My Favorite Bad Decision (The Favorites, #1)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

For a long time I’ve felt as if I needed to have a very big life—that I needed to have the best clothes and go to the best parties and get a better seat at Fashion Week than other people; that I needed to have a job like my father’s, one that has everyone stopping by our table at Le Cirque to pay homage even though I loathe the way people stop by our table. Standing here, I can almost believe it doesn’t matter— that whether I’ve got the best seat at Fashion Week or never attend again won’t make a difference to anyone in a hundred years and probably makes little difference to anyone now. My father is powerful and important, but in fifty years, he’ll be a footnote at best. And if it doesn’t matter...who do I decide to become? Because I doubt I’d remain on the path I’m taking now.

Being eager for someone to come home to you would be pretty magical too.

“Thursday, you’re excited for the weekend, right?” I ask. “You’re making plans. And then you get to the weekend. Friday and Saturday are great. Sunday night is depressing; Monday’s just drudgery. You don’t want to get out of bed. Tuesday also sucks, but you know that if you keep moving forward, it could get better. My life used to be a Thursday or even a Friday. And now it’s a Tuesday. I don’t hate my life. I’m just moving through it, waiting to get to a Thursday that never seems to arrive.”

He’s right. Maybe we need to suffer a little. Maybe we need to spend some time in the dark so we can spy the tiny bits of light we couldn’t distinguish, so we can marvel at the sun when it finally arrives.

“This isn’t done, Kit,” he whispers as he releases me. “Get through whatever is going on up there and then come back to me because this isn’t done. I can’t fucking stand for it to end here.”