Chapter 19

19

I can barely look Liv in the eye when she arrives at the house the next morning. What with Clara’s confrontation and knowing she’s reporting Meredith missing, I haven’t had much of a chance to think about anything, but now that Liv is here, right in the flesh, everything comes rushing back. Ben leaning into her at his open house. Her smiling up at him. My upper lip twitches, and I have to consciously stop myself from snarling.

“I brought croffles!” she chirps, waving a bag in one hand, carrying Rain in the other. “Cookie-butter croffles.”

Well, goddamn it. I want cookie-butter croffles. But not from the woman I saw making out with my husband the day before. What is it about Ben that appeals to these women? First Meredith, and now Liv. This morning, when I woke up, I turned to my side and just watched Ben as he slept. His mouth was drooping open, and he was breathing noisily, though I don’t know if it counted as snoring. His jaw used to be nicely angled, but over the last couple of years or so, it’s softened. He doesn’t have a double chin yet, but there’s definitely the threat of one. My point is, he is hardly the stud you would think he is, to have so many beautiful women throwing themselves at him.

Liv spots the frown on my face and her smile falls. “Uh oh,” she says in a cutesy tone that makes me want to smack her. “Everything okay?”

Well, no time like the present. “Why don’t you put Rain down in the playpen with Sabine, then we can heat up those croffles and talk about why you were going at it with my husband yesterday afternoon.”

Liv’s mouth drops open, but I don’t even get to enjoy the sight of her shocked expression before it morphs into a different one. Acceptance, then smugness. It’s like she’s taking off a mask right before my eyes. Instinctively, my defenses clap into place.

“Ah,” she says, walking past me to put Rain down in the playpen. Sabine coos when she sees Rain, and the two babies crawl toward each other, both of them drooling and grinning. “So you saw us.”

“Yeah, I fucking saw you. What the hell were you—why?” I cry. God, I hadn’t meant to lose my cool like this, but Liv’s composure is really freaking me out.

Liv straightens up, and the anger on her face is so raw, I actually take a step back. “Because you don’t deserve Ben. You don’t deserve any of this.” She gestures around her, at my Insta-approved home. “You know, some time ago, I saw your old friend Meredith and Ben together, and I was so shocked then. I totally judged Meredith. I thought she was a conniving bitch for doing that to you. But then over time, I slowly realized that actually, Ben was right to cheat on you.”

“Excuse me?” I don’t even know what else to say. I stand there, sputtering stupidly.

“He’s so good to you, so supportive. But you don’t even see that, do you? I do, because my own husband left me. But Ben stayed. And you don’t even give a shit about him. Meredith had a thing for Ben because she was doing it to spite you. But for me, it’s because you just plain old do not deserve him.”

“How dare you stand there and—”

“Careful, Aspen,” Liv says, and though her voice is still annoyingly cutesy, there is now a note of danger in it that makes me freeze. I feel like a skier who’s just realized that they took the wrong turn and suddenly finds themselves on the precipice of a cliff, nothing underneath but a great, dark mouth. “You’re really not in a position to be making demands or accusations.”

“I don’t understand what—”

“Because, Aspen, the past few months, since I started working for you, I got to know the real Aspen. The Aspen behind All Day Aspen. And boy, the real Aspen is a real disappointment.” Liv glares at me. “You pretended to be this friendly, sweet person online. I’ve been following you, wanting to learn from you.”

“Following me?” It hits me then: the figure I saw peeping into my car at the parking lot a while ago after leaving the meeting with Bodacious Babies. “You…were spying on me?”

Instead of answering me, Liv says, “You know how long I had to work for you before you even deigned to invite me into your home?”

“Wh—”

“Six months, Aspen. And you didn’t even extend that courtesy to me, really; I had to make that chance happen for myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your tires.”

It takes a moment for it to sink in, and when it does, horror stabs at my gut. “That night, at the party, when I ran into you—”

Liv gives a bitter laugh. “Obviously you didn’t ‘run into’ me. That was a party for mega-influencers. I was hardly going to be invited. I knew you’d be there, so I went, and I found your car and…” She makes a vicious slashing motion.

“You slashed my tires?” I squeak.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Liv says. “I had to do something to get into your good books. And I even took you out for burgers afterward. I felt bad about doing that, you know. And that was before I found out what a fake you are.”

My head is swimming. All this time, I’d thought the slashed tires were just a prank.

“I was your biggest fan,” Liv says. “I’ve been following you since your YouTube days. Remember those?”

Despite everything, the memory of my YouTube videos all those years ago, so amateurish, grainy and low quality, makes me wince.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, Aspen,” Liv says. “Sure, they’re not as polished as your videos now, but they were at least real. I was such a big fan; I was so happy for you when you got married and pregnant and became this viral sensation. You made motherhood look so easy!” Liv gestures around her again. “Look at your beautiful home. You make this entire lifestyle look achievable. You made me think that I could find the perfect man and have the perfect baby and live in the perfect home.”

Dread uncurls in my belly, icy cold. I have no idea where Liv is going with all this, but this is my worst nightmare. Well, aside from someone finding out about Meredith, that is.

