Page 11 of Better Than Revenge

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I FIGURED.

“I figured.” I read it out loud this time to see if it sounded different when spoken than it did in my head. It didn’t. That was Jensen’s response to my breakup text. Not him defending himself, not him trying to explain why he did what he did or that he was sorry or that he would quit the podcast because he loved me so much. That he was destroyed because he’d destroyed us.

I figured.

“Ugh!” I should’ve sent the jerk text I’d composed in my head. I hit the steering wheel with both hands.

I was in my car, parked on the street in front of my house after coming home from the diner. I had just pulled up and turned off the ignition when I got the text. I screenshotted the response and sent it to the group chat Maxwell had started titledPetty Queens.

He did not!Max responded first.

Deja was next:There are no words to describe how much I hate him right now!

Sorry, babe.That was Lee.

Lee was picking up on my hurt side more than the others, and even though that was so him of him, I didn’t want to be hurt. I wanted to be angry. Iwasangry.

Don’t you dare respond to him,Deja added.

Wasn’t planning on it.If I could delete him from my brain, I would. I settled for blocking him on my phone. After that I gave a satisfied nod and climbed out of my car.

I grabbed my backpack off the passenger seat and walked through the front door to find my mom scooping something up off the floor and dropping it onto a plate.

“Hi,” I said, closing the door behind me. “Grandma?”

She blew at a strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes. “Yes.”

My grandma was one of my favorite people in the whole world. She was also becoming less and less like my grandma. She was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, and some days were harder than others. My mom took care of her, along with a nurse who came in the mornings while my mom went to work.

She took care of me the first twenty years of my life, I’m going to take care of her the last twenty years of hers,my mom often said. I hoped Grandma had twenty years left. I thought that was optimistic, but hope never hurt anyone, including me.

“What can I do?” I picked up a carrot that had somehow ended up by the front door. I tried my best to help Mom when I could because my dad worked a lot and my older brother had moved outseveral years ago to go to college, but I knew Mom handled the majority of the work.

Mom pointed at the plate she held. “Will you go make sure Grandma is in her bedroom? That’s where she went after spillingthis.”

“Okay.” I set the carrot onto the plate as I walked by.

Mom called after me, “Did you go somewhere after school?”

“Yeah, sorry, I should’ve texted. I went to the diner with Deja and the guys.”

“It’s fine,” Mom said. “Glad you had fun.”

I hadn’t said anything about fun. But I also hadn’t said anything about revenge, and I would keep it that way too. Mom was all about forgiveness and moving forward with dignity. And sure, that was all good in theory, but in reality, sometimes people deserved a little karma. And sometimes, karma needed a little help.

I threw my backpack into my room, the first door on the right, as I walked to my grandma’s room, last door on the left, across the hall from my parents.

“Hey, Grams,” I said, letting myself into her room.

She was pacing back and forth mumbling something about how Mom should’ve known she hated carrots. How she’d always hated carrots.

“Hey, Grandma,” I tried again.

She stopped pacing and looked at me for a beat too long. I braced myself. She had yet to forget who I was, but one day she would and I couldn’t handle that day being today. Today was already terribleenough.

“Oh, Finley,” she said, and I let out a relieved breath. “Hello, my lovely girl. How was school?”