether my plan was the best option for us. Unfortunately, somewhere between breaking into Danielle's Chelsea apartment and standing in her living room probably wasn't the best place to be having second thoughts.
"What are we even looking for?" Val asked as we walked through Danielle's living room.
It was bigger than I expected, probably close to a thousand square feet, which was practically a mansion as far as New York City real estate. Everything screamed minimalist, with most of the furniture looking as if pulled straight from a West Elm catalogue, and - instead of looking trendy and chic, it made the space feel incredibly cold.
