The small remnant came off easily and I watched as the final piece of Nova dropped into the empty waste can next to the sink. I stood there for a moment, staring down at that tiny fragment of a different life, a different me. And I was surprised that that girl with the glamorous nails and luxurious hair extensions already felt so distant, the false parts of her dropped piece by piece on lonely back roads and in dewy fields as I was both lost…and somehow found.

I’d truly believed she was my ticket to happiness and so I’d embraced her even if that costume had never quite fit, not as uncomfortable as the last formal dress I’d worn, but a touch itchy nonetheless even if I couldn’t figure out why when to the naked eye, I looked so damn perfect. I wondered now how long I would have been able to keep up the facade of Nova, wondered if I would have taken a similar route as Jane Pritchard, numbing with pills and wondering why I was so unhappy if all my dreams had supposedly come true.

It was a sad sort of thought because while a part of me felt free, and even confusingly saved in ways I couldn’t untangle now, it was also a goodbye. To a thousand dreams that had come true for a moment but wouldn’t last. To bright lights and cheering crowds. To the superstar I might have been.

I went back into the bedroom, where I found a T-shirt in one of the dresser drawers. I hoped it was simply one someone who had stayed in this room had left behind and would never miss. But as far as a pair of underwear, I was going to be a brazen thief because even someone else’s clean ones were a luxury I could not pass up. I slipped the T-shirt over my head and then returned to the primary bedroom where I opened the top drawer and found the absolute bounty of an unopened package of cotton bikinis, size small.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” I breathed, bringing the plastic to my lips and kissing it. “Oh thank You, God.” I ripped the package open and pulled on the baby pink pair of underwear and then ran back to the guest room. I tossed the rest of the package of underwear into my backpack, threw myself on the bed, and then lay there grinning up at the ceiling. “Thank you, house owner, whoever you are. I will pay this forward.”

“Pay what forward?” I sat up so quickly I gave myself a head rush, bringing my hand to my temple and cringe-laughing.

“Nothing,” I said. “All secured?”

Tuck set his backpack down on the floor next to the chair. “Yeah.” He closed the bedroom door and locked it, and that small click made my tummy squeeze. “All secured.”