The Last Friday Payment

The alarm chimed at exactly nine o’clock on Friday morning, the way it had every Friday for the past three years.

Evelyn Carter sat at her kitchen counter with her coffee growing cold, her phone face-up on the granite surface, the banking app already open. She’d made this transfer so many times it had become muscle memory—tap the app, select the recurring payment, confirm six hundred dollars to Robert and Linda Barnes. Her parents. The people who’d raised her, fed her, driven her to soccer practice and piano lessons and college orientation.

The people who now depended on her to survive.

She hit confirm and watched the green checkmark appear. Transaction successful. Another week, another payment. Another small piece of her financial security quietly slipping away to a town three hours north where her parents lived in the house she’d grown up in, with its sagging porch and the pecan tree her father had planted the year she was born.

“Morning,” Mark said, appearing in the doorway in his work clothes, tie already knotted. Her husband had a face that still looked kind even when he was worried, and lately, he’d been worried a lot.

“Morning,” Evelyn replied, setting her phone down quickly as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

Mark poured himself coffee, glancing at the phone. He didn’t say anything. He never did. Not about the Friday payments, not about how their savings account hadn’t grown in three years, not about the vacation they’d postponed four times or the new roof they needed or Sophie’s orthodontist bills sitting in a pile on his desk.

But she saw the way his jaw tightened. She saw the spreadsheet he kept on his laptop, color-coded in red and yellow and the occasional hopeful green. She knew what six hundred dollars a week meant over three years: ninety-three thousand, six hundred dollars. Almost enough for a down payment on a bigger house. Almost enough to fully fund Sophie’s college account. Almost enough for all the almosts they’d been living with.

“They’d do the same for you,” Evelyn said quietly, more to herself than to him.

Mark looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he kissed her forehead and left for work without saying what they both knew he was thinking: Would they?

The Beginning

It had started three years ago with a phone call that came too early in the morning, the kind that makes your heart drop before you even answer.

“Evelyn, honey,” her mother’s voice had been thin, stretched tight with stress. “Your father’s business is gone. The contractor he was working with filed for bankruptcy, and they’re not paying anyone. He’s got fifteen thousand dollars in unpaid invoices, and we’ve got maybe two months before we lose the house.”

Evelyn had been standing in this same kitchen, in this same spot, watching the sunrise through the window. “How much do you need?”

“We don’t want to be a burden—”

“Mom. How much?”

The silence lasted too long. “If we had about two thousand a month, we could keep the house and cover the basics. Your father’s trying to find work, but at sixty-two, construction companies aren’t exactly lining up.”

Two thousand had felt impossible. Evelyn and Mark had just bought this house. They had a five-year-old daughter. They had their own bills, their own lives.

But they were her parents.

“Let me talk to Mark,” Evelyn had said.

That conversation with her husband had been one of the hardest of their marriage. They’d sat at this same kitchen table with their budget spread between them, moving numbers around like puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit.

“We could do six hundred a week,” Mark had said finally, his finger tracing a column of figures. “That’s twenty-four hundred a month. We’d have to cut back on some things. No eating out. No vacation this year. We’d have to put the bathroom remodel on hold.”

“It’s temporary,” Evelyn had said. “Just until Dad finds work.”

Mark had nodded, but his eyes had said what his mouth wouldn’t: nothing about aging parents and a collapsed business felt temporary.

So the Friday payments began. At first, her parents had called every week to thank her, their gratitude effusive and almost embarrassing. Her mother would cry on the phone. Her father would clear his throat roughly and say he’d pay her back as soon as he got on his feet.

But months turned into a year, and the calls became less frequent. The gratitude faded into expectation. Her father never mentioned finding work. Her mother stopped bringing it up. And Evelyn kept sending the money, telling herself it was what family did. You helped each other. You sacrificed. You didn’t keep score.

Except some small, ugly part of her was keeping score. And the ledger felt increasingly unbalanced.

The Distance

The first time Evelyn noticed the distance, she told herself she was imagining it.

She’d called her mother on a Tuesday evening, just to chat, to hear about the book club or the neighbor’s new puppy or anything that felt like the easy relationship they used to have. But her mother’s voice had been polite, almost formal.

