Chapter 17
S AM STIRRED AWAKE slowly, rolling over and drawing her knees up to her chest. The other side of the bed was empty, the sheets unrumpled, cool to the touch.
Not a bad dream, then. A part of her had hoped it had been.
That she’d have woken up and everything would’ve been all right.
But it wasn’t. Last night had really happened.
Hannah had ended things. Hannah didn’t want to be with her anymore, and Sam was okay with that.
She frowned.
She was okay with that?
She held her breath, waiting for the grief to wash over her, for the denial she’d felt last night to kick in, to feel the all-consuming need to do anything and everything in her power to win Hannah back.
It didn’t come.
Maybe sleep had given her perspective. Maybe it had kick-started the grieving process. She could come up with no other rational— semi -rational—explanation for why she was so … at peace with this.
What Sam needed to figure out now was what a life without Hannah in it looked like.
Melissa would let Sam crash on her couch, of that she was sure, but she couldn’t do that for longer than a week, two max, not with Nacho and Pumpkin.
She still needed to pick them up from the vet.
And swing by a liquor store to see if they had any spare boxes, because she might not have a lot, but she definitely owned more than would fit in the single suitcase she’d moved to the city with.
She’d have to call a moving company and start looking at apartments and—shit. Sam hated to have to do it, but she was going to have to call out. There simply weren’t enough hours in a day for her to get everything done she needed to and go to work.
“Samantha,” Coco answered on the third ring. “It’s early.”
“Sorry.” Sam rubbed her forehead. “But I needed to catch you early because this is time sensitive. I know it’s short notice, and I really hate to ask, but I’m going to need the next few days off.”
“Are you sick?”
Did heartsick count? Doubtful. It wasn’t like it was catching, which was probably what Coco cared about. “I’m having a bit of a personal emergency. It was, uh … unforeseen.”
“Did someone die?”
Would Coco even care if someone had? “No. No one died.”
“Then, no.”
Sam pinched the bridge of her nose. Loath as she was to talk about it, Coco was going to find out eventually. Everyone would. God love Mel and Javier and the rest of the kitchen brigade, but they were awful gossips. News of her breakup would spread like a grease fire. “Hannah broke up with me.”
It was nothing but crickets from Coco.
“All I need is a few days to pack and find an apartment. Like I said, I know it’s short notice, and, trust me, I feel awful about it, but I’m confident Michel and Javier can hold down the fort while I’m gone.”
“You can’t use paid sick days if you aren’t sick. Sorry.”
Oh yeah, she sounded really bent up about it. “Fine. I guess I’ll just cash in a few vacation days, then.”
Coco clucked her tongue. “You have to give two weeks’ notice before you can schedule PTO.” There was a muffled noise in the background. “It’s policy.”
Screw the policy. “Coco, I’ve never asked you for anything. I just need … three days, okay? Three. Please.”
“C’est très tragique, Samantha, but my hands are tied.”
Her jaw clicked. “Fine.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
“I do.” Sam understood perfectly. “I quit.”
“What?” Coco laughed stiltedly. “Be serious. You can’t quit .”
Funny, seeing as she just did. “You know, Coco, I’ve busted my ass at Glut for the last three years.
I’ve let you condescend to me and treat me like a punching bag and take credit for my hard work.
I smiled and took it all on the chin, didn’t make waves even though I’d have been well within my rights to have done so, because I hoped one day you’d grow up and get over yourself and stop being petty and start acting like the professional you’re supposed to be. ”
“How dare you—”
“No, how dare you ? I don’t know if your head is buried too far up your ass to see it, or if you won’t admit it because you feel, I don’t know, threatened by me, but I am a damn good chef.
And if you had any sense at all, I would have been a shoo-in for head pastry chef.
But it doesn’t matter now. I am done being your butt monkey. I’ll have Melissa clear out my locker.”
“Sam—”
She ended the call with a shaking hand.
She had work to do.
“ Nacho , let go. That is bubble wrap, silly. You’re going to—” The bubble wrap popped, and Nacho jumped, tail puffing. Sam stifled a laugh. “I tried to warn you, but did you listen? Of course not.”
Back arched and the fur all over his body standing on end, Nacho hissed at the bubble wrap like it had mortally offended him before darting out of the room like his little keister was on fire.
Sam shook her head and looked at Pumpkin, who had his sharp teeth sunk into the corrugated cardboard flap of a box that still needed taping. “Your brother’s a scaredy-cat, isn’t he?”
Pumpkin didn’t answer, of course not, but he did stop chewing on the box. His ears twitched like he heard something, and Sam followed his gaze to the front door just in time to watch as it opened.
Hannah slipped inside and shut the door, footsteps faltering when she spotted Sam sitting on the floor. “Hi.”
Her hand shook as she set the tape gun down and stood. “I thought you said you were going out of town.”
“I was, but I … I don’t know. I wanted to check on you, I guess.” Her eyes darted from the bubble wrap strewn across the rug to the small stack of boxes Sam had already finished packing. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“I quit, actually.”
Hannah pursed her lips and Sam frowned.
She’d expected a bigger reaction than that. For Hannah to at least want to know why now.
“Look, Sam,” she said. “I have something I need to tell you, and I should’ve said it sooner, I definitely should’ve told you last night, but Coco and I—”
Sam held up a hand, feeling the strangest sense of déjà vu. Like she knew what Hannah was going to say before she said it. She didn’t need to hear it. “I don’t want to know.”
Hannah’s brow furrowed. “You don’t seem surprised.”
Surprised should’ve been the least of what Sam felt, and yet everything she did feel was … muted? Like pressing on a bruise instead of feeling a