Chap­ter 5 begins with a reminder that this isn’t home. “You’re late on your half of the rent,” John says, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes as I hand over the cash I scraped togeth­er from pawn­ing one of Mrs. Reed’s ear­rings. This place was nev­er meant to be permanent—just a land­ing spot, a tem­po­rary fix with some­one who knew too much about me. But six months lat­er, here I still am, watch­ing my yogurt dis­ap­pear into his mouth as he leans against the counter like he owns me along with the apart­ment.

There’s some­thing inva­sive about the way John exists. He eats my food, uses my stuff, and casu­al­ly steps over bound­aries with­out a sec­ond thought. My name on things doesn’t stop him. Noth­ing ever real­ly feels like it’s mine here—not even the four walls around me. When he makes a crude com­ment about my “clients,” imply­ing things even he’s not brave enough to say out loud, I deflect with sar­casm. But deep down, I know this isn’t just about irri­ta­tion. It’s about con­trol. And I’m done let­ting him have any of it.

The sec­ond he leaves, I take com­fort in the small silence, the kind that doesn’t require me to dodge his pet­ty insults or his side­ways glances. Heat­ing up two Easy Macs—the last bit of food he hasn’t touched—I hun­ker down with my lap­top and resume my pri­vate rit­u­al: search­ing every­thing I can find about Bea Rochester. I skip over the arti­cles about her dis­ap­pear­ance and instead dive into the world she built. South­ern Manors. A brand built on curat­ed charm, over­priced items, and the fan­ta­sy of South­ern ele­gance. To some­one like me, it’s absurd. But to Eddie, it meant some­thing.

The deep­er I go, the more I see what he must have seen in her. The web­site is clean, styl­ish. Bea is every­where in it—her voice, her aes­thet­ic, her lega­cy. She sells not just home goods but a vision of per­fec­tion. Mason jar vas­es. Ging­ham aprons. Mono­grammed pet leash­es that cost more than my rent. Every­thing is refined, brand­ed, inten­tion­al. And I can’t stop scrolling. I hate it, but I under­stand it. This was her world. The world Eddie still inhab­its.

One pho­to grabs me more than the oth­ers. Bea stands in a per­fect­ly styled din­ing room, wear­ing a ging­ham skirt and a navy sweater, the kind of out­fit that would’ve made me feel invis­i­ble grow­ing up. But on her, it radi­ates pow­er. Con­fi­dence. There’s a crisp­ness to her that makes it impos­si­ble not to look. I almost laugh at myself—how easy it is to resent her and still want to become her. What would it feel like to be that pol­ished, that want­ed?

Anoth­er arti­cle, anoth­er detail: Bea met Eddie in Hawaii. Three years ago. That’s the part that makes me pause. A beach romance turned South­ern empire. Their sto­ry had start­ed like some­thing out of a movie. Mine starts in a shared apart­ment with chipped coun­ters and a guy who thinks a spoon­ful of yogurt is fore­play. But I’m not stay­ing in this sto­ry.

I can feel the shift already. It start­ed when Eddie smiled at me over cof­fee. When he lis­tened with­out pity. When I saw the open­ing and knew I could step through it. I want to be where Bea was—not just in Eddie’s life but in that house, in that world where every­thing is curat­ed, con­trolled, and clean. I want to be some­one new, some­one pow­er­ful. Not plain Jane, not the girl who bor­rows sham­poo and hides mon­ey in her sock draw­er.

So I keep read­ing. About Bea’s brand, her fam­i­ly his­to­ry, the pub­lic image she worked so hard to shape. She was metic­u­lous, thought­ful, pri­vate. She kept her name—Bertha—hidden, rein­vent­ing her­self as Bea. That tells me more than any­thing else. Because I’ve done the same. My name isn’t real­ly Jane either.

And that, more than any­thing else, tells me I can do what she did. I can rewrite every­thing. I can belong. Maybe even more than she ever did.