“Oh, Evelyn. Hi. I wasn’t expecting you to call.”

“I just wanted to see how you’re doing. How’s Dad?”

“Fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

There was music in the background, and laughter—the sound of people, of life happening. “Do you have company?”

“Just some friends from church. We’re having dinner.”

Evelyn had felt something twist in her chest. Dinner parties. Friends from church. Meanwhile, she and Mark had eaten scrambled eggs for dinner three nights that week because groceries were expensive and Sophie needed new shoes and there was always that Friday payment looming.

“That sounds nice,” Evelyn had said, her voice tight. “I’ll let you go.”

“Okay, honey. Talk soon.”

But “soon” kept getting longer. Calls became texts, and texts became sporadic. When Evelyn visited—driving three hours each way with Sophie in the back seat—her parents were pleasant but distant, as if she were a guest rather than their daughter. They showed her the new furniture they’d bought, the fresh paint in the living room, the upgraded cable package with all the movie channels.

“Looks great,” Evelyn had said, thinking about the six hundred dollars that appeared in their account every single Friday. Thinking about the bathroom in her house that still had tiles from 1987. Thinking about the vacation to the beach that Sophie kept asking about, the one they kept postponing.

She’d mentioned it once to Mark on the drive home, Sophie asleep in her car seat.

“They redecorated the living room. New couch, new curtains. Must’ve cost at least two thousand dollars.”

Mark’s hands had tightened on the steering wheel. “Your money.”

“Our money,” Evelyn corrected automatically. Then, softer: “Do you think I should say something?”

“Do you want to say something?”

She’d thought about it—about calling her parents and asking why they needed her money if they could afford new furniture, about suggesting they didn’t need cable, about reminding them that she and Mark were making real sacrifices. But the words felt petty in her mouth, small and mean.

“They’re my parents,” she’d said instead. “They raised me. Paid for my college. This is just… payback, I guess.”

Mark had reached over and squeezed her hand. He hadn’t said what she knew he was thinking: that raising your children and paying for their education wasn’t a loan. It was called being a parent.

Sophie’s Birthday

The invitations had gone out three weeks in advance—handmade cards Sophie had decorated with glitter and stickers, each one featuring a unicorn because Sophie was deep in her unicorn phase. Evelyn had addressed one to her parents with extra care, adding a personal note at the bottom:

Mom and Dad, please come! Sophie asks about you every day. Party starts at 2:00. Can’t wait to see you. Love, Evelyn

She’d texted them the details twice. She’d called and left a voicemail. She’d sent a reminder text the night before.

No response to any of it.

But Evelyn told herself that was just her parents’ way. They weren’t big on technology. They’d probably written it down on the calendar and would show up right on time, maybe even early, with that oversized stuffed unicorn Sophie had been eyeing at the store.

The morning of the party, Evelyn woke up with that fizzy excitement she remembered from her own childhood birthdays. She’d spent the previous evening decorating the backyard with pink and purple streamers, hanging paper lanterns from the trees, setting up the folding tables she’d borrowed from a neighbor. The unicorn cake she’d ordered—two layers, fondant horn, edible glitter—sat in the refrigerator like a small edible miracle.

Mark had run out early to pick up the ice and the pizza. Sophie had been awake since dawn, too excited to sleep, her party dress already on even though they had four hours until guests arrived.

“Do you think Grandma and Grandpa will come?” Sophie asked for the third time that morning, hanging over the back of the couch to watch the street through the window.

“Of course they will,” Evelyn said with confidence she didn’t quite feel. “They wouldn’t miss your birthday.”

“Grandma said she’d teach me to make her chocolate chip cookies.”

“I remember. Maybe she’ll bring some today.”

Sophie’s face lit up with a smile so pure and hopeful it made Evelyn’s chest ache.

The party was supposed to start at two. By one-thirty, Evelyn had changed clothes twice, checked her phone seventeen times, and repositioned the presents table three different ways. By two o’clock, when the first guests arrived—Sophie’s best friend Maya and her parents—Evelyn was standing at the end of the driveway, searching the street for her parents’ familiar blue sedan.

“They’re probably just running late,” she told herself, smiling at Maya’s mother and directing them to the backyard.