“I met a guy, got married.” She shrugs. “You know how that went. When our troubles began, I blamed myself. I watched your videos over and over again. I thought to myself: I just need to be more like Aspen. I need to get my ass in gear, stop whining about everything and clean the house! Bake bread! Exercise! Find cute outfits for Rain! And I’ll be okay, my marriage will be okay, and everything will be great .” Liv’s face twists into a tortured grimace. “But it wasn’t great. He left me. Do you know what it was like for me, thinking that all I had to do was try harder?”

How can I possibly answer that?

Liv takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t great. Not great at all. I felt like a failure. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do anything the way you did. I couldn’t make my morning routines anything like yours. I couldn’t make bedtime routines as peaceful as yours. I felt like I was failing everyone. Adam. Rain. Myself. At some point, I thought: I should just die. Then everyone would be better off .”

“Oh, Liv,” I gasp, horrified.

“Imagine how happy I was when you hired me as your PA. I thought: Ah, finally I’ll learn from the guru herself. I’ll learn how to be a good wife, a good mother. ” She levels her gaze at me. “Then I find out that it’s all fake.”

My breath comes out in a choked hiss. “No, wait a min—”

“All of it,” Liv says. “Fake.” She gestures at the kitchen. “Fake.” She turns and waves at the living room, where Rain and Sabine are playing in the playpen. “Fake.” She turns back and points at me. “Fake.”

All of my senses turn to stone. I can only stand there, staring at her. A million answers whiz through my head, but none of them make their way out of my mouth. I’m frozen, completely helpless. Because this whole time, my worst fear was for someone to discover that I am, in fact, not in the least bit #authentic. That everything I post has been carefully produced and edited and curated to perfection. Because isn’t that what social media demands?

This, then, is the answer I fall back on. “I’m not fake, Liv,” I say, and I must be given some credit, because my voice somehow comes out steady. “I am a content creator. I’m running a business. I don’t owe anyone the ugly truth. And no one wants that anyway.”

“Yes, but you’re lying !” Liv shouts, and it is terrifying in its force. Spittle flies from her mouth, and her entire face is red, and she’s glaring at me like she’s barely holding herself back from lunging at my throat. “You’re not being up front about anything. There are influencers out there who are obviously peddling highly curated content, and that’s fine. We know what we’re getting are just the highlights. But you pretend like this is your real life, and that’s the problem, Aspen. That’s why I think you’re full of shit. You’re actively harming people.”

“But—no, I—”

“You are,” Liv says, pointing a finger right at my chest. “You make it seem like this life is attainable, if you just try a little bit harder. Starve yourself a little bit more. Spend a little bit longer in the kitchen. Mulch your garden just that tiny bit more. Spoil your husband just a touch more. You make it seem so easy. Don’t you? And when I found out that your life is really a pile of shit, you know how that made me feel?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Like the world’s biggest fucking idiot, Aspen.”

There is nothing I can say that will salvage the situation. I don’t know if I even want to salvage the situation. It feels like it’s as far beyond salvageable as any situation can get. Right. I need to recalibrate my goal. Move away from trying to convince Liv that she’s wrong, and lean into finding out what she wants and how to get rid of her. Because, clearly, Liv is fucking insane.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Liv,” I say quietly.

Liv shakes her head. “Oh my god. Spare me the Gaslighting 101, okay? None of that ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ crap. No, you need to be sorry that you made me feel that way. Understand?”

Hidden behind the island counter, my hands ball into fists. It’s been a long time since anyone’s talked to me this way. Well, anyone who isn’t Ben. But this isn’t the time for me to lose my temper. I need to play this smart. I force myself to nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry I made you feel that way. What can I do to make it…” I hesitate. What I really want to say is: What can I do to make you go away? But I have a feeling that wouldn’t go over well. “…okay?”

Liv snorts. “How about giving me the last seven years of my life back? Give me the last seven years where I’m not desperately chasing after this unachievable life that you’ve made me think is a realistic goal? How about that?”

God, it’s a struggle to keep a straight face. I want to smack this immature brat. “Well, as much as I would love to be able to turn back time, unfortunately, I can’t do that. So maybe we can come up with something else?”

Liv narrows her eyes at me. How have I missed how truly ugly she is? Beneath the impeccable makeup and the vibrant clothes, she is repulsive. “How about I tell your followers the truth about you? How you pretend to dig up potatoes from your own garden?”

I make myself shrug. “And what will that give you, exactly?”

“Satisfaction, for one,” Liv says.

“Okay, and that’s going to last you about two seconds. Then it’ll fade away, and you’ll be left exactly where you were before.”

Think fast , I hiss silently at myself. There is a way out. There is always a way out. You are a survivor. You do not admit defeat here, not to this little upstart . I look at Liv. Really look at her. Seeing her in her entirety. I put myself in her sad Payless shoes. What does she want?

Then I find it. My way out.

“I have a better idea,” I say.

Liv gives me a skeptical look, but I’m not so easily deterred.

“I know what you want. And I can give it to you.” I smile at her, then I offer her dreams back to her on a silver platter. “Followers.”