Chapter 16 Pickling in Sweatpants & Ice Cream #2
“It doesn’t matter,” I said instead. “But what does matter is that I needed parents who were there for me through the ups and downs. Not just when I did something impressive enough to brag about to your friends.”
The silence stretched between us.
“You’re right,” she said finally, surprising me again. “Your father and I... we haven’t been the parents you deserved. I’m sorry.”
An apology. From my mother. If I hadn’t been so numb already, I might have fallen off the couch in shock.
“Thank you,” I said simply, not sure what else to add.
“Would you... would you like to talk about what’s wrong? I could come visit, or—”
“No.” Some bridges couldn’t be rebuilt in a day. “But thank you for asking.”
“Alright.” She sounded uncertain. “Will you at least let me know if you need anything?”
“I will,” I promised, though we both knew I probably wouldn’t.
“Okay. Goodbye.”
I mumbled goodbye and hung up, staring at the phone in my hand as if it had suddenly transformed into a singing fish.
“Did your mother just... apologize?” Anica asked, having witnessed the entire exchange with wide eyes.
“I think she did.” I set the phone down, feeling oddly deflated. “Add it to the list of surreal things that have happened this month. Right below ‘Hudson Gable is actually Satan in a sexy suit.’”
“That’s... progress, right?”
“Maybe.” I sighed, running a hand through my hair, wincing when my fingers caught in the tangles. “Or maybe it’s just one more thing that doesn’t feel the way I thought it would.”
Anica studied me for a moment, then stood decisively. “Okay, that’s it. Shower time.”
“I’m not in the mood for—”
“Didn’t ask. You smell like sadness and old ice cream. You’re getting in that shower if I have to drag you there myself.”
I knew that tone. It was Anica’s non-negotiable voice, the one that had gotten us through business crises, impossible clients, and that disaster with the python at a high-profile wedding. She’d chosen the name Knot Your Average Wedding for a reason…
“Fine,” I conceded, pushing myself off the couch. “But I’m not putting on real clothes afterward.”
“Baby steps.” She steered me toward the bathroom. “Clean sweats are an acceptable compromise.”
I stood under the shower spray, watching as two weeks of emotional shutdown swirled down the drain in a sea of expensive shampoo suds.
The hot water didn’t magically fix anything, but as I scrubbed away the physical evidence of my depression, something shifted.
Not healing exactly, but maybe the recognition that healing was theoretically possible.
Someday. Maybe. If the universe stopped using me as its personal punching bag.
Hell, if my mother could apologize for twenty-nine years of trauma, I supposed anything was possible.
The moment two nights ago replayed in my mind. The moment I’d decided to purge every trace of my app from existence. It hadn’t been planned. I might’ve been a tad bit drunk, but I certainly didn’t regret it.
Yet.
I had been staring at my laptop, wallowing in self-pity and cheap wine, when a random thought had struck me. Hudson was probably working on the app at that same moment.
The image of him hunched over a desk, using my ideas, my designs, my dream to further his career had been too much. I’d opened my laptop and navigated to my app development folder. Multiple years of work, of research, of hope, all contained in neat sub-folders.
“Delete,” I’d whispered, selecting the entire thing. The confirmation dialog had appeared: Are you sure you want to permanently delete these items?
I’d clicked “Yes” without hesitation, watching as the progress bar filled, erasing my digital dream one pixel at a time.
Then I’d moved to my physical notebooks, ripping out pages of sketches and notes, carrying them to the bathroom where I’d lit them on fire in the sink, watching the flames consume my future until only ashes remained.
I definitely would not get my security deposit back with the scorch marks they’d left, but I didn’t care.
It had felt cathartic in the moment. Powerful, even. A way of saying If I can’t have it, neither can you in the most dramatic fashion possible.
Now, standing under the shower spray, I just felt empty. And stupid. And maybe a little bit like a pyromaniac.
I shut off the water and wrapped myself in a towel, wiping steam from the mirror to stare at my reflection. My eyes looked hollow, my skin pale from two weeks of rarely leaving my apartment. I barely recognized myself.
“Who are you?” I whispered to my reflection. “And what have you done with me?”
When I emerged from the bathroom, Anica had changed my sheets and laid out fresh clothes; not sweats, but soft leggings and an oversized sweater. Close enough.
“Better?” she asked as I dressed.
“Cleaner,” I corrected. “Better is a strong word.”
“I’ll take it.” She gestured to the living room. “Callan’s here. He brought lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Again, didn’t ask.”
“I hate you.”
“Uh huh. Come on.”
Reluctantly, I followed her to the living room, where Callan was setting up containers of takeout on the coffee table. He looked up when I entered.
“Hey, Landry,” he said, offering a gentle smile. “Nice to see you vertical.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I sank onto the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. “I’m only here because your wife forced me.”
“She does that.” He handed me a container. “Pad Thai. Extra spicy, light on the bean sprouts, extra lime on the side. Just how you like it.”
The familiar smell of my favorite comfort food triggered a surprising pang of hunger. I took the container, murmuring a quiet “thanks.”
“So,” Callan began, settling into the armchair across from me. “Ani filled me in on the app situation.”
I shot Anica a betrayed look.
“Don’t give me that face,” she said, dropping beside me on the couch. “He specializes in tech. We need his big brain.”
