31. Mariana
Mariana
T he scent of quesitos, pasteles de guayaba, and warm tembleque filled the air, wrapping the bakery in the comforting embrace of home.
Notes of coconut, cinnamon, and vanilla lingered with every inhale, mingling with the buttery sweetness of freshly baked mallorcas and pan sobao.
It smelled like my childhood, like early mornings in my abuela’s kitchen, like everything I thought I had lost but somehow found again. I stood in the center of The Rolling Pin, letting it all sink in.
Behind the counter, a framed recipe for flan de vainilla, written in my mother’s looping script, hung like a quiet blessing over the kitchen.
A small woven basket beside it held cinnamon sticks and star anise, the same way my abuela used to store them, their scents mingling in a way that made my heart ache with longing and comfort all at once.
I had poured everything into this place. Every part of me was embedded deep into the walls. The late nights spent painting, the early mornings perfecting each detail—choosing the perfect lights, the right color scheme, the little personal touches only I would notice.
This wasn’t just a bakery. It was a piece of me. And tonight, it was finally open again.
Laughter and conversation filled the space, the warmth of familiar faces making the air hum with joy. Sebastian stood near the counter, arms crossed, watching me with that look—the one that made my stomach flip. The one that made me feel like I was the only person in the room.
Anna and Analyse hovered near the dessert case, arguing over which pastry to try first, while Nathan stood off to the side, sipping a cup of coquito, trying to act like he wasn’t enjoying it as much as he actually was.
Mateo and Andres had, of course, already migrated to the coffee station, one insisting that traditional café con leche was superior, while the other made a dramatic case for black espresso with just a pinch of azúcar.
I exhaled slowly, my chest tight with emotion.
I had done this. I had brought them all here, and then I saw Ruth.
She stood near the entrance, hands clasped together, her sharp brown eyes sweeping across the bakery with a quiet kind of pride.
My stomach twisted. I wiped my palms against my apron before crossing the room.
“Ruth,” I said, heart pounding.
Her expression softened immediately. “Mariana,” she greeted, her voice thick with warmth.
I swallowed hard. “Well? What do you think?”
Ruth let out a soft chuckle, glancing around again. “I knew you’d made me proud,” she said simply.
The words hit me like a gust of wind. “You really think so?”
She nodded. “This place was always meant to be yours. I just had to wait for you to see it, too.”
My throat tightened.
“I kept telling everyone I’d sell when the right owner came along,” she continued, shaking her head. “But the truth is, I wasn’t ever going to sell it. Not unless it was to you.”
A shaky breath left my lips.
“You belong here, Mariana,” Ruth said, voice gentle but firm. “And this bakery? It belongs to you.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes before I could stop them. I reached forward and hugged Ruth tightly, inhaling the faint scent of lavender and honey that always lingered on her clothes. “Thank you,” I whispered.
She just patted my back. “You don’t need to thank me, nina. Just keep making those quesitos the way your mama taught you.”
A soft, wet laugh slipped from my lips. “I promise.”
As soon as I turned around, Sebastian was there, pressing a glass of champagne into my hand. His voice was low, meant only for me. “I am so damn proud of you, Mi Tesoro.”
I looked up at him, at the warmth in his brown eyes, and my heart stuttered.
“You really did it,” he continued. “You made this place yours.”
The emotion in his voice made my throat tighten all over again. Before I could say anything, Mateo clapped his hands together loudly.
“Alright, alright, everyone!” he called out. “Before we all slip into a sugar coma, let’s take a second to celebrate the woman of the hour.”
Andres grinned, already raising his glass. “To Mariana!”
“To The Rolling Pin!” Anna added.
“And to making sure she never stops feeding us!” Analyse chimed in, making everyone laugh.
Sebastian lifted his own glass. His gaze never left mine. “To you, Mari,” he said, voice steady. “And to everything you’re building.”
Glassed clinked. Laughter bubbled around me. I barely had time to breathe before he closed the space between us. His lips met mine, soft, lingering, yet full of unspoken promises.
My heart stuttered, then soared. The noise around us faded, the world narrowing to the taste of champagne on his lips, the heat of his hand resting at my waist.
When he pulled back, his forehead touched mine, his voice a whisper. “This is only the beginning, Mariana.”
And with him beside me, I knew he was right. Then my phone rang.
The sound cut through the moment like a blade, sharp and immediate, slicing into my chest before I even looked at the screen. The hospital. No. Not today, please. Not now.
My fingers shook as I reached for it. I could feel the eyes on me—Sebastian’s, Anna’s, Ruth’s—but their voices blurred, everything muffled as the world shrank to the flow of the screen in my hands.
I knew. Even before I answered, I knew.
Because I had felt this before—the hollow dread when my dad’s doctors called, the crushing silence before they told me he was gone. The same sick certainty the night Andrew never came home. Loss had a feeling…a weight. And it was settling over me now.
Swiping the call open, I brought the phone to my ear, my breath already shuddering. “Hello?”
“Ms. Vargas?” The nurse’s voice was gentle. Apologetic. Final. The heart-wrenching voice people use when they know the words they’re about to say will shatter you. “I’m so sorry.”
No.
“Your mother passed away a few minutes ago.”
No, no, no, no, no—My knees buckled.
The world tilted, blurred, imploded. My breath caught in my throat, jagged and sharp. There was a roaring in my ears, a violent crashing, like ocean waves pulling me under, dragging me into the dark. I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
The walls of the bakery blurred, the light too bright, too cruel. My mother…My mother was gone. I pressed a hand to my stomach, my body folding in onto itself, my chest caving as a sob ripped from my throat.
Someone was calling my name.
