Leah
There are no windows here. No glass walls, no elegant furniture. Just a cheap wooden desk, a bookshelf, a phone, and a computer.
At some point, Leah will spruce it up. Not that it matters. No one comes to this corner of the floor unless they’re using the gender-neutral bathroom for a little extra privacy. Otherwise, she’s isolated far from the action. Far from Wendy.
She pictures Wendy’s office: the corner view bathed in buttery light, the sleek European furniture, the hush that falls every time someone knocks.
Leah sighs, flipping through the manuscript in front of her. She pushes it away. Tries to push away the anxiety, too. But it lingers.
I just need one fucking win. Not tomorrow. Not eventually. Today.
Her phone buzzes against the desk. She pauses when she sees the name, collecting herself before answering.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Sweetheart,” her father says, his voice carrying that familiar warmth. “How’s my girl?”
Leah leans back in her chair, twirling the pen between her fingers. “Busy, but good. What’s up?”
He chuckles, but there’s a strain beneath it. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Your new job, all these changes. Your mother and I… we’re so proud of you, sweetheart.”
Leah smiles faintly, though her grip on the pen tightens. “That’s nice to hear.”
“You know,” he continues, “your mother and I have been reevaluating a few things. Thinking about long-term priorities. The best way to… allocate resources.”
Leah frowns, the pen stilled against the page. “Okay… what does that mean?”
“It just means we’re making some adjustments. We’re all so grateful for Uncle Rick’s help with your promotion. You’ve got a real career now, Leah. That’s what we always wanted.”
She lets out a small, hollow laugh, but something in his tone prickles. “Wait. Are you saying… what, exactly?”
“It just means…” He hesitates. “It’s time for you to be fully independent. I wanted to talk to you about the trust.”
Leah straightens in her chair. “What are you talking about? What happened?” Her voice rises, an edge she rarely lets slip.
She puts down her pen. A memory stirs at the edges, the first time she’d heard the words family trust. She was seven, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her father’s study, flipping through a book, overhearing him on the phone talking about “disbursements” and “fund allocations.”
“Daddy, what’s a trust?” she’d asked, looking up at him.
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He’d crouched beside her with a smile. “It’s like a treasure chest, sweetheart. One that’s been passed down for generations. And one day, when you’re older, you’ll get your share.”
“Like Harry Potter’s vault at Gringotts?”
“Exactly,” he’d said, tapping her nose. “When you turn eighteen, you’ll have access.”
“For how long?” she’d asked.
“For the rest of your life, sweetheart. That’s the beauty of it. It’ll always be there, taking care of you.”
At seven, she hadn’t understood the details, but she remembered the feeling. The assurance. That her life would always be cushioned. That she would always be safe.
“Leah, listen,” her father says, his voice cutting cold through the memory. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, the economy is shifting. Things are tighter than we’re used to. Your mother and I held off on telling you because we didn’t want to worry you, but… some loans need repaying. Investments that didn’t pan out. We’re all making sacrifices. Your sister included.”
“Sacrifices?” she repeats. “What does that mean?”
“We’re selling the house. And your mother’s back in that… facility. The services she needs… they’re not cheap. And there are legal fees—”
“You’re selling the house?” The thought is absurd. That mansion was her whole childhood. “Why?”
“We don’t have a choice, sweetheart.”
“Is Mom okay?”
“Everything’s fine. She just needs to go away for a bit.”
“So you’re saying—”
“We need the money, Leah. There’s nothing left for you.”
She laughs, disbelieving. “That’s a joke, right?”
“Baby girl, I’m afraid it’s not.”
Her vision tunnels. Her fingers tighten around the phone, squeezing with too much force, as if holding on might change what she’s just heard. The trust—gone. The foundation of her life erased in a single call.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be—
Her mind flashes back. Michigan. Summer heat. The Bloomfield Hills Country Club. Leah was eight years old, and it all seemed perfectly normal. Daddy played golf while she splashed in the pool with the other little girls. Later, sun-kissed and tired, he took Leah and her younger sister, Callie, back to their house in Birmingham, while Mom stayed behind at the club. It was always like that—Dad filling in while Mom stayed out late.
The car crash that night was the first one Leah remembered, but it wasn’t the first. So many cars had been totaled over the years, but the Jaguar XJ was her mom’s favorite. Three of them wrecked in a single year, each replaced with the same model, brand new.
Barely a word was said. Until after the third accident and the fourth new car, the police could no longer turn a blind eye. But her mom, a well-regarded philanthropist, made a discreet donation to the chief of police, who, not coincidentally, was also a dear friend. A small fine, and all was forgotten.
“A minor mistake,” her mom had called it, “with big consequences for some people. But not families like ours.”
“Because we’re special,” Leah remembers Daddy declaring. And even in that memory, she can hear the faint trace of guilt in his voice. Because her family was made of the same steel as those Jaguars. They might crash, but everything was replaceable.
So she thought, at least. When she moved to LA three years ago, she quickly realized the Cross name meant nothing. People weren’t impressed by Michigan, and old money only mattered if it came from Hollywood royalty or Beverly Hills. But the trust—that had still been hers. Her buffer. Her shield. Because she’d rather die than be middle-class, especially in a town like LA.
Her father’s voice drones on—some lecture about responsibility and pulling herself up by her bootstraps—but Leah’s done listening. She rises abruptly, the chair rolling softly against the floor.
In the restroom, she locks the door behind her and slumps onto the cold tile floor. No. Not doing this. I won’t.
But it’s too much. Something snaps. The dam breaks. A raw, despondent wail tears from her throat—years of silence shattering in an instant.
And then, for the first time in god-knows-how-long, Leah does the one thing she swore she’d never do, the thing her mother made her promise not to do the year she left the first time.
She tilts her head back, eyes landing on the faintly rusted vent in the ceiling. Then she covers her face, screams again. And cries.