Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
VIOLET
After baking all day, I call it a day and clean up.
I finished more than I had planned to. Right now, I’ve been doing the bare minimum.
My usual work was always ahead of schedule, and now all I want is to be in bed.
Today was the first day in a while I actually lost track of time and kept going.
It feels good to enjoy what I love to do.
Lately I haven’t. Hopefully, I stay on this ride.
I grab the mason jar that was filled with sourdough discard and take it over to the sink to wash. I turn back around, and a jolt shoots through my body. The mason jar slips from my hand and it crashes against the floor with a loud clunk before it shatters.
My jaw clenches at the sight of her standing with her hands on her hips, staring daggers at me like I’m the one who betrayed her.
I back up with my eyes still on her and turn down the music. Zay was right about one thing: if I play my music this loud, someone is going to break in, and I won’t even know. My music was so loud I didn’t hear her come in.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
The pit of my stomach throbs just looking at her, knowing I used to call her a friend.
My best friend.
“Where’s Ezra?”
My mouth parts and my heart stings at those words. Even though I hate to see her here right now, how is that the only thing she has to say? I’ve been ignoring her calls and text messages, but I thought she would have more to say to me than that. She truly doesn’t give a shit about me.
“Get out of my house!” I yell, pointing to the door.
Her body jitters like she’s in shock I yelled, or she’s having a nervous breakdown from her own choices. “No.” She shakes her head frantically. “I want to know where he is.”
I stare deeper into her eyes and see her droopy, glossed over eyes. “Are you drunk?” I look her up and down. Her hair is ratted up in a ponytail. She has black all around her eyes. It looks like it’s from days old mascara. She has no makeup on, which is rare for her to go out without any.
“Where is he?” she says under her breath as if she’s been running.
Did she run here?
She turns her back to me and runs out of my kitchen. I follow her out to see where she’s going. Once she hits the stairs, she books it up. I follow behind her. “He’s not here, you psycho bitch,” I yell as I skip stairs, getting up there faster.
She runs into my room, then out, and into the two other rooms that are up here. I stand in the hallway with a slight grin on my face. It’s funny how the tables have turned. It was once me going crazy trying to find Zayn when she was a part of it all along.
She grips her chest, out of breath, and her jaw quivers. “Where is he?”
My grin rises as I stare at her with pity. It’s the same way she used to look at me. “Why would he be here?”
“Are you two fucking now?” She steps closer to me.
I square my shoulders and laugh.
“Are you?” she yells.
I don’t answer her. I’ll let her come up with her own thoughts to run through her head all night and day. Make her crazy for once. “You need to leave!”
Tears stream down her face. “Where is he?” she mutters.
“How should I know?”
“You can’t tell me you two aren’t talking,” she says, wiping the snot from her nose.
“No shit, we are. He’s my friend. Unlike you.”
She hangs her head lower, sniffling. “I’m sorry, Vi. I never meant to hurt you.”
Those are the words I’ve waited to hear.
Not sure why, because now that I hear them, they sound empty.
She threw away a lifelong friendship for what?
She’s not sorry. She’s only sorry she got caught or else it wouldn’t have kept happening.
Shit, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Her words fall flat, just like her, as she stands there with tears streaming down her face.
Just like I did when I was going out of my mind.
The worst part of it is she sat there and watched me. She made me believe he wasn’t cheating.
I shake my head at her, rolling my eyes.
“You have to believe me.” She steps closer, and I step back. “Please tell me where he is?”
I knit my eyebrows together. “He’s at work like all the adults.”
She raises her head but ignores my comment. “He’s not there. They said he hasn’t worked there in six months.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that I’m now, too, questioning where he is.
I catch her eyes lighting up.
“What’s going on?” I hear behind me.
I pivot myself around and see Ez coming up the stairs.
He has a simple white T-shirt and light blue jeans on.
Just the sight of him brings down some tension.
Rya bumps my shoulder walking past me. He stops in his tracks, and as she reaches out to him, he turns and she misses him. She almost falls down the stairs.
“Ezra,” she squeals. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I’m not sure why. There is nothing between us,” he says with his lip curled up.
She reaches out for him again, and he steps closer to me. She abruptly stops and glares at us both. “Are you two fucking?”
“We’re not you, Rya,” I snap.
“Whatever. I know you’ve always wanted him.”
My stomach sinks waiting for her to say what I think she’s going to say. A couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have believed she would air out my feelings I had for him, but now I don’t know. I know nothing about her.
“Isn’t that right, Vi?” she asks, focusing her gaze on me. “Ever since senior year when you confessed your feelings to me about Ez.”
Out of my peripheral vision, I see him glance over at me and then back to her.
“The thing is, he never wanted you. He wanted me,” she says sternly.
She sounds erratic now. One minute she’s looking for him, the next she’s apologizing, and now the attention is back on me as if I betrayed her.
He grabs her arm. “You need to leave,” he says and pulls her down the stairs. She follows along like a puppy dog on a leash.
I stand there frozen, every muscle locked in place as I watch him remove her from my house.
