Well, she had something, because she’d pretty much figured her life out, by golly.

But she needed some coffee before she attempted to fix her mistake. So she held up a hand. “But first, coffee.”

“Don’t you use some T-shirt slogan on me,” Olivia said, slamming down her mug with rapid velocity. Coffee sloshed over onto the side table, but Olivia didn’t seem to care. The look on her face suggested the possibility of attempted murder in the very near future. “You scared the hell out of me! Don’t you remember what I told you about Marley? How could you?”

“Oh God, Olivia! You thought . . . you thought . . . I would never.”

Honest-to-God tears appeared in Olivia’s eyes. One slid down her cheek, and she dashed it away with impatience. “That’s what she said. Those exact words. But I found her lying in a pool of her own vomit, her eyes open, and a fucking letter beside her telling me she couldn’t do life anymore. Why did you turn off your phone? Why did you run away?”

Neve came into the living room, shot Chase a look of rebuke, and walked over to her sister. She perched on the arm of the chair and laid a comforting hand on Olivia’s shoulder. Two sisters as a stalwart front. “Shh. Let’s all take a deep breath.”

Olivia jabbed her finger in Chase’s direction. “And see what else you’ve done? You’ve made Neve the voice of reason!”

Neve may have smiled before schooling her face into one of general calmness. “Go get some coffee, Chase. Think hard as you traverse the dining room about what you need to say.”

Chase wasn’t stupid. She did as she was bid, acknowledging the low hum of Neve’s murmured “Calm down” and “She’s okay.”

As horrible as she felt about turning off her phone and not telling anyone where she was going, a small part of her found comfort in the thought blip that the three of them sounded like sisters.

Yesterday when she’d arrived at her apartment, she hadn’t planned on giving Lorna the slip. But when she’d gone inside, tidied up, and hopped into the shower, thinking she’d get some clarity beneath the pulsating blast about how to tell her mother she had chucked the role, she’d found the Xanax she’d hidden in a baggie in her shampoo bottle. Her hands had shaken so hard she’d dropped the bottle, mostly because her first thought had been to thank God no one had found them. She could take them if she needed to.

And then she’d remembered that she’d changed her entire life. That she was an adult. That she had worth. That she didn’t have to numb herself, because her life wasn’t bad and she wasn’t a loser who couldn’t deal with the hard things life brought her.