Page 48 of The Exit Strategy

So I smile. It’s the smile I gave when I presented my capstone project. The one that could pass a polygraph while lying through its teeth. “I’m going to head in. I’ve got a lot to do to prepare for the assessment.”

I don’t storm off. I just…leave. Clean and quiet, like flipping a switch.

This is what the world didn’t see of me because they decided I’m all fire. But the truth is, the fire is the performance. The ice is real. Fire is what I’m forced into when I’m out of options. Ice is what I reach for when I still have the chance to disappear.

I climb the steps to my apartment—the treads glowing beneath my feet, mocking me with their warmth—and close the door behind me.

Then I sit on my couch and stare at the wall while I quietly rearrange my carefully constructed plans.

Eventually, I grab my laptop, open the program that will sort Cole’s tax assessment, and get to work on what my boss told me to focus on.

And if the world comes crashing down around us in the meantime, fuck it. I’m just following orders.

10

OUR BOY DID IT

COLE

By Sunday morning,I’m engaged to Juniper Mercer, and the whole Haven knows about it.

Stanley has already updated his newsletter, including a congratulatory edition with a header that reads: Our Boy Did It, and a poll asking residents to vote on a reception venue.

The clubhouse is winning by a landslide.

Marley left a voicemail at 6:55 requesting I fill out the proper cohabitation paperwork—section nine, subsection C of the community handbook—and submit it to her office by end of day Monday.

And Nana Mae—the architect of this disaster—is humming in my kitchen as though she didn’t detonate a social grenade in the middle of a lemonade stand yesterday.

“You look tense,” she says, sliding a plate of eggs and a bagel in front of me. “Look at it this way, you’re a shoo-in for that award now because once word spread, everyone was over here lookin’ to congratulate you.”

“That award means nothing.”

She sighs heavily. “I’m sorry I entered you without yourapproval, Cole, but it does mean something. You’re just not willing to admit it yet. But I’m not sorry it’s pushing you out of the ties that bind you. You truly are your father’s son.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, he chose to run into that building, Cole. He wasn’t on duty, and he didn’t have his equipment. You’re doing the same thing, just without the flames.” She shakes her head, and it’s only the sadness in her eyes that keeps me from lashing out. “You’ve been trying to carry burdens alone since the day they died. I’ve never been able to get through to you. Maybe she can.”

I don’t talk about my parents, and I’m not about to start now. “She?” I grind out. “ThesheI’m supposedly engaged to? The woman who currently wants to murder me?”

“Dramatic.” She waves her spatula. “You should’ve seen your grandfather the day I told his mother we were married. He didn’t speak to me for three days.”

I pause with my bagel suspended in midair. This woman gives me whiplash. “You told his mother you were married before he did?”

“Details.” She points the spatula at my chest. “The point is, he got over it. You will too.”

It’s not me I’m worried about.

Junie and I are not the same as Nana Mae and Arthur. We’re not even in the same category. Arthur didn’t spend six years hiding from his future wife because he was terrified of what loving her would cost the only family he had left.

But I can’t say that, so I eat my bagel and eggs, then check my phone.

Fuck. Me. This day just keeps getting better.

Fen & Tonic:

Fen: So. Something interesting happened at a lemonade stand in South Carolina yesterday.