After a couple of days of seeing me mope and not do anything else for myself, Poonam had enough and staged an intervention. This she accomplished via texting all my friends spread all over the country with the news. In a matter of minutes, she'd organized a giant conference call with all of them. She set her laptop on my bedside table so they could see what a miserable blankets burrito I'd become.

"She looks even paler than I remember her," Leti said from New York. "Mi amor, what do you think?"

I saw DeAndre's face as he peeked from the corner of the camera. Even though his window was small, it didn't hide his grimace.

"She looks sick, that's what," he said.

"Gee, thanks," I mumbled.

"You need to get out of that bed and grab life by the cojones," the advice came from Ayrton. He Skyped us from the middle of the set of the TV show he was working in.

"Won't you get in trouble for chatting with your friends at work?" I asked him, but he shrugged.

"All anyone does around here is be on some end of a camera, it's no biggie." He snapped his fingers close to the phone so I could see them and hear them. "As for you, this is a biggie but you can't let it take you down."

I was down, alright. Down in spirits and funds. I lived paycheck to paycheck and I didn't know how I was going to survive when the next deposit didn't make it to my account but my bills continued sucking it dry without knowing any better. Even so, that wasn't going to be any worse than the empty chamber my chest was. That, I couldn't fix as easily as finding another job.

"Addy, honey. I'm so sorry," Page said, now back to work in Seattle. "This is all so terrible but you're letting it steamroll you."

"That's right." Vera got all up in the screen. "Where's the Addy who teased and prodded me until I came out of my shell?"

"Hiding in hers," I responded. I rolled around my bed with a groan. "Guys, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But I just can't fix it."

"Bitch, you can," Ayrton said. "All you have to do is go back to that office, tell that moron to fuck all the way off and take back your man. It doesn't matter what anyone says or thinks, you didn't do anything wrong!"

"Well, aside from running from the confrontation," Leti supplied helpfully. "Sorry to say, but that just made you look guiltier."

I knew that. Oh God, I knew that. That was why I couldn't face the world. I'd acted like a dumbass, just running away and letting go without putting up a fight. That was what cowards did, and I was chicken shit. Now regret clawed at my lungs and made me lose my breath every waking moment since.

But I didn't say any of this. I was so tired of myself that I couldn't even cry anymore. The well of tears had finally dried. My friends tried various tactics to encourage me to do something, from pissing me off, to babying me, to comforting me. It irritated me because I couldn't find the energy in me to do any of what they said. Eventually the conversation finished and Poonam came over to retrieve her laptop. She gave me a mean look but she didn't add anything new to what they had already said. Or what she had already shouted at me.

Instead she surprised me by saying, "Rakim and I are going to a party downtown tonight. You're more than invited, but if not I've stocked the freezer full of ice cream to tide you over until I come back Sunday."

I peeked under the blankets. "You staying over at his place?"

"Yeah, I need a break from living with the ghost of you."

I nodded. It didn't even hurt me, her biting honesty was why I loved her. "Okay, have fun."

I heard her around the apartment, getting ready to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. Rakim must have also grown tired of me, because he usually spent most of his time here, to the point we wanted to charge him rent. This reminded me he had his own place and that Poonam had another place to go.

Not me. I was stuck.

The past week had dried around my feet like a block of cement weighing me down, sinking me further into a darkness that was choking me. I tried to breathe, I really did, but I just didn't know how to get my lungs working again.

I woke up from a restless nap as my cellphone went off. My immediate thought was that it was Miguel, but instead of his name on the screen I saw a (850) number. It must be spam, so I let it go to voicemail. But then whoever it was called me again. And a third time.

I picked up, annoyed. "Hello?"

"Is this Addy Holt?" a female voice asked.

I had a moment's panic that made me bolt to a sitting position. Did something happen to my father?

"Um, yes. Who is this?"

"Gee, took you long," she said, with a familiarity that couldn't come from anyone related to him. "This is Jessica Ashford."

"Holy shit," I said, my jaw dropping. Not that she could see it.

"Talk about a blast from the past, huh?" She had the same mean girl laugh I remembered from Trinity.

"Wow, no kidding." I cleared my throat, racking my brain, wondering what this was all about. "How did you find me? And why?"

"Definitely not for a chit chat," she said with the same confidence of anyone who instead would've said something nice. That was Jess, alright. "I got your number from Becca Masterson, she told me you'll be designing her wedding dress."

What the-

My mind was swimming. "How do you know Becca?"

"She's marrying the main donor to my girlfriend's campaign for the senate. It's a small world, you know?"

I flopped on my back, giving up and just accepting life's twists and turns as they came.

"Let me guess, you want me to design something for you."

"Not just me," Jess continued. "But my girlfriend too."

It turned out she was marrying her high school sweetheart, although back then they just thought of each other as best friends. One thing led to another and in college they realized they were madly in lust for each other. One thing led to another, and recently they realized that what they had between them wasn't just a friend's with benefits type of arrangement, where each one was free to date whomever else they wanted and occasionally meet for a nice little night together when other relationships fell apart. They wanted to make it official, and her girlfriend wanted to show the world that she could become the first lesbian senator for the state of Florida.

