CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Kate
Ithought love sucked. But no, it didn’t just suck. It’s a disease. Worse than the plague. At least with the plague, you either died or got better. With love, you’re just... hovering in this in-between state. Haunting. Wailing. Depressing. Emotionally draining.
“Go ahead,” I mutter, flopping face-first into my pillow. “Say it. I know you want to.”
There’s a rustle near the door, followed by the unmistakable creak of it being opened slowly—like they’re trying to sneak into a bear cave, except the bear is just me, in pajamas, surrounded by crumpled tissues, hugging the teddy bear we won at the amusement park.
“I told you so,” Haley says, because of course she does.
“What she meant,” Emily says gently, sitting at the edge of the bed and running her fingers through my tangled hair, “is that we’re here for you.”
“I most definitely meant ‘I told you so,’” Haley repeats, deadpan, dropping a pint of ice cream onto the blanket next to me. “But also, yeah. We’re here.”
“I brought cookies,” Bon says, holding up a box like it’s a peace offering. “Not yours. Store-bought. Yours are better.”
My heart does something weird at that. Because even though it's meant to be comforting, the reminder stings. My cookies. Our cookies.
“You were long overdue for a breakup,” Haley says. “Honestly, the fact that you’ve made it this far in life without one is already such an achievement.”
“I can’t believe this is my first heartbreak,” I mutter. “I’m almost thirty and this is the first time I’ve ever had my heart actually stepped on. What have I been doing all these years?”
Haley tosses a pillow at me. “Avoiding vulnerability. Holding people at arm’s length. Settling for fictional men in sweaters.”
Bon pinches her arm. “Stop that!” she says. “Katherine,” she says, looking at me. “You’re a hopeless romantic. You were holding out for the love you really wanted.”
“And of course it had to be with someone like Michael,” I say, groaning. “Tall, stupidly kind, secretly soft Michael. Michael who used to make fun of grand gestures and then turned around and made me believe in them.”
“I mean, have you seen his arms?” Haley says, trying to lighten the mood. “I’d believe in a lot of things for those arms.”
“Stop crying, Kate,” Emily says. “You’ve been crying since he left.”
“I’m not crying,” I lie. “This is just… leaking from the heart.”
Haley raises an eyebrow. “And your nose. Grab a tissue.”
Emily wraps an arm around my shoulder. “We love you. Even if you’re… leaking.”
I flop back on the pillows, letting out a sigh.
“It’s not that I hate him,” I say. “I don’t. I could never. I think I might actually lo—” I stop, shaking my head. “Nope. Not going there. We didn’t even date. It’s stupid.”
Bon gently opens the cookie box. “You can still love someone even if you weren’t official.”
“Exactly,” Emily adds. “Love doesn’t care about technicalities.”
We all look at Haley, waiting for her input. “Love is a giant scam.” We roll our eyes at her, but I notice something different.
“Are you okay?” I ask Haley. She’s staring out my window, holding wine in her hand.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just…” she starts. Her eyebrows are scrunched. She looks at us with confusion and says, “Have you heard about Richard?”
The three of us look at each other and shake our heads. “He,” Haley continues. “He’s leaving to be a partner in some law firm in the States.” Haley stays quiet for a minute, then composes herself. “Good for him, right?” She plops down beside me. “Anyway, it’s not about him. It’s about you!”
We know Haley well enough not to push it. “What are you feeling?” she asks me.
I sigh. “I miss him. I hate that I do. I hate that I still want to tell him stuff. Or that sometimes, I still think about watching his highlight reel on Youtube just to get a glimpse, but that’s not the Michael I wanna see. So I end up crying harder.”
Everyone’s quiet for a while. Then Bon says, “You don’t have to move on all at once. Just... inch forward.”
“Did you know that I… I used to smoke?” I ask. “That cigarette you saw at Lily’s, that was mine.”
All three of them hold their breaths. It’s Emily who speaks first. “Used to? When did you stop?”
“Last week. Because I don’t feel like I need it anymore. I used to think it’s something I have to do give myself something to control.” I play with the hem of my blanket. “But ever since Michael, I didn’t feel the need to…”
“You relied on him, Kate, and that’s fine.” Bon brushes my hair with her fingers. “Please do not smoke. We love you.”
“I just… I just think it’s unfair because I’ve always wanted the big cheesy gestures, and I’ve always wondered who I wanna receive it from.
The guy in my dreams never had a face, but now he’s Michael.
And it’s unfair because I held out my entire life and waited for this moment, and when it arrived, it’s… gone. Poof.”
I look at my friends, each of them scrambling to give me a sense of reassurance, but all I see are pity eyes and confused eyes.
Emily passes me the ice cream and a spoon. “You’ll get your cheesy grand gesture, Kate. Or maybe a quiet one. Whichever gesture you get, you’re gonna love it. And you’re gonna deserve it.”
