My Boyfriend Smells Her Cheap Drama Chapter 2

"You have a remarkably mean streak," I said as I buckled my seatbelt.

Derrick started the engine, his long fingers resting casually on the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

"Mean? I call it being a realist. If she were truly as brainless as she claims, she wouldn't have understood my insults well enough to get angry. She would have smiled and thanked me for the feedback."

He turned the wheel, navigating the car out of my parents' neighborhood.

"That little routine of hers? The interns at my firm have better manipulation tactics on day one."

I looked out the window as the streetlights blurred past.

The heavy stone that had rested on my chest for over twenty years felt as though it had finally been cracked open, letting in a breath of fresh air.

Since childhood, Chloe had been the sun around which our entire household revolved.

When she ruined my school projects, Helen would say, "Your sister is just clumsy, Bridget. Can't you just do it over?"

When she took the dresses I bought with my own money, Robert would say, "She loves fashion, and she looks so beautiful in them. Just let her have them."

Even when it came to my personal life, all Chloe had to do was put on her wide-eyed, fragile act and shed a few tears in front of my boyfriends, and suddenly, they would view her as a delicate flower and me as a bitter, jealous shrew.

No one had ever stripped away her armor the way Derrick just did.

My phone began to buzz incessantly in my purse.

I pulled it out. It was a barrage of voice texts from my mother. The red notification dots looked like fresh drops of blood on the screen.

I tapped the first one, letting the audio play.

"Bridget! You think you're so clever, don't you? Bringing some classless, disrespectful man into our home to humiliate your sister! Chloe has never had a harsh word said to her in her entire life, and now she's sobbed herself to sleep because of him!"

I listened, my face entirely blank.

I tapped the second one.

"You tell that Derrick character to come back here and apologize to your sister right now, or you are no longer welcome in this family! We clothed you and fed you, and this is how you repay us? Ganging up with an outsider to bully your own flesh and blood?"

Derrick heard every word clearly over the car's quiet cabin. He let out a dark, mocking laugh.

"Does your mother get her scripts from bad nineties daytime television?"

I locked my phone and tossed it back into my purse. "I'm used to it."

"Being used to it doesn't make it acceptable."

Derrick brought the car to a halt at a red light and turned to look at me, his eyes dark and fiercely protective. "Are you planning on taking this forever?"

I stared back into his deep, clear eyes. "No," I said. "Not anymore. I want everything she’s ever taken from me back. With interest."

A slow, brilliant smile spread across Derrick's face.

"Let me know when you're ready to make your move. There is nothing I enjoy more than watching a fraud fall apart."

The following afternoon, I was in the middle of a marketing strategy meeting when Zoe, our receptionist, sent me a quick message on Slack.

"Bridget, your sister is downstairs at the front desk. She says she needs to see you."

I frowned.

Chloe rarely, if ever, came to my office. She detested the fast-paced, high-stress atmosphere of my tech firm; she always said it lacked the "curated aesthetic" of her social media life.

I excused myself from the conference room and walked out to the lobby.

Chloe was standing near the glass doors, looking impeccably styled in a cropped bouclé jacket, holding a sleek insulated food container.

The moment she saw me, her face lit up with a soft, fragile smile.

"Bridget, are you busy?"

Her voice was as gentle as ever, showing no trace of the humiliation from the night before.

"What are you doing here, Chloe?" I didn't reach for the container she was holding out.

Undeterred by my coldness, she set the container gently on the reception counter.

"Mom was so upset last night she couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about it, and I realized it was my carelessness that caused the whole misunderstanding. I'm sure Derrick just got the wrong impression of me." She lowered her head slightly, exposing the delicate line of her neck. "I made some fresh chicken soup. I thought you could give it to him at his office. As a peace offering."

A few colleagues walking past paused, glancing over at us.

To any outsider, she looked like the picture of a devoted, loving older sister trying to mend a family rift caused by an ungrateful younger sibling.

Looking at her performance, a wave of profound disgust rose in my throat.

"No, thank you," I said. "He doesn't eat things from untrustworthy sources."

Chloe’s eyes welled with tears right on cue.

"Bridget... are you still angry with me? I know Derrick is incredibly successful, and I know you're worried I'll try to take him from you. But I swear, I would never do that."

Her voice was just loud enough to carry across the lobby, reaching the ears of the receptionist and a few lingering coworkers.

It was a pre-emptive strike.

By framing my anger as "jealousy over her stealing my boyfriend," she ensured that whatever I said next would look like bitter insecurity.

In the past, I would have dragged her out of the lobby to avoid a scene, swallowing my pride just to make her stop.

But not today.

I calmly pulled my phone out of my pocket, opened the voice recorder app, and placed the device face-up on the marble counter between us.

"Go on," I said, looking her dead in the eye. "Tell me more about how you plan on stealing him. I'm listening."