Chapter 32 Lili
Thirty-Two
Lili
“Another early morning?”
Thanks to the shower curtain, I only hear Mom when she walks into the bathroom all three of us have to share, which means
that even getting up this early, I can’t cry in the shower in peace without someone coming in to brush their teeth.
“Yeah. I’ll be out in a second.” I step back under the spray and let the water rinse away the tears I’ve indulged for too
long. Wren told me to my face that he can’t choose me. He and Eryn have too much history, too much invested in one another.
I let my face crumble one more time behind the safety of the shower curtain, before turning the knob to full cold, giving
me the icy spray I need to pull myself together.
“Lili?” Mom asks when I stifle a yelp.
“I’m fine, the water just went cold.” I turn off the tap and reach my arm out to grab a towel before wrapping it around myself
and opening the curtain. I step out of the tub and start to comb my hair in front of the sink.
“Oh, these wretched pipes. Graham’s bringing by some new fittings for me to try, but I’m worried we’ll still have to replace most of them.”
In our reflection in the mirror, I see that she doesn’t look nearly as put off by the idea as she should.
“Graham again.” I smile at her.
She pauses to fold and rehang her hand towel. “Yes, Graham again. And he’s invited us over for lunch after church on Sunday.”
My smile falters just the tiniest bit. “Okay. He does know we’re leaving, right?” But what I’m really asking is if she’s changed
her mind about how soon.
She smiles wearily. “He knows. He’s offered to come by in a couple of weeks with his son and help us box everything up. Including
your father’s desk, if you’d like to take it. I don’t think it’ll fit in your dorm, but I can keep track of it more easily
off this island than on.”
I nod wordlessly. Then swallow and say, “So it’s two weeks then?”
She looks around the bathroom, thinking of the spaces beside and beneath this one before murmuring her assent. “The front
porch just needs to be painted, and then the plumbing still needs attention, but otherwise there are only a handful of things
left to button up. In fact, there are some rooms that are already ready for you to photograph for the rental listing.”
She stops when she sees my stricken expression, then runs a hand over my arm and pulls me into a hug. “The house will still
be here after college, if this is where you really want to be.”
I’m holding my towel up, so I can’t hug her back, but I rest my head on her shoulder, and she doesn’t seem to mind when my wet hair instantly soaks through her sleep shirt. “I’m not ready yet.”
“You haven’t talked to Eryn, have you?”
I shake my head against her shoulder. One of many unfinished things spinning through my head.
“Have you tried?”
Another shake.
She lets me go and turns back to the sink, watching me through the mirror. “Sounds like something you need to do sooner rather
than later.”
I hug my towel tighter and sit down on the closed toilet. “She might not want to talk to me.”
Mom spits and rinses, wincing at the loud groaning from the pipes. “Maybe she doesn’t, but you should at least try to apologize
directly to her.”
I give her my most pitiful look.
“She works at that café next to the museum, right? The one you said has the most amazing cinnamon roll things?”
“Who has amazing cinnamon rolls?” Goldie squeezes into the bathroom, yawning. Another problem with this old house—the plumbing
is loud enough to wake the dead, so even my little sister is getting up at the crack of dawn now. “I want cinnamon rolls.”
Mom and I exchange a glance through the mirror, and my rounded, threatening eyes do nothing to keep the words from spilling
out of her mouth.
“There’s this special bakery in town that Lili knows. Maybe she can take you this morning.”
There’s no shutting this down once Goldie is on board. Her sweet tooth is legendary, and even though I try to explain that morning buns are more like croissants than cinnamon rolls, the fact that they’re frosted has her determined. And my fate sealed.
“Don’t suppose you want to go somewhere else with a shorter line?” I say to my sister outside of the Petticoat Café. They’ve
only just opened, but the line of people queued up outside already numbers in the dozens.
Goldie sneers at the suggestion. “You said that the morning buns here are better than anything we used to get from Desert
Bloom Bakery.”
I had said that.
I sigh, glancing back and forth between the end of the line and inside the shop. I don’t see Eryn at the counter, but she’s
the only one who makes the morning buns, which means she must be in the kitchen. I gnaw on my lip.
“What’s wrong with you?” Goldie asks.
“I’m trying to decide how much of a coward I am.”
“You’re not a coward.” She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And since I really want that to be true,
I nod.
“Okay, then are you all right to wait in line for us for a few minutes? I kinda have to go talk to somebody around back.”
The look she gives me is heavy with suspicion, but eventually she nods too. “Fine, but if you try to blow me off, I will make
you be my servant for two weeks before I forgive you.”
I feel like she’s only half kidding as I circle around the side of the building.
Eryn once told me to knock on the back door of the café anytime the line out front was too long and she’d slip me whatever I wanted herself.
I know this isn’t what she meant, not at all, but I’ve been delaying this long enough.
A wooden door, faded to a weathered blue, stands before me, its surface rough beneath my fingertips.
I lift my hand and rap my knuckles gently against the wood.
She deserves my apology, even if I don’t deserve her forgiveness.
A few moments later, Eryn pushes the door open. She’s smiling at first, her eyes bright and warm, but that all dims as soon
as she sees me.
She has a light dusting of flour on her cheek, the fine powder catching the sun, and a streak of frosting smudging her apron.
She’s clearly been here since long before I even stirred awake, pouring her energy into her recipes, probably trying not to
think about Wren, or me, or the mess we left in our wake.