“Yeah,” Bon says. “And when it happens, it’ll be the kind of moment we can replay dramatically for years.”
“You’ll roll your eyes and pretend you’re embarrassed,” Haley adds.
“I’ll cry,” I admit.
“We’ll cry too,” Emily says.
“Too far,” Haley mutters.
We laugh, the four of us. In this little room, surrounded by snacks and comfort and people who’ve seen me at my best and at my most heartbreakingly human, I realize something.
Love doesn’t always look like a boy with soft eyes and broad shoulders. Sometimes, it looks like Bon driving across town just to bring store-bought cookies. Like Emily brushing the knots out of my hair without asking. Like Haley saying the hard things out loud, so I don’t have to.
I used to think being in love would be the peak of everything—like life started when someone finally picked you. But sitting here in these blankets, surrounded by the loud, loyal, unshakable women I get to call my friends, I think maybe I was wrong.
Maybe love starts right here.
It may not be the same kind of love, but it’s love. And I’m here for it.
We’re closer to Christmas now. So the decorations have also tripled in grandeur. The lights are not just in every lamppost. They’re in every house. Every establishment.
And everyone’s out. Everyone’s buzzing. Families are shopping in matching shirts, kids are begging for cotton candy, and someone, somewhere, is always blasting Jose Mari Chan or Mariah Carey.
And me? I’m doing something a little scary. Something small, but new.
I’m standing behind a booth at a weekend pop-up market in the middle of a mall parking lot that’s been transformed into a festive maze of tarp tents and string lights. It’s hot—my shirt’s sticking to my back and I already regret wearing my hair down—but it’s also… exciting. Bright. Alive.
I’m sharing the booth with my friend Farrah, who’s selling her new line of bottled flavored coffee. She offered to split her space and asked if I wanted to make something sweet to pair with her drinks.
So here I am. My cookies, muffins, and little hand pies are laid out in neat rows on a pastel-checkered cloth.
I even made tiny cards with the names and ingredients.
There’s no branding yet, no business name, no official logo.
Just a piece of masking tape with “Kate’s Bakes” scribbled in marker, and a shy smile I’m trying to keep on my face.
But people are buying them. Real people.
Not just friends doing me a favor. Strangers.
Someone just told me my ginger cookies reminded them of their lola’s.
Another asked if I had a social media page they could follow for future orders.
I didn’t—so I made one, right then and there, on my phone, hands still sticky with brown sugar.
I know it’s not much.
It’s a folding table under a tent, in the middle of a market that’ll be gone in a weekend.
But it feels like grand.
Because I’ve always waited for someone to tell me what to do next. And when Michael came into my life, it was like someone reminded me I could choose a direction. That I had something to offer. That maybe the life I wanted wasn’t too far away.
It still hurts, the way things ended. Or paused. Or fell apart—whatever word makes the ache in my chest sound softer.
But this is me trying.
“Kate!”
I look up from where I’m rearranging the muffin tray, and there he is—Dan, holding a paper bag in one hand and waving with the other, his ever-present baseball cap flipped backwards this time, hair sticking out.
I knew he’s not balding.
“Hey,” I say, surprised at how light my voice sounds.
He buys a pack of cookies, saying he needs it to convince his daughter to come home with him because she’s obsessed with her auntie.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he says after taking a banana muffin sample. “But only if you’re up for it.
“I was wondering if you’d want to grab dinner sometime,” he says, then quickly adds, “No pressure.” Geez, he’s as awkward as I am.
In a perfect world where a basketball superstar didn’t crash land into my safe haven, Dan would have been perfect.
Steady. Kind. I would’ve liked him back.
Maybe more than liked. I would’ve married him, lived in this town without ever wondering what else was out there, treated his daughter like she was my own.
And maybe that would have been enough. Maybe I’d have been happy.
But when someone like Michael shows up—someone who pushes you, frustrates you, and makes you see yourself in ways you didn’t think to look—it changes the shape of “enough.” It ruins you a little for the safe choice, even when the safe choice is good.
I take a breath. “Dan, I really appreciate that. I do. But I’m… still kind of in the middle of getting over someone.”
He doesn’t flinch. Just nods.
“I figured,” he says. “But hey, how about something friendly?”
He pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to me: two glossy tickets. No.
“They’re for the national team’s comeback game,” he says. “Got them from a friend of mine who used to do PR for the league. I thought maybe you’d want to come.”
I stare at the tickets. My heart does something slow and painful.
Michael’s game.
“I don’t want to lead you on,” I say quietly.
Dan shrugs, offering a crooked smile. “Then don’t. Come as a friend. Really, it’s an extra ticket.”
I nod, fingers curling gently around the tickets.
“Okay,” I say. “As friends.”
And as he leaves, waving over his shoulder, I glance back down at the tickets in my hand.
It’s just a game.