Chapter 26
Jade
Alyssa knocked on the doorway behind me, and I looked back at where she was a hell of a sight in my shirt again, her hair messy over her shoulders, her face bare. She smiled at me, a flash of vulnerability on her features.
“Hey,” she said, coming into the kitchen. “Sorry it’s like a million o’clock.”
“Heard you talking,” I said, leaning against the stove where the omelet was cooking. I was no Daniela, but I could try to cook for her. “You really are popular.”
She scratched her head, laughing nervously. “I’m sorry about that. The call woke me up, and I thought it was an emergency. It’s, uh, an opening for a nice job.”
“Oh, yeah?” I tried to sound bright and cheerful, and—I mean, I was. I knew what this meant to her. But something clamped down in my chest, this anxious sensation knowing what a job meant. A reminder of the real world outside our pretty little fictional one. “Something good?”
“It’s still tentative.” She stole over to me, and she hesitated shyly before she went up on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Are you making breakfast?”
“Not only that, but I made you coffee. I know. I’m a saint.”
“You really are,” she laughed, eyes sparkling.
I could tell she wasn’t keen on talking too much about the job, so I let it rest until after breakfast, making small talk, prolonging the moment—these blissfully happy little things with Alyssa in the morning, rumpled and sleepy and perfectly beautiful in my kitchen.
I poured her coffee, served an omelet with thick slices of toast smeared with blueberry jam courtesy of Daniela’s kitchen, and we chatted and laughed over little nothings before we settled down to a soft quiet over platefuls of crumbs and slow, pensive sips of coffee.
I was on the verge of asking her about it when she beat me to it, speaking quietly.
“Can I ask,” she said softly, “what happened between you and Linda and Charlie?”
Christ, what a way to sweep the ground out from under me. I crumpled back into the seat with a heavy sigh. “You can ask whatever you want,” I said.
“So…”
“Charlie pissed me off, siding with Drew in everything. If anything, she was more aggressive against Cat than he was. And… I’m guessing you’re asking because you heard some unsavory things about me.”
She hesitated, looking down at her folded hands. I sighed.
“You can say whatever you want to. I’m not going to be mad.”
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with Linda,” she said. “She says she felt infantilized by the way you talked about their relationship.”
It was less painful than I’d have expected it to be.
Maybe because I knew it was coming and I’d been preparing for it for some time.
Or maybe just because Alyssa could hold a knife to my throat and she’d still seem soft and sweet and harmless.
I was probably just a sucker. “I get that,” I said.
“I should have minded my own business. I was just touchy about everything with Charlie and Cat. But taking shots at their relationship was a low blow.”
“I also think they have some problems,” Alyssa said softly. “For what it’s worth. I mean, I think Linda feels… controlled.”
“Yeah?” I raised my eyebrows, and she nodded.
“But it wasn’t really what Linda needed to hear.” She sat up taller. “If she is being controlled in a relationship like that, I think what she needs is a friend.”
I snorted, looking away. “She’s got plenty of people to turn to for a friend, and I’m probably at the bottom of her list.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” she said quietly, her gaze on me, and I turned back to her, a nervous sensation thrumming in my chest. “I think sometimes it looks like other people know exactly what they’re doing, like they have all their friends and they have their lives sorted out, like they know what they’re after, and then you feel like you don’t belong.
I think Linda is just the same as you are. ”
“In that she’s…”
“Alone, surrounded with people. If she feels like the relationship has gone bad, how is she going to turn to all the people who have been cheering on her relationship, excited for them to get together, to move in together, to get married and live happily ever after?” She shook her head.
“I think she’s reaching out for people just like you are.
If she didn’t care about your opinion, why would she still be so torn up about what you said? ”
My chest tightened, a distant sensation settling in—aching and sad in the pit of my stomach, like I was regretting something I hadn’t even done yet. I looked down, hands balled up together on the edge of the table. “Well,” I said, voice small, “doesn’t matter a ton right now.”
“I think it probably matters the most right now,” she said. “If you’re leaving, what’s the risk of trying before you go? And what’s the cost of leaving things unresolved?”
Dammit. Where did she get off, talking like that and trying to make me a better person? Trying to help me feel fulfilled? “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Maybe.”
“It’s what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?” she breathed. “I feel like you’ve just been afraid people aren’t listening. And I can see why. But if there’s something I can do to help bridge that gap…”
“I’d appreciate that, actually,” I managed in a thin voice. “Could you tell her… shit, I don’t know.” I laughed once. “Ask her if she still likes the sweet cherrywood scent.”
She laughed, eyes sparkling. “That’s just like you. Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Just like me. Exactly what everyone knew about me. I wouldn’t even be able to get away from everyone. Even if they didn’t say anything, I’d still feel the need to send them candles for special occasions.
What was I even trying so hard to cut everything off cleanly for? What was the harm with staying in touch with Cat, with Daniela? With Alyssa?