I put my arm over my eyes. Damn, everybody I knew was so remarkable, living their truths out there and making their way in a world that was set on excluding them. Meanwhile there I was, feeling sorry for myself and looking forward to dining, breaking my fast and lunching on ice cream for the next twenty four hours.

"So two wedding dresses," I said.

"Yes. We want to get married before Becca, but don't tell her."

"And why me?" I asked her, which probably wasn't the smartest business move, but I genuinely needed to know. "Why not Vera Wang or Elie Saab?"

"Sure, they're better options," she admitted. I could almost picture her shrugging off the casual insult. "But that would be predictable. I want to go in history as one of the first clients of the next great American designer."

I gasped.

"Oh, stop it," Jess snapped. "Don't give me that false modesty crap."

"I'm not," I said, choked up. "These days I feel like an imposter."

"Most people probably feel like that at some point in their lives." Not her, I imagined. Jess continued, "But you know I only want what's best. If I'm hiring you for my wedding, it's because you are. So are you going to do this or not?"

"Yes," I said before I thought better of it. "I am."

"Good, I'll email you details. We'll pay you extra to keep this in the dark from Becca."

"Are you sure you want to piss off the future wife of an important guy like that?"

Jess huffed. "She booked the venue that Gigi and I wanted, so yes. She deserves it."

For the first time in days I laughed. It was almost like, despite whatever business arrangement that this Gigi person and Becca's fiancee's had, Jess and Becca had something of a rivalry going on. And I was set to benefit from it. At least this provided a windfall for me, because this type of commissions required a healthy advance fee. I thanked the heavens for sending me this unexpected business that would allow me to support myself for one more month. After that, I'd figure something out.

After hanging up from the call, I tossed away my bed sheets and set out to find my laptop. Not only did I have to start actually designing three wedding dresses, at least, four if Charlie didn't fire me from her wedding, but it was also high time I started applying for a new job. I only moved from the sofa for hours to replenish my bowl of ice cream, but I even slept there and continued working in the morning.

The knocks that came to the door close to noon startled the living daylights out of me.

I looked down at my tent sized t-shirt with ice scream splotches down the front. If it was Miguel, I was going to have to rush and get changed. Instead, the person I saw behind the peephole was someone else.

I opened the door without thinking twice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Vera took off the sunglasses that hid most of her face and tossed a strand of red hair from her wig over her shoulder.

"You're being stupid and you need a shake up in person." She glanced around the hall as a neighbor and her kid approached. "But first, let me in."

I stood aside to do that and closed the door. Vera gave me a hug that made her cough.

"Geez, you smell rancid. When was the last time you showered?"

Heat traveled up my neck. The truth was that I couldn't remember if it was four or five days ago.

"You didn't have to come all the way here," I said, hoping that deflected the focus from my poor hygiene. "Don't you have a crazy schedule?"

She shrugged. "I lied and said my little brother was sick and only I could look after him."

She wheeled a small suitcase into the living room and plopped on the couch, on the same spot I spent the night. Vera took off the disguise like it offended her, dropping everything on the floor and sagging back against the pillows.

I sat across from her, smiling. "Why do I get the feeling that you just needed a vacation?"

"Call it two birds with one stone," she conceded. "But I really am worried about you."

My shoulders dropped. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry about others caring about you."

Well, wasn't that exactly what I'd felt about my relationship with Miguel. Like I was always causing him to worry. Like I wasn't any fun, only crying and moping around him and him making me feel better, while deep down I felt like I didn't deserve it.

"God, your parents did you a number," Vera told me as I expressed this concern. I fiddled with the hem of my dirty t-shirt but she continued. "You don't have to live by the standards they set for you, you know. Not everybody is going to abandon you."

"That's what he did," I whispered. "When I needed him the most, he just left."

I jumped off my seat after she pelted me in the face with her wig.

"That's only because you pushed him away, you great big oaf." She crossed her arms. "If you ask me, what he did was that he respected your wishes to be abandoned. You're the one who brought that upon yourself."

My face crumbled and tears started to fall. "I thought you came over to make me feel better."

"No, I came over to make you see reason." Vera stood up and leaned over me. "You need to snap out of this habit of isolating yourself and work to get what's going to make you happy. And yes, in this case that includes both your job and the man of your dreams. Everything worth giving a damn about requires sacrifice, and right now you have to sacrifice your shell."

She was right. She was absolutely, one hundred percent, fucking accurate.

Which was why I was petrified.

Vera stayed over, haunting me with words of encouragement for the rest of the day. When Sunday came and Poonam returned from staying at Rakim's, having the two of them drove the message home. I was helpless against a team like this. But finally they convinced me that I had to fight. The goal was to get my job back and more importantly, to get Miguel back in my life.

I didn't know how I was going to do this yet, but I sure was going to try.