By two-thirty, fifteen kids were running around the backyard, and Evelyn was checking her phone every three minutes. No calls. No texts. No blue sedan turning onto their street.

By three o’clock, when they brought out the cake and sang “Happy Birthday,” Evelyn had to excuse herself to the bathroom so no one would see her cry.

By four, when they were opening presents, Sophie kept looking toward the back gate with the kind of hope that breaks a parent’s heart.

“Grandma forgot,” she said finally, so quietly Evelyn almost didn’t hear her.

“No, honey,” Evelyn said, crouching beside her daughter and brushing a curl from her forehead. “They probably just… got held up. Maybe car trouble. You know how old their car is.”

Sophie nodded, but her eyes said she didn’t believe it. She was eight years old, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what it meant when someone didn’t show up.

By five-thirty, when the last guests trickled out with their goodie bags and exhausted children, Evelyn stood in the backyard staring at the pink balloons drifting in the evening breeze and felt something crack inside her chest.

Mark came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

“They didn’t even call.”

“I know.”

“Six hundred dollars. Every single Friday for three years. And they couldn’t come to their granddaughter’s birthday party.”

Mark didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

That night, after Sophie was asleep clutching her new stuffed unicorn from Maya, Evelyn lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Mark was already asleep beside her, his breathing steady and even. She picked up her phone and stared at it for a long time.

No missed calls. No texts. Nothing.

Her parents had simply not shown up to their only grandchild’s birthday party, and they hadn’t even bothered to let her know.

She opened her text messages and typed: Is everything okay? We missed you today.

She stared at the message for five minutes before deleting it. She wasn’t going to make excuses for them. She wasn’t going to pretend this was fine.

She set her phone on the nightstand and closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come.

The Call

Evelyn waited until Sunday morning to call. She’d needed time to calm down, to think about what she wanted to say without anger making her voice shake.

She sat on the back porch with her coffee, watching Sophie chase butterflies in the garden, and dialed her parents’ number.

It rang seven times before her father answered.

“Hello?” His voice was rough, like she’d woken him up even though it was ten in the morning.

“Dad? It’s Evelyn.”

Silence.

“You missed Sophie’s birthday party yesterday.”

More silence, and then a sigh. “Yeah. We figured we’d stay home.”

Evelyn’s hand tightened around her coffee mug. “You figured you’d stay home? Dad, we sent invitations. I called you. I texted. Sophie was asking about you all day.”

“Look, Evelyn—” He paused, and she heard her mother’s voice in the background, muffled. “We just didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“Not a big deal? It was her eighth birthday. She was heartbroken.”

“She’s got plenty of other people there, I’m sure. She doesn’t need us.”

Evelyn stood up, her pulse pounding in her ears. “What does that mean?”

Another long pause. Then her father said, in a tone so casual it felt like a slap: “We don’t really count your family the same way.”

The words hit her like cold water. “What?”

“You’ve got Mark’s people now. His parents are always around, aren’t they? We just keep to ourselves. We figured you had enough people there.”

Something inside Evelyn went very still and very cold. “Are you serious right now?”

“Don’t get dramatic, Evelyn. We’re just being realistic. You have your own life. Your own family. We’re separate from that.”

“Separate.” She repeated the word like it was in a foreign language. “You’re separate from your granddaughter’s birthday party, but not from the six hundred dollars I send you every single Friday?”

“That’s different—”

“How? How is that different?”

“That’s… you helping out your parents. That’s what kids do.”

“And what do parents do, Dad? Grandparents? What do they do?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Evelyn, you’re making this a bigger thing than it needs to be.”

“Making it a big thing? Dad, I’ve sent you almost a hundred thousand dollars over the past three years. A hundred thousand dollars. And you can’t drive three hours to your granddaughter’s birthday party because you ‘don’t count my family the same way’?”

“Now hold on—”

“No. You hold on.” Evelyn’s voice was shaking now, but not with sadness. With rage. With three years of swallowed resentment finally finding its voice. “I have bent over backward for you. Mark and I have sacrificed vacations, home repairs, savings—all so you could ‘live comfortably.’ And you’ve been having dinner parties. Buying new furniture. Getting premium cable. All while treating us like we’re some kind of distant relatives you’re doing a favor by acknowledging.”