A hand touched my arm, warm and steady, but I jerked away violently, a broken sound escaping my lips. I couldn’t breathe. My chest wouldn’t expand, my lungs refusing to work. I had to get out.
I stumbled toward the door, nearly crashing into one of the tables. My vision was fractured, nothing making sense, the room bending and swaying under the weight of the words still hanging in the air.
Dead. She’s dead. She’s gone.
The words slammed into me, over and over, battering my ribs, breaking me open from the inside out. My mother was dead. A sob tore from me—ugly, raw, primal.
I barely made it outside before my legs gave out, and then I was on my knees. The pavement scraped against my skin, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything except the pain cracking through my chest like an earthquake.
I rocked forward, my hands clenched into fists, pressing into the concrete as if that could hold me together. It couldn’t. Nothing could. My mother was dead.
“Mariana!”
The voice cut through the storm, distant and worried, and then there were hands on me, strong, and familiar. Sebastian.
I tried to push him away, but he didn’t let me. His arms came around me, solid, unwavering, pulling me into his chest. And I broke. A ragged, gut-wrenching sob tore from my throat, my entire body shaking violently against him.
The grief ripped through me, clawing at my ribs, my skin, my soul. Sebastian’s arms tightened, his hand pressing against the back of my head, holding me together when I was coming undone.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his voice thick, wrecked. “I’ve got you, Mariana.”
I buried my face into his chest, the scent of cedar-wood and warmth and home filling my senses, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.
The Rolling Pin was still behind me, full of light, full of life—but she wasn’t here to see it. She would never see it. She would never see me. A fresh wave of grief slammed into me, brutal and merciless.
Sebastian held me tighter, his own breath uneven as he whispered, “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything except sob into his arms, letting the pain tear me apart.
Grief is a strange thing.
It doesn’t arrive all at once. It doesn’t hit in one clean wave. It seeps in, little by little, until it’s everywhere. At first, I felt numb. A cold, empty void stretching inside me, swallowing everything in its path.
I went through the motions. Answered phone calls I barely remembered. Nodded through conversations I didn’t hear. Let Anna and Analyse take over planning the funeral because I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The Rolling Pin still smelled like coconut and vanilla, but it was all wrong now. I hated it. I hated that life just kept going when it felt like mine was over.
That customers still came in, their voices too bright, too alive. That the world didn’t pause, didn’t acknowledge that something inside me had been ripped out. That I was walking around with a hole in my chest that nothing could fill.
The exhaustion started creeping in a few days later. The deep, aching kind. The type of exhaustion that settled in my bones and refused to leave. It wasn’t just the grief—it was my body turning against me, flaring in protest of everything I’d been forcing it to endure.
My joints stiffened, the dull throbbing in my hands and knees intensifying with every sleepless night, every moment spent curled up on my couch instead of moving, eating, existing . But even when the pain became impossible to ignore, it still wasn’t the worst of it.
Because, for once, my chronic illness wasn’t the cause of my suffering. The grief was worse. It was heavier. It was all-consuming.
Sebastian kept calling. Kept texting. At first, I ignored them all. Then, when I finally picked up, I gave clipped answers.
“I’m fine.”
“I just need some space.”
“I have a lot to do.”
I could hear the worry in his voice, the way he hesitated every time I cut the conversation short. The way he didn’t know how to fix this.
He came by twice. The first time, I let the phone ring until it stopped. Ignored the knock at my door. Ignored the ache in my chest when I heard his voice on the other side, soft and careful, as if saying my name too loudly might make me break.
The second time, he got inside. I don’t know if Anna let him in or if he still had the same spare key from when he helped with the bakery’s renovations.
But when I turned the corner from the kitchen, there he was. Standing in my living room, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, his brown eyes tight with something between worry and panic. I froze. He looked at me like he was afraid I was already gone.
“Hey,” he said, his voice too gentle. Too careful.
I swallowed hard, arms crossing over my chest. “Sebastian, I?—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He took a hesitant step forward, then stopped. “I just…I don’t want you to be alone.”
My throat burned. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t alone—that I had Anna, and Analyse, and Ruth, and everyone else who had surrounded me these past few days.
But none of them were him , and that scared me. Because if I let him in, it would hurt more when I lost him, too.
So I shook my head. “I just…need time, Seb.”
His jaw tightened. “You’ve been shutting me out.”
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
His eyes flashed with something close to frustration. “No, you’re not.”
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “What do you want me to say? That I’m falling apart? That I feel like I can’t breathe most days? That I wake up and, for a second, forget she’s gone, and then it hits me all over again?”
His shoulders fell slightly, but he didn’t look away. “You don’t have to say anything,” he murmured. “I just want to be here.”
I shook my head again, feeling something inside me crack open, something raw and sharp and ugly. “That’s the problem, Sebastian,” I whispered. “You can’t be here. Because one day, you won’t be. And I can’t…” My voice broke. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t do this again.”
A long beat of silence stretched between us. Then, softly, painfully, he exhaled. “I’m not him, Mariana.”
I flinched. But he wasn’t angry. His voice wasn’t cruel or demanding. It was quiet. Devastated. I looked up, and what I saw in his expression nearly undid me.
Sebastian was afraid. Afraid that I would do what I always did. That I would run. That I would push him away until there was nothing left for him to hold on to. And the thing is, I couldn’t even promise him that I wouldn’t.
Instead of answering, instead of letting him in, I looked away. “Please, Seb, just go. I need space.” I whispered.
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then, with a slow nod, he took a step back. “Okay,” he murmured. “Okay, Mariana.”
And then, he walked away.
I stood there, staring at the empty space where he had been, the silence in my apartment so loud it felt deafening. I should have called him back. I should have stopped him.
But instead, I sank onto my couch, pulled my knees to my chest, and let the grief swallow me whole.