CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Michael
Istare at the box of cookies. Kate gave me these last night after our breakup. I don’t even know if it’s worth calling a breakup. Things have to be whole for them to break, and it’s like we were never given a chance to be whole, together.
It’s not just the cookies that get me, though. I’ve had them a hundred times. I know the taste before I even lift the lid—chewy in the middle, crisp at the edges, warm even when they’re not. Like her.
But there’s a note taped to the top, folded once and stained slightly with oil. For a second, I think it’s a letter. Something emotional. Something I can read and reread until the words stop hurting.
It’s not.
It’s a recipe.
Her recipe.
Step-by-step instructions in her curly handwriting, with little notes like “don’t skimp on the salt, trust me,” and “this step is optional but do it anyway.” At the bottom, she’s drawn a tiny smiley face beside her name like she’s trying to soften the blow.
And somehow, that stings more.
Because giving me this recipe is the farewell. Like she’s telling me to make my own cookies now since she’s not gonna be there anymore.
I hear my doorbell ring. My heart leaps stupidly and irrationally. That’s Kate.
I rush to the door, pulse quick and hopeful. I peer through the peephole.
It’s not Kate.
It’s Manang Linda.
I open the door slowly. “Hi, Ma’am.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me like I’m your coach.”
“Sorry,” I say, stepping aside. “Do you want to come in?”
“I don’t want to. But I will.” She marches past me, her chin high and her purse swinging like a weapon. “Because someone has to tell you when you’re being stupid.”
I blink. “I—what?”
“Katherine has never been in love before,” she says casually. “But she’s always the one who’s most obsessed with love. With fairy tales. With promises. With all that cheesy crap everyone used to mock her for.”
I nod. I already know all that.
Manang Linda narrows her eyes at me, but her voice softens. “And then you showed up, and everyone saw. Everyone saw that maybe Kate wasn’t so delusional about love after all.” She walks over to the box of cookies on my counter, taps the lid like it personally offends her. “She gave you the recipe?”
I nod. “Yeah. Last night.”
She exhales, long and slow. “Then that girl loves you so much, it scared her. And she did the only thing she knows how to do when she’s scared.”
“She let go,” I say, my throat tight.
“She let go,” Manang confirms. “Not because she doesn’t like you. But because she didn’t know how to be with you without making you feel like you had to choose.”
“I wouldn’t ask her to,” I mutter. “I would’ve stayed.” I don’t know if giving up my whole identity to stay here would be right. But I’d have done it until we figured out how to create a life both of us would thrive in.
“She didn’t want you to stay,” Manang Linda says. “Not like that. Not while you were still carrying the weight of needing to prove yourself.”
“Yeah… She believes in me,” I say, remembering the way she told me that she was rooting for me. That I was made for big things. I’m not so sure about that anymore.
“You know what the thing about Katherine is?” Manang Linda continues, turning toward me. “She doesn’t ask for much. She never has. But the one thing she’s always wanted is someone who loves her. Chooses her. Out loud.”
I swallow hard. “I chose her.”
“No, you loved her,” she corrects. “But you didn’t fight for her.”
My eyebrows scrunch. How could I fight for her if I didn’t know how to be what she needed? I look down at my hands, curled into fists without realizing it.
“You’re a good boy, Michael.” I look at her, suddenly remembering my grandma.
She used to tell me that whenever I’d be frustrated about not being accepted for local leagues.
She’d tell me that I was a good boy, and that it wouldn’t matter what life would throw at me because I have the kindness to make it worthwhile.
Overtime, that kindness faded. Drowned by ego and validation and everything that came with fame.
She pauses, then looks up at me again. “You’re a good boy. But you’re still growing. And Katherine? She’s just learning how to take up space. You two collided in the middle of figuring yourselves out. That’s just bad timing.”
“So what do I do?” I ask, voice breaking a little. “Just… wait? Hope she figures it out?”
“No,” she says. “You both deserve more than hoping. You live your life. Be proud of it. Be kind. Keep going. And if one day the timing’s better—if you’ve become the man who knows he’s already enough, and she’s the woman who finally believes she deserves the big love she’s always dreamed of—then maybe… ”
I look down. I don’t like the thought of maybe.
“I miss her,” I admit quietly.
“I know,” she says, almost tender now. “She misses you too. Even if she doesn’t say it.”
I stand as Manang Linda stands. “Thank you,” I say. “For welcoming me here. For never making me feel like I have to be more than who I am. I wish I could live here forever.”
She turns to me, eyes soft. “You don’t have to live here forever to belong.”
Then she pats my chest. Right over my heart.
“That part of you? The part that still believes in love, even when it hurts? That’s the part I’d like to believe this place gave you. You keep that safe.”
She turns to leave, but I stop her.
“Wait.”
She pauses, brows lifting.
And before I can overthink it, I wrap my arms around her. She freezes for half a second. Then her arms fold around me, steady and warm. She doesn’t say anything.
The tears come before I can stop them. Quiet at first. Then harder. Ugly.
It hits me all at once—how much I miss Kate, how tired I am of pretending I’m fine, how scared I am that this version of me, the one she brought out, might disappear now.
After a while, I let out a breathless, watery laugh. “Well, look at me,” I say, voice hoarse. “A thirty-year-old man crying on the shoulders of my elderly neighbor.”
She snorts. “Elderly?!”
I laugh again, though it breaks in the middle. She squeezes my arm once before stepping back, her expression soft but firm.
“What would you kids do without me?” she mutters, grabbing a tissue from her purse and shoving it into my hand like it’s part of a sacred ritual. “Fall apart completely, that’s what.”
The door closes behind her, and suddenly the apartment feels too quiet. Too still. I drop onto the couch, tissue clenched in one hand, Kate’s cookie recipe in the other.
I look at it again, and remember when she gave it to me, after she very kindly said she’s proud of me.
I sigh. I hate that it’s kind. Because it would’ve been easier if she yelled. If she walked away angry, slammed a door, made me hate her just a little. But Kate doesn’t burn bridges. Even back when we couldn’t stand each other, she was kind.
I close my eyes.
I just want her to live a life untouched by the noise of other people’s expectations. To breathe in a world where she doesn’t have to shrink to fit. Maybe love like that is enough.
After all, love isn’t about claiming someone. It’s not about holding them still, or asking them to stop growing so they can stay within arm’s reach. It’s about seeing who they are when they finally start to bloom—and choosing to root for them anyway, even if it means loving them from the sidelines.
And I am rooting for her.
I’m rooting for her early mornings in that tiny bakery she’s going to build with her bare hands and her brave heart. Even if I’m not the one beside her when she opens her bakery. Even if she ends up with someone who always wears caps indoors. Even if the timing never lines up.
I still want her to get that cheesy grand gesture, because I know she still wants it.
But while she’s still busy building her dream without the pressure of getting tangled up in mine, I’ll quietly cheer her on.
Manang Linda was right. I would’ve fallen apart. But I smile.
Because if I had to fall apart, I’m glad it was for someone like Katie.
For someone I love, with all the ways I know and all the ways I’m still learning.