“Your mother and I appreciate—”

“No, you don’t. If you appreciated it, you would have been at that party. If you appreciated it, you would call more than once a month. If you appreciated it, you wouldn’t treat Sophie like she doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not fair—”

“You’re right. It’s not fair. None of this has been fair.”

There was silence on the line. Then her mother’s voice, taking the phone: “Evelyn, honey, you’re upset—”

“Yes, Mom. I’m upset. I’m furious.”

“We didn’t mean to hurt Sophie’s feelings. We just thought… with Mark’s family there…”

“Stop. Just stop.” Evelyn closed her eyes, feeling exhausted suddenly. “You know what? You’ve made your choice. You’ve made it very clear how you feel about my family. About Sophie. About me.”

“Evelyn—”

“I just wanted you to know that I’ve made mine too.”

She hung up before her mother could respond.

For a long moment, Evelyn stood there on her porch, phone in hand, breathing hard. Then she opened her banking app.

The recurring payment screen loaded: Robert and Linda Barnes – $600.00 – Every Friday.

Her thumb hovered over the toggle switch. Green meant active. Gray meant canceled.

Three years of Fridays. Three years of sacrifices. Three years of hoping that sending money was the same thing as being loved.

She tapped the switch.

It turned gray.

Recurring payment canceled.

Then she opened her messages and typed a text to both her parents:

You’ve made your choice. I just made mine.

She hit send before she could second-guess herself.

Then she locked her phone, set it on the patio table, and sat very still as Sophie’s laughter drifted across the yard—bright, unknowing, still innocent of the way families could fail each other.

Mark appeared in the doorway a moment later. “You okay?”

Evelyn looked at him, this man who’d never complained about the Friday payments, who’d quietly rearranged their entire financial life to support her parents, who’d held her while she cried last night after Sophie went to bed.

“I canceled the payments,” she said.

Mark sat down beside her. He didn’t look surprised. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “Ask me tomorrow.”

He took her hand and they sat together in silence, watching their daughter play, while somewhere three hours north, her parents were probably staring at their phones and realizing that six hundred dollars would not be appearing in their account next Friday.

Or the Friday after that.

Or ever again.

The Aftermath

The first text came two hours later.

Evelyn, we need to talk about this. Please call us.

Evelyn deleted it without responding.

The second text came that evening.

Honey, you’re being rash. We can work this out.

Delete.

By Monday morning, there were five missed calls and three voicemails Evelyn didn’t listen to. She blocked their number.

Mark found her in the kitchen Tuesday morning, staring at her coffee. “They’re calling you?”

“Were,” Evelyn said. “I blocked them.”

“How do you feel about that?”

It was a good question. How did she feel? Relief, certainly. But also guilt—that old, familiar guilt that came with disappointing her parents, even when they’d disappointed her first.

“I feel like I should feel worse than I do,” she admitted.

Mark pulled out the spreadsheet he’d been maintaining for three years, the one color-coded in reds and yellows. “Want to see something?”

He opened it and pointed to a column. “This is what we would have saved if we hadn’t been sending that money. With interest, investment growth, and our normal savings rate—we’d have about a hundred and ten thousand dollars right now.”

Evelyn stared at the number. A hundred and ten thousand dollars. A down payment on a bigger house. Sophie’s college fund fully stocked. That vacation to the beach. The new roof. Everything they’d been putting off.

“And this,” Mark scrolled to another tab, “is what we’ll have in five years if we put that six hundred a week into savings and investments instead.”

The number made her eyes sting. Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Financial security. Freedom from the constant stress of living paycheck to paycheck. The ability to help Sophie with college without drowning in debt.

“I’m not showing you this to make you feel bad,” Mark said quietly. “I’m showing you this so you can see what you just gave us back. You gave our family its future back.”

Evelyn thought about her parents’ new couch. Their dinner parties. Their casual dismissal of Sophie’s birthday. “They never needed the money, did they? Not really.”

“I don’t know,” Mark said honestly. “But I do know that needing something and deserving it are two different things.”

On Wednesday, a letter arrived in the mail. Evelyn recognized her mother’s handwriting on the envelope and almost threw it away. But curiosity won.

