Page 8 of The Exit Strategy

So when my best friend’s name had flashed across my screen, only two thoughts entered my head.

One, someone died.

Two, Junie.

It’s only been twenty-four hours since that phone call, and my life has already been turned upside down as a result.

I created a goddamn TikTok account just to keep tabs on the situation, but all I’ve managed to do is memorize the heartbreak I saw in Junie’s eyes.

A social media meltdown shouldn’t be the thing that scares me.

But it does.

It plays in my mind as clearly as on a phone screen.

Junie’s standing on a bar top I recognize—Brookline’s Square Tavern.

And thanks to Fen and his group chat obsession, I know she worked there all through college and grad school.

Behind her is a banner that reads: Happy MBA Graduation, Junie!

It should have been a celebration, but instead, my girl was crying.

“Fuck.”

Juniper Marie Mercer is not, has never been, and can never be my girl.

Which was exactly why I left Boston. I couldn’t be the one to blow up both our lives.

I blink feverishly, but the scene of her current downfall is burned into my retinas.

Mascara streaks her face with tracks of black even as she rolls her shoulders back and tilts her chin to the sky like a queen. I see her pain, the destruction tearing at her walls.

The last time I checked, the video had over two million views.

Jesus Christ, Junie.

I drop onto the top step of my porch and scrub my hands over my face. I should leave it alone. She’s not my problem to solve anymore.

But my brain’s already running the diagnostic—cataloguing the damage, calculating what needs to be fixed, building a plan I have absolutely no right to execute.

Fixing her hasn’t been my honor for six years, but my hands didn’t get that memo.

“I’m not sorry,” she sings into a bottle of liquor she’s holding like a microphone. “I’m not sorry you took out my trash.” She points to someone off-screen, and the camera pans to a woman sitting on a barstool.

Fucking Grace. Her college roommate and supposed BFF. She moved into Junie’s house their sophomore year when Fen finally got his own place.

“I’m not sorry you broke my damn heart. I’m not sorry youfailed your last exam. I’m not sorry you slept with my boyfriend. I’m not sorry you now have eighteen years to think about what you’ve done. I’m not sorry that you can’t go home now. I’m not sorry you made a bad call, you can’t make amends, you chose it all wrong.”

My chest burns.

The camera moves, and her dickhead ex-boyfriend’s pale face is enough to make me want to punch something. He’s reaching for Junie, shaking his head. His lips move, even though I can’t hear him. He’s sorry.

I slam my fist against the porch floor.

Her best friend, the only one she ever allowed close enough to even be called a friend, slept with her douchebag of a boyfriend. And Junie, being Junie, chose spite.

It’s why Fen has always called her Spite-Berry, but this side of Junie will always be Viper to me. When pushed to her limits, Junie will retaliate—it’s just not typically so public.