And now I’ve brought it all back to her doorstep—literally.
“Please don’t shut the door,” I say quickly, though I know that Eryn isn’t the type to slam doors, no matter how much she
might want to.
She exhales, a deep, measured breath, and calls inside to someone, her voice steady as she instructs them to start laminating
the next batch of dough, whatever that means. The sounds of the bustling kitchen fade as she steps out into the warm morning
air with me and swings the door shut behind her with a soft click. “I have to be quick.”
I nod, her distant tone squeezing my throat tight, threatening to crush the words I’ve rehearsed over and over. I remind myself
that I can’t fall apart now, not like I did in the shower. Breaking down in front of her would be gross and unfair, forcing
her into the role of comforter when she’s the one who’s been hurt.
I start talking before I feel ready, the words tumbling out raw and unfiltered.
Nothing planned, nothing careful or articulate.
“I’m not looking for forgiveness, but I need you to know how sorry I am.
You were the last person I ever wanted to hurt, and I only wish I could go back and be half the friend to you that you were to me. ”
Eryn dips her head forward and her hair slips free, partially concealing her face. It’s a small motion that feels like a barrier
she’s trying to put between us. “Why did you do it?” she asks, her voice steady but strained.
I blink rapidly at her, not expecting a direct question at all. Especially when I don’t have an answer. “I don’t know. I only
know I shouldn’t have.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I was,” I say, a hint of pleading breaking through before I can push it back.
“But that changed.”
Because a friend wouldn’t do what I did.
“When?”
“Eryn.” I give her another desperate look. I’ll tell her whatever she wants to know, but this seems cruel, to both of us.
She doesn’t look away even as I squirm. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know. At first it was like I was just wearing Wren down. He put up with me because he didn’t have a choice, and I
put up with him because I needed his help. He hadn’t told me the whole story about his mom yet, so I didn’t understand why
me being a tourist was so intolerable to him, but—”
“He told you about his mom?”
I hesitate, then nod, feeling as though I’ve somehow just admitted to something worse than a near kiss.
“But I decided that I could prove him wrong, if not about all tourists, at least about me. Whenever there was a moment I could tell he was thawing toward me, it felt like a win. Honestly, I thought that was all I wanted, just for him not to hate me. It wasn’t until we started working on his new tour script and making real progress with our research that I started to wonder if it might be more than that. ”
“You were helping him with Tate’s speech?”
“No, his new speech, you know, because he didn’t want to give up the one part of working at the museum he likes . . .” Based
on the look on her face she obviously didn’t know about this. My voice falters. “. . . so I’ve been helping him write and
rehearse a new one for himself to pitch to his dad.”
She goes so still that, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this revelation hurt her more than everything else combined.
“Since when?”
I glance past her to the closed door, wondering how much time we have left before she’s called back inside. This is not what
I thought we’d be talking about. I just wanted to apologize and then, I don’t know, but not this. “My first week here, but
none of that matters, does it?”
Her hands slide up to grip her elbows, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. “It matters because that afternoon in
the back room may have been the first time you meant for something to happen, but you and I know it wasn’t the first time
you both wanted it to.” Her fingers squeeze into her skin. “And I want to know when that started.”
She’s right, and that’s what makes shame splash like bile through my insides.
“On the Fourth of July, when we fell asleep in his truck. That was the first time I let myself think about acting on those feelings. We never—we just talked. Nobody has ever understood how important this project was to me, but Wren did. It started to mean something to him too, and then it became easier to talk about other things that we cared about too. That’s how he told me about his mom.
And I talked about my dad.” I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see her when I admit this next part.
“And I started to not care as much about the past when we were together.”
I chance a look at her. She’s standing in exactly the same position, arms folded around herself, head held high, eyes dry,
but there’s something fragile about her now, like she’s holding herself together with the barest of threads.
“I don’t understand how it could’ve changed so quickly. How do you go from arguing to—to—” Her words choke off. “We were never
like that. He’s always been sweet to me. I don’t think we’ve ever been in a real fight.” Her features go blank, and then,
almost to herself, she adds, “And the worst part is that deep down I knew.”
My brows pinch together. “Knew?”
“There were all these little signs and moments where I’d catch him staring at you or you at him. I started to feel like the
intruder.”
My chin quivers before I can stop it. “No, I’m the one who shouldn’t have been there.”
She looks back at me again. “But you were. Every time I turned around you two were huddled together. I thought it was just
glances. Elliot and I have had glances.” She stops abruptly then starts up again a moment later. “You’ve been so nice, and
Wren would never hurt me.” Her voice is barely a whisper, but I hear it crack.
“Nothing ever actually happened between us,” I say, but I can’t argue when she responds.
“Everything happened.”
The back door of the café opens, and a guy’s head pops out, his smile coming easily at the sight of her. “Eryn, the buns are
done proofing.”
“Okay, thanks, Elliot. I’ll be right in.” She waits until the door shuts before turning to me again, and I can tell she’s
fighting to hold back her emotions. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“You don’t have to do anything. I hate that I hurt you this way and that I messed things up with you and Wren.”
“You didn’t do it alone.”
“I know that, but—”
“Lili. I don’t think I want to keep talking right now. I don’t hate you.” She pauses. “I don’t even hate Wren. I just have
a lot I still need to think about. When I’m ready to think about more”—she makes a vague gesture between the two of us—“I’ll
let you know.”
And then she’s gone.