𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊 - 𝑪𝑨𝑹𝑴𝑬𝑵 𝑩𝑬𝑹𝒁𝑨𝑻𝑻𝑶

3.

VERONICA stood in the airport with her bags. It was much easier to pack her life up than she expected.

"Are you seriously gonna leave me?" Britt whined.

"I'm only a few hours away." She shrugged.

"A few hours? You mean eleven, by car?!" Britt scoffed.

Veronica chuckled, shaking her head, "B, we're gonna be alright." she assured her friend, "I need to get out of here, you know that."

"I do. It just sucks... I can't just show up on your doorstep with coffee anymore, and- and what about Love is Blind Fridays?!" She tilted her head in disappointment to her friend.

"FaceTime is a thing, you know! We will FaceTime, text, call, every day, I promise you. And I will visit as soon and as often as I can, Britt." She held Britt's hands, "I think this is gonna be something really good for me."

"I believe it. I'm so proud of you." Britt told her. "I love you. Don't forget about me, hotshot." She teased her friend.

"I would never." Veronica smiled at her, "I love you too."

Then Britt was off. Veronica felt a sense of loneliness as she sat in the airport alone, panic fled her mind.

This is a bad idea. Why am I doing this? My life in New York was fine. I'm going to fail. I'm going to hate Chicago. My father was right. I am nothing.

"Flight A7 is now boarding. I repeat Flight A7 is now boarding." rang through the sound system, pulling Veronica from her thoughts. She collected her bags and stood up, looking between the exit and to where they were boarding the plane one last time. She debated forgetting everything and just going back home, but she couldn't. She was doing this. It was final.

She took a deep breath and walked herself and her bags to the boarding terminal.

The flight was about three hours long, bearable for Veronica, as she had been on much longer flights in her life. Thankfully her first day wouldn't be until the day after tomorrow. Apparently the restaurant was closed due to someone's funeral, the baker's mom, she had collected. It made her think about her own sick mother.

She didn't know the circumstances around Marcus' mother's passing, but wondered if she was sick as well? Or was it sudden? A freak accident perhaps. She tried not to think about it too long as she was leaving her sick mother, but Veronica had no place in taking care of her or consoling her back to health. She had a stepdaughter to do that, and has spent probably thousands on her own personal nurses and medical staff.

Veronica didn't have a good relationship with either of her parents. They were hard on her growing up, especially her father. But with her mother, it wasn't always that way. She felt betrayed when it came to her mother's attitude towards her, they used to have a loving relationship, but ultimately, her mother chose her husband over her daughter. That sealed the deal for Veronica. She was out of her life in no time after that.

It had been 3 years since her and her mother last spoke, and her dad? At least 10 years. Father's were supposed to be supportive and a role model of what men should be to their daughters. Veronica's father was never like that, maybe when she was little, but that's beyond her memory.

This is something her and Carmen could sort of "bond" over when they had gotten together. Unstable parents. Carmy hadn't seen his father either for as long as Veronica had when they had met. She wondered if that was a normal thing for couples to bond over looking back at it now. I mean, what did that say about either of their characters?