“What we need,” I corrected, stabbing at my noodles, “is to drop it. It’s over. Done. Let Hudson have his stolen glory.”
“Or,” Callan countered, “we could fight back. I’ve been looking into this from a tech perspective, and you might have more of a case than you think.”
“I deleted everything, or didn’t your traitor wife tell you? All the proof is gone.”
Callan actually laughed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually delete something permanently? Files don’t just disappear. They leave traces, backups, footprints.”
“Cal’s right,” Anica added. “And don’t tell me you didn’t save anything to the Knot Your Average Wedding server.”
“I might’ve, but I can delete it there too,” I muttered. Despite my dramatic declaration about deleting everything, I hadn’t been thorough. Couldn’t be thorough.
“Plus,” Callan continued, “I might have set up an automatic cloud backup of your work files six months ago when I updated the security systems for Knot Your Average Wedding servers.”
I stared at him. “You what?”
He shrugged. “I always err on the safe side with technology. I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs lose everything to crashed hard drives. Honestly, I’ve lost too much because of random crashes.”
“So my dramatic delete-and-burn session was...”
“Therapeutic but ultimately ineffective,” he finished with a small smile. “I can recover pretty much everything whenever you’re ready.”
The knowledge that my work wasn’t actually gone should have been a relief. Instead, it just underscored how pointless my outburst had been.
“I don’t want it back. It’s not just about the work or the evidence. It’s... it’s about me. I don’t know if I have it in me anymore.”
“Have what?” Callan asked.
“The fight. The passion. The belief that any of it matters.” I shrugged, the gesture as empty as I felt. “What if I go through all of this, and we win, and I still feel... nothing?”
Anica and Callan exchanged a look, one of those married-people telepathic communications. Damn, I hated them.
“Then we’ll deal with that when it happens,” Anica said finally. “But right now, we’re just asking you to keep the door open. Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.”
“Is it temporary, though?” I looked between them, suddenly desperate for reassurance. “What if this is just... me now? What if I never get back what I lost?”
“Then you’ll build something new,” Callan said simply. “But you won’t know until you try.”
“God, that’s cliché,” I groaned, setting aside the takeout container and melting into the couch. “I can’t. I’m just... tired.”
“That’s fair.” Anica squeezed my hand. “Just promise me one thing?”
“What?”
“Don’t burn anything else in the bathroom sink. Your security deposit is probably hanging by a thread after the confetti cannon incident.”
“No promises. Pyromania is my new hobby.”
“That’s the Mari I know,” Callan said with a grin. “Threatening arson even at her lowest.”
“Aim high; that’s my motto.”
Later that night, after Anica and Callan had gone, I sat alone in my apartment once more. The shower and the brief social interaction had drained what little energy I’d gathered, leaving me hollow again.
I curled up on the couch, flipping mindlessly through streaming services until I landed on a familiar rom-com; one of those predictable ones where you know from the first scene that the leads will end up together, no matter what obstacles arise.
As the characters met cute and proceeded through their perfectly choreographed dance of attraction and conflict, the damn tears started. Not the violent sobs of the first few days after Chicago, but a quiet, steady stream that seemed bottomless.
This was what I’d lost. Not just Hudson, not just the app, but the belief. The belief in possibility, in happy endings, in the idea that love could be real and lasting and transformative.
I’d built my career on creating perfect days for other people, on crafting moments that felt like movie magic. And somehow, I’d let myself believe I could have that too.
What a cosmic joke.
My phone buzzed with a text from Anica.
Thinking of you. Love you. This isn’t forever, I promise.
I stared at the message, wanting desperately to believe her. To believe that this emptiness wasn’t my new permanent state. That somewhere inside this hollow shell, the real Mari—vibrant, passionate, unstoppable Mari—was still alive, just waiting to resurface.
I didn’t respond to the text. Instead, I opened my laptop.
The password prompt appeared, and I hesitated. Opening this door meant acknowledging that life continued, that work existed, that I was still a person with responsibilities and dreams, even if those dreams had been stolen.
I typed my password and watched as my desktop appeared. My email icon showed 748 unread messages. My calendar was filled with appointments I’d missed.
I didn’t check my email. I didn’t open my calendar. Instead, I clicked on the browser icon and, before I could talk myself out of it, typed “Hudson Gable Modern Wedding” into the search bar.
The results loaded instantly. Articles, press releases, social media posts—all celebrating Hudson’s “innovative approach” to wedding planning and his “revolutionary new digital platform.”
I clicked on the first link, a Modern Wedding press release.
There he was, looking unfairly handsome in a professionally shot photo, smiling that smile that had me writing my hotel room number that first night.
That same smile that had tricked me into believing that maybe all of those romantic clichés I peddled to clients could happen for me.
And I hated that I didn’t hate that smile.
“Hudson Gable brings a fresh perspective to Modern Wedding as our new Creative Director,” the press release quoted Eleanor Trolio.
“His digital wedding planning platform will revolutionize the industry, making luxury planning accessible to a wider audience while maintaining the high standards our readers expect.”
It said he was set to do a press release in two weeks. Lucky him.
I should have felt rage. I should have felt renewed determination to fight. Instead, a strange calm settled over me as I stared at Hudson’s face on my screen.
“You win,” I whispered to his image.