Dear Evelyn,

Your father and I are very hurt by your actions. We raised you better than this—to abandon your family when things get difficult. After everything we’ve done for you, we deserve better than to be cut off without explanation.

We’re not asking for charity. We’re asking for basic decency. You’ve always been dramatic, but this is too much. When you calm down and realize you’ve made a mistake, we’ll be here. But you need to apologize first.

Love, Mom

Evelyn read it twice, waiting to feel guilty. But all she felt was a strange, hollow sadness for the parents she’d thought she had—the ones who would have shown up to their granddaughter’s birthday, who would have called to thank her for years of support, who would have loved her without conditions.

She folded the letter carefully and put it in a drawer. Not because she planned to respond, but because someday she might need to remember that she wasn’t imagining their rejection.

Sophie asked about her grandparents on Thursday.

“Are Grandma and Grandpa mad at us?”

Evelyn sat on the edge of Sophie’s bed, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “Why would you think that?”

“They didn’t come to my party. And you seem sad.”

Evelyn chose her words carefully. “Grandma and Grandpa are going through some things right now. Sometimes grown-ups have complicated feelings and make choices that hurt people. It’s not about you, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Did you do something wrong?”

“No,” Evelyn said firmly. “I didn’t.”

“Then why are they mad?”

“Because sometimes people get angry when you stop giving them what they want.”

Sophie thought about this, her eight-year-old brain working through concepts she shouldn’t have to understand yet. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not,” Evelyn agreed. “But part of growing up is learning that not everyone will treat you fairly, and you have to decide what you’re willing to accept.”

“What did you decide?”

Evelyn kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I decided you’re more important than making them happy.”

Sophie smiled and hugged her mother tight. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby.”

Moving Forward

On Friday morning, at exactly nine o’clock, Evelyn’s alarm went off as usual.

She picked up her phone, opened her banking app, and stared at the screen where the recurring payment used to be. The space was empty now. No transaction pending. No six hundred dollars scheduled to disappear from their account.

She felt something loosen in her chest.

Mark appeared in the doorway. “What do you want to do with it?”

“With what?”

“The six hundred dollars. Every week, we have an extra six hundred dollars. What should we do with it?”

Evelyn thought about the spreadsheet, about the future they’d been postponing. But she also thought about the present—about Sophie, about the family they’d built, about all the small moments they’d been too stressed to fully enjoy.

“Let’s do something fun this weekend,” she said. “Take Sophie to that water park she’s been asking about. The one we always said was too expensive.”

Mark smiled. “And the rest?”

“Savings. Investments. Our future.” She stood up and wrapped her arms around him. “Our actual future, not theirs.”

They booked the water park for Saturday. Sophie screamed with joy when they told her, jumping up and down so hard the ceiling light shook. They spent the day going down slides and floating in the lazy river and eating overpriced pizza that tasted like freedom.

That night, exhausted and sunburned, Sophie fell asleep in the car on the way home. Mark carried her inside while Evelyn watched, her heart full in a way it hadn’t been in years.

“Thank you,” Mark said later, when they were alone.

“For what?”

“For choosing us.”

Evelyn thought about that word—”us.” Her real family. The people who showed up. The people who loved without keeping score.

“There was never really a choice,” she said. “Not once I saw what the alternative looked like.”

Her phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. She knew without looking it was probably her parents, trying to reach her from a different phone.

She deleted it without reading it and turned off her phone.

The Letter She’ll Never Send

Three months later, Evelyn wrote a letter she had no intention of sending. Her therapist had suggested it—a way to process her feelings without actually engaging with her parents. She wrote it late at night after Sophie and Mark were asleep, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea growing cold beside her.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’ve spent three months trying to figure out what I want to say to you, and I’ve finally realized it doesn’t matter. You won’t hear it. You never did.

For three years, I sent you money every single Friday. Mark and I reorganized our entire financial life around supporting you. We postponed our dreams, delayed our plans, and sacrificed our comfort because I believed that’s what family did. I believed you needed me.

But you didn’t need me. You needed my money. There’s a difference.