No, I knew exactly what the harm was with staying in touch with Alyssa. The thought of cutting her off altogether was too much to bear right now. But I knew I had to. Just… I’d think about it another time.
I sighed.
“So,” I said, “what’s your job offer about?”
She laughed nervously. “It’s less a job offer and more an opportunity to meet someone who’s looking for an employee. For a job I think I’d like. But it’s here—in Vermont, I mean. Just outside town, actually. It’s with Linda,” she blurted. “The college where she works, I mean.”
Something jumped in my chest, and I sat up taller. “An opening here? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I’m not sure about anything.
I miss Boston, honestly—I didn’t enjoy my life while I was living there, and being with Sawyer was more than I could bear, but the city was so alive.
But Paxton Ridge is so alive, too, in its own way.
And Daniela, Cat, Linda… everyone here. At this point, I don’t really want to say goodbye,” she said, her voice getting small and crackling at the edges.
“Maybe I won’t like it,” she said, speeding up now, talking over herself.
“Maybe I’ll miss the city. But I’m happy here for right now, so…
what’s the harm in spending some time here? And then moving on if it’s not for me?”
“You should,” I said. Didn’t even think about it, just heard myself say it like I was in a trance. “I think you’d do really well. I mean, the whole town loves you.”
“Well—”
“And you’d be really good at the college, too,” I said. “I know they’re expanding their events operations. I feel like you’re practically made for it.”
She blushed, looking down. “I don’t know about all that.”
“Come on. It’s just event marketing, so it’s not even far from what you did with that marketing degree you mentioned.
And who could do it better than someone who effortlessly makes friends with anyone and everyone?
” I laughed, and I said what I really, really needed not to.
“I mean, hell, you even got through to me. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to leave myself. ”
I said it as a joke, but I knew damn well it wasn’t—that it was this stupid thought jumping to my lips, that maybe I could just stay here and make amends with everyone, apologize to Cat, be friends with Daniela, set things right.
Go back to setting up a table full of candles at the market, make sure there was always one or two of my candles to burn for event nights at the Birdhouse.
And ask Alyssa to date me, to be my girlfriend.
Everything I wasn’t supposed to be saying, and I slipped up and let it out, and I got shut down for it appropriately, when Alyssa paled, a look of panic dashing over her features and back off again just as fast. Not fast enough for me to have missed it.
My heart sank, crashed on the floor, and I felt the heat of embarrassment crawling, prickling all over my body.
“Jade,” she said quietly.
“I’m just kidding,” I said. “I can hardly walk it back now. And Daniela being friends with me again doesn’t mean half the Birdhouse doesn’t see me as a public enemy.”
She forced out a wobbly smile. She looked like she wanted to cry, and I’d never kicked myself so hard. “You’d be wonderful,” she said. “People are already moving on. You saw Cat around everybody while we were hiking. I’m sure it would be so much better than you think.”
Did she want me to leave, or not? I couldn’t make sense of the conversation, and I felt dizzy just trying to follow it. “Well, I… I think you might just be biased about me.”
“No way. I’m very smart. And very right.”
“You are very smart, but I think you might be both smart and biased.”
She laughed a small, thin laugh, and she stood up. “Still no. But I appreciate you acknowledging how smart I am. I’m going to clean up.”
“I can—”
“I know you can. I’d have concerns if you made it to adulthood not knowing how to do the dishes. But I’m offering. It’s the least I can do, you let me stay over and you cooked for me and everything.”
I really needed to get on that job search as soon as possible. Especially if Alyssa might have been staying here, I was in serious danger of falling in love with her. “Thanks,” I said quietly, and she smiled sweetly at me.
“You’re very welcome. Thank you for breakfast. It was delicious.”
I wished I could have her for every breakfast. “I don’t just mean for cleaning up,” I said. “Thanks for coming over. For letting me show you a dance.” For making me feel like, for one brilliant, perfect moment in time, I mattered—like I was perfectly enough just the way I was.
She stared at me for a second, her lips parted, before she gave me the sweetest, saddest little smile in the world, tears shimmering at the corners of her eyes.
She opened her mouth to say something, and she closed it, coming over to my side of the table and bending down to kiss me, her hands cupping either side of my face as she did.
“It was my pleasure,” she said. “We’ll do it again, right? ” She paused. “Dancing, I mean.”
I laughed. “Vertical dancing, or…?”
“Oh, Jesus. All orientations.”
I grabbed her by the hips, and she let out a surprised squeal as I pulled her into me, stumbling off-balance and laughing as I caught her, peppering kisses on the side of her face.
“I’m not remotely through with you yet,” I laughed, hoping the thickness I felt in my throat didn’t come through in my voice.
“I’m only letting you go temporarily so you can attend to the rest of your life, but you’d better get your cute self back here soon. ”
“I’m all yours,” she laughed, and the thickness in her voice did come through, but I pretended I couldn’t hear it. The least I could do for her, after I’d gone and screwed things up joking about staying.