My heart sinks to my stomach, and heat rushes to my face.
She said the one thing I had buried so deep.
My breath catches because a part of me thought he knew, or at least that’s what she told me.
From the looks of it, I don’t think he ever knew.
Why would he? She wouldn’t have told him if that meant it might ruin her chances with him. I should have known better than to have believed her back then.
I watch as Ezra comes back up the stairs and takes a seat next to me on the top stair. We both avoid each other’s gazes and stare straight ahead.
“Is she driving?” I ask.
“No. I don’t know how she got here. Her car wasn’t outside.”
Silence fills the air. I’m sitting here waiting for him to ask what she meant, but he says nothing. Should I tell him what she meant? No, if he wants to know, he’ll ask.
“So what are you doing here?”
I wait for an answer, but one doesn’t come. I shift my gaze over to him, and he flinches like he’s lost in thought.
“I came to check on you,” he says.
“Oh,” is all I can mutter.
“How did she get in?”
I let out a sigh because I know I should have changed the code but kept putting it off. “She had the garage code.”
“She has the garage code and I don’t,” he says, shocked.
My lips curl under. “I didn’t know you didn’t have it.”
“Well, now I’ll have it because I’m going to change it for you.”
“I’m fine with that,” I scoff.
“Can I ask you something?”
My heart sinks again because here it comes. I nod.
“What did she mean by that?”
“By what?” I ask stupidly.
He shifts his body, and our eyes lock. “You know what I’m talking about.”
I break our eye contact and stare straight ahead.
“Did you have feelings for me?” he asks softly but with so much curiosity in his voice.
“Yeah. I did. Our senior year of high school,” I say, and I feel his body shift next to mine like he’s surprised, or he wishes he never knew. Does he regret knowing now?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Because I was worried you would think it was weird since we were best friends. Plus, Rya told me you told her you liked her.”
Heavy silence fills the air. He doesn’t say anything, and it only makes me anxious wondering what he’s thinking. But I need to stop making myself worry about what others think and think only about myself. Especially right now. If he wants to talk more about it, he’ll ask me.
“So Rya told me she stopped at your work and they told her you haven’t been working there for six months.”
He lets out a howl of laughter. I sit up taller, facing him, watching his wide grin and his eyes squint. He slaps his hand down on his leg as if I had said a funny joke.
After his laughter dies down, he turns to me and says. “It took her six months to finally figure out I don’t work there anymore.” He shakes his head and mumbles, “Jesus,” under his breath.
My brows furrow, questioning what the hell is going on. Those two must have had more secrets from each other than I knew, and it makes me question their marriage even more. But who am I to question?
“What?” I ask.
“I started my own mechanic shop a year ago.”
My eyes are wide as I stare at him in surprise. “What! You did?”
He nods. “Six months ago I stopped working at my old job and went full time for myself,” he says with pride in his voice.
“Oh, my gosh. Good for you.” I wrap my arm around his back, congratulating him.
I know what it’s like to start your own business and the rush of excitement you get to share it with someone. I can hear in his voice how it brings him so much excitement just by saying it aloud.
“Wait. Why didn’t I know about this?”
He looks at me with regret in his eyes, like he can’t say the words.
I shake my head even more confused. “How does Rya not know? Does Zay know?”
“No one knows. Except my immediate family.”
It hurts my heart to hear that. This is an exciting time for him, and he kept it from his friends. “Why didn’t we know?” I ask, dropping my arm from him. “I remember you and Zayn used to always talk about opening up your own shop.”
“We did. It was our dream to open up our own. But when I went to Zay about it, he said that it was only a dream and we could never pull it off. So, I dropped it. But when I saw you go into your own business, it got me thinking about it even more. It nagged at me for years. I went back to Zay to ask him what he thought about only me opening it up myself, and he laughed in my face.”
My mouth drops in disbelief. “I can’t believe him. What a fucking asshole.” There’s something new to find out about him and Rya almost every day. “And why doesn’t Rya know?”
“She laughed in my face, too, and then said she didn’t want to deal with a business. I knew she couldn’t run a business, so she was never part of my business plan. I just wanted her support.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yeah. She dismissed me and told me to do whatever I wanted.”
I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. That’s so shitty of them. They weren’t the most supportive of me and my business, but they didn’t react the way they did to him. That’s a horrible feeling because even with the lack of support I got from Zay, that crushed me a lot.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have loved to support you.”
He tightens his grip on my hand. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s just…you know it was hard because you were with Zay.”
“I would have smacked him on the side of the head for you.”
He turns to me with a smirk on his face and reaches for my hand. “I know you would have.”
We sit next to each other at the top of the stairs—our shoulders brushing against each other, warmth surrounding us, and our hands intertwined.
Being around him has a way of easing my tension.
It always has. It feels right. But beneath the calm, there’s a lingering ache.
It hurts knowing he went through all of this without the support of his friends.
I’m still processing how they—his best friend and his own wife—treated him with this. It makes little sense.
But what does anymore?