Chapter 48
Jess
I’m wiping down table seven for the third time this hour because apparently when you have nothing better to do with your hands you just keep cleaning the same sticky surface over and over until someone orders something or you have a complete mental breakdown.
Day four of my exciting new career as a diner waitress.
“Order up!” Danny calls from the kitchen. He’s the cook. And the own owner.
I grab the plates. Two eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast. Table three. The regular who comes in every morning and orders the exact same thing and leaves a fifteen percent tip calculated to the penny.
Consistency. Must be nice.
“Here you go.” I set down the plates with what I hope passes for a smile.
The customer grunts. I take that as a thank you and retreat to the counter where my phone is charging next to the register.
Three texts from Amara. You okay? Checking in. Please tell me you’re not spiraling.
I am absolutely spiraling but I’m not going to admit that via text message so I send back a thumbs up emoji and pocket the phone.
The thing about working at a diner is that it gives you way too much time to think. Between orders. Between customers. Between wiping down table seven for the fourth time now because somehow it got sticky again in the thirty seconds since I last cleaned it.
And when I think, I think about Marco.
And Ben.
God, I miss that kid.
My chest tightens and that familiar guilt creeps back in.
I left her. Just walked away. Packed my bag and quit and didn’t even check on her before I left because I was so angry and hurt and betrayed that I couldn’t see past my own feelings long enough to consider what she was going through.
No mother. Her father hiding in his room like some kind of scarred hermit.
And now... no Jess.
I sit there staring at the table until Danny calls my name and I have to get back to pretending my life is fine.
That night I’m back in my tiny studio apartment editing footage I shot a week ago. Before everything went to hell. Before I learned the truth. Before I quit.
I’d started a new Brave Kitchen pilot. Not because Dr. Hale suggested it in therapy. Not because anyone asked. Just me and my DIY approach to processing trauma through cooking tutorials for anxious kids.
It’s just sitting there on my phone, a time capsule of a version of myself I’m not sure exists anymore.
I haven’t told anyone about it. Not Marco, who wouldn’t have cared anyway from inside his self-imposed exile. Not Amara. Not even Ethan.
I click play.
I’m in that tiny room on the same floor as Ben, explaining how to make simple pasta shapes with kids who have anxiety. How to turn cooking into a grounding exercise. How to make food less scary and more fun.
My voice sounds different. Lighter. Like I actually believed in what I was doing.
Or maybe I was just trying to assume my old influencer persona, you know, the aggressively cheerful one I used to hide behind when my life was falling apart offscreen.
I pause the video.
Rewind.
Watch again.
On-screen me is smiling while demonstrating how to use conchiglie pasta shells as both a shape-matching game and a calm-down activity. The kind of thing I used to do with Ben.
God, I miss her.
Every frame reminds me of Marco’s and his daughter.
I can’t watch this.
I close the laptop.
Stare at the wall.
I think about Marco sitting in his room refusing to let anyone see his face. About Ben going to school without me there to help her count breaths.
About Ethan’s bloody knuckles and the words it’s not my blood echoing in my head.
I should have checked on Marco.
Should have at least texted to make sure he wasn’t dying after whatever happened between him and Ethan.
But I didn’t.
Because some part of me thought he would reach out first. Would call or text or show up at my door to apologize or explain or something.
He hasn’t.
Which means either he’s too broken to reach out or he doesn’t want to reach out or he’s literally still bleeding somewhere in that townhouse.
My therapist would say I’m catastrophizing. That I’m making assumptions without evidence. That I need to focus on my own healing instead of trying to fix someone else’s trauma.
She’s not wrong.
But sitting here in this apartment that smells like stale air conditioning and other people’s cooking, I can’t shake the feeling that I made the wrong choice.
That walking away was easier than staying.
Because facing the actual mess was too hard.
Former nanny discovers she’s really good at running away from things. More at eleven.
I open the file on my phone again.
My finger hovers on the delete button...
Instead I archive it. Set it aside for some hypothetical future where I have the emotional bandwidth to care about content creation again.
For now I need to focus on showing up to the diner. Pouring coffee. Wiping down table seven.
Living a life that doesn’t require metrics or algorithms or dealing with self-hating billionaires.
Even if it feels like I’m just going through the motions.