My Future Self Called to Save My Ruined Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Down Payment

Inside, Lindsay finds a salon floor plan with her inheritance penciled in as the down payment, tells them she's leaving for Ashford, and wakes to a bank alert: twenty thousand dollars scheduled to go to Ryan.

"We," I said.

Kendall's eyes went wide.

"I mean me. I wasn't expecting you. Ryan's in the shower."

Behind her, Ryan walked out of the kitchen in a pair of gym shorts, dry as a bone.

He stopped when he saw me.

Then he smiled, easy.

"Babe! Hey. What are you doing here?"

"You told me you were alone."

"I was. Kenz just showed up." He jerked his thumb at her. "She's having a hard week. Right, Kenz?"

"Such a hard week," Kendall said.

She tugged the sweater higher on her shoulder.

I walked past them into the apartment.

The apartment I'd helped furnish.

The couch I'd paid for over six months.

On the coffee table were two wine glasses, both with lipstick on one rim.

Two plates with the crusts of the pasta I'd taught Ryan to make.

Two phones, face down.

Kendall's little white purse on my side of the couch.

"She had a fight with her mom," Ryan said behind me. "I was being a friend."

"You're the one who always says be nice to her."

"In my sweater?"

"She was cold."

"It was in my closet at my place, Ryan."

He opened his mouth and closed it.

Kendall laughed, high and bright.

"Linds, you lent it to me at Christmas. You don't remember?"

I didn't lend it to her at Christmas.

I had looked for it for two weeks in January and cried in the laundromat when I thought I'd lost it.

She'd watched me cry.

She'd helped me look.

On the dining table, under the fruit bowl, was a large sheet of paper.

It was a floor plan.

Four chairs drawn in pencil. A wash station. A front desk with a little star on it.

Across the top in pink marker it said, "Kendall Tate Studio."

In the corner, in Ryan's blocky handwriting, was a budget.

"Chairs: $4,000."

"First month + deposit: $3,000."

"Sign: $800."

And at the bottom, circled twice.

"Down payment: $20K (Linds)."

I read it again.

My name. In parentheses.

"What is this?"

Ryan came over fast and pulled the fruit bowl off it, then seemed to realize that made it worse.

"That's nothing. That's a dream board. Kenz's been talking about a salon forever."

"It says my name."

"Because you're family, babe. You'd want to help her. You always help."

"With my grandmother's money."

"It's just sitting there!" He threw up his hands. "It's not doing anything in a savings account."

"This is an investment. We'd all be in it together."

"We," I said again.

Kendall came up beside him.

She didn't touch him.

She didn't have to. She stood the way you stand next to someone you're allowed to stand next to.

"Linds, you were going to hear about it this weekend," she said. "At your party."

"We wanted it to be a surprise. You know, since you're staying."

"Who said I'm staying?"

They looked at each other.

It was the look that did it.

A short look, a practiced look, the kind of look two people only make after months of looking at each other.

"You said," Ryan said slowly. "You said you'd turn down Boston. We talked about it. You promised me."

He was right.

I had promised him.

Three weeks ago, in his car, when he cried and said he couldn't do long distance.

When he said Boston would change me and I'd find some rich guy with a boat.

When he said nobody would love me the way he did.

"I accepted it," I said. "Tonight. At 11:52."

The room went quiet.

The playlist kept playing, some soft song about forever.

Ryan's face did something I had never seen it do.

It went flat.

All the sweetness drained out of it, the dimples and the puppy eyes and the easy mouth, and there was just a man doing math.

"Undo it," he said.

"I can't."

"Then call them in the morning. Tell them you made a mistake."

"I didn't make a mistake."

"Linds." He stepped closer. "You're not thinking straight. You're emotional."

"You walked in here and saw something that isn't what it looks like. Now you're wrecking your whole life to punish me."

"I accepted before I got here."

That stopped him for a second.

"Why?" Kendall asked.

She said it too quickly.

"Why tonight? You were so sure. What changed?"

I looked at her in my grandmother's sweater.

I thought about a hoarse voice saying, since the month Grandma died.

"Somebody told me the truth," I said.

Kendall's face went white under her blush.

I took my key off my ring.

I laid it on the floor plan, right on top of the circled twenty thousand.

"Keep the sweater until you're done with it," I said. "Then give it back."

"Linds, come on."

Ryan grabbed for my arm.

I stepped out of reach and walked to the door.

"You'll be back," he called after me. "You always come back. Where else are you gonna go?"

I drove home with both hands tight on the wheel.

I didn't cry.

I kept waiting to, and it didn't come.

I lay on my bed in my coat and stared at the ceiling until the dryers downstairs went quiet.

I must have slept, because the next thing I knew, my phone buzzed on my chest.

6:02 in the morning.

A bank alert.

"A transfer of $20,000.00 to RYAN DECKER has been scheduled from your savings account. Scheduled for today at 10:00 AM."

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