You had dinner parties while we ate scrambled eggs. You bought new furniture while we patched our roof with duct tape. You upgraded your cable package while we canceled ours. And when I asked you to show up—just once—for the granddaughter you claim to love, you said you “don’t count my family the same way.”

Those words changed everything. Not because they were cruel, though they were. But because they were honest. For the first time in three years, you told me the truth about how you see me. About how you see Sophie. About how you see the family I’ve built.

We don’t count to you. Not really. We’re just a source of income. A Friday deposit. A transaction.

So I ended the transaction. And I need you to understand something: I didn’t do it to punish you. I did it to protect my family. My real family. The people who show up. The people who love without conditions. The people who don’t measure relationships in dollar signs.

You taught me a lot over the years. You taught me to work hard, to be responsible, to help people in need. But you also taught me something you didn’t mean to: that enabling someone’s poor choices isn’t love. It’s just expensive.

I don’t know if you’ll ever understand why I made the choice I did. I don’t know if you’ll ever take responsibility for your part in destroying our relationship. And I’ve finally accepted that I don’t need you to.

I needed to be a good daughter. But I need to be a good mother more.

Sophie will grow up knowing that she matters. That she’s worth showing up for. That love isn’t something you have to buy with money or sacrifice or endlessly meeting someone else’s needs at the expense of your own.

I hope you find happiness. I really do. I hope you find people who will give you what you’re looking for, because it was never really about the money, was it? It was about power. About knowing you could call and I would answer. About knowing you could ask and I would give. About the proof that you still mattered to me more than I mattered to myself.

That’s over now. Not because I stopped loving you, but because I finally started loving myself. And my daughter. And my husband. And the life we’re building together—without you.

You made your choice when you didn’t show up to Sophie’s birthday. I made mine when I canceled that payment.

I wish things were different. But they’re not. And I’ve stopped pretending they might be.

Goodbye.

Evelyn

She folded the letter and put it in the drawer with her mother’s accusatory note. Then she went to bed and slept better than she had in three years.

One Year Later

Friday morning, nine o’clock. Evelyn’s alarm went off as usual, but this time she didn’t reach for her phone. She was too busy watching Sophie and Mark making pancakes in the kitchen, flour everywhere, laughter filling the house.

They’d gone on that beach vacation Sophie had been asking about for years. They’d fixed the roof. They’d fully funded Sophie’s college account. They had savings now—real savings, the kind that meant security instead of stress.

Sophie was turning nine next month, and they were planning another party. This time, Evelyn wasn’t waiting for anyone who wouldn’t show up.

Her parents had tried to reach her a few more times over the months—emails from new addresses, messages passed through distant relatives, one handwritten letter that arrived at Christmas asking if they could “start over.”

Evelyn had read the Christmas letter carefully, looking for any sign that they understood what they’d done wrong. All she found were justifications and excuses and veiled accusations that she was being “ungrateful” and “cruel.”

She’d thrown it away.

Mark’s parents were coming to Sophie’s party. Rachel from next door was coming. The friends from school, the soccer team, the neighbors they’d gotten to know better over the past year—all the people who showed up, who cared, who loved Sophie not because of what Evelyn could give them but because of who they all were together.

“Mama!” Sophie called from the kitchen. “Come help us! Daddy’s making them too big again!”

Evelyn walked into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around her daughter, breathing in the smell of syrup and flour and home.

“Perfect size,” Mark said, flipping a pancake the size of a dinner plate.

“Ridiculous size,” Evelyn corrected, laughing.

This was her family. This kitchen, this morning, these people. Not the ones three hours north who’d taught her that love could be conditional, that family could be transactional, that you could spend your whole life trying to earn what should have been freely given.

She’d learned the lesson. It had cost her almost a hundred thousand dollars and her relationship with her parents, but she’d learned it:

Some people will only value you for what you can give them. And the moment you stop giving, they’ll make you feel like you’re the one who did something wrong.

But protecting yourself isn’t wrong. Choosing your peace isn’t wrong. Walking away from people who hurt you—even when they’re family—isn’t wrong.

It’s survival. And sometimes, it’s the most loving thing you can do for the people who actually deserve your love.

Sophie took a bite of her enormous pancake and grinned, syrup on her chin. “Best Friday ever.”

And Evelyn realized she was right.

THE END