Conflicting emotions warred in my gut. Excitement at the amazing opportunity that had landed on my lap only days after arriving in Texas and the weird sense of loss dogging me since the moment I’d told Theo I was quitting. The day and a half I’d been at the office after telling him I was leaving had been painfully awkward. So much so that I’d been practically counting the hours to get on the plane to visit Julia.

And the visit had been wonderfully recharging.

She’d been right that I needed distance from the grind of my life. Then, as if to confirm that perhaps I was well overdue for a full life reboot, the designer the Sturm Foundation hired for the renovation of a community children’s library they were sponsoring quit at the last minute and I was offered the job. A whole new chapter of my life was ready to begin, if only I reached for it. And yet, I’d been avoiding sending this email for a full twenty-four hours.

“Do I need to pull up the dozen DMs you got in just the last two days asking if you’re going to start doing Bookish Boudoir makeovers in the DFW area?” Julia asked, clearly ready to launch all the ammunition available to her.

“No, thank you!”

I’d made a quick post when I’d gotten to Dallas asking followers to send me their ideas for Texan bookish makeovers and the floodgates had opened. I’d had no idea I had so many fans down here. For all that quitting had been harder than I imagined it would be, I was potentially sitting on a gold mine. And now with a two-month gig at Sturm’s, it felt like I was really on my way.

Right then, as if she could sense that I was making major life decisions without her knowledge, my phone flashed on the desk and a photo of me and my mother appeared on the screen.

“I should tell her first.”

Julia responded with her “I am this close to losing it on you” sigh. It wasn’t that Julia didn’t love my mother. But she also knew that my family put a lot of pressure on me and I was incapable of saying no to them. I hadn’t even gotten the courage up yet to tell her that my seven-day trip to Dallas was about to turn into a short-term living situation.

“Why don’t you do this email first and then talk to her?” Julia suggested, plucking the phone from the desk. “You know I love your family like my own, but you’ve put off your own needs a lot for them, Albita. And they are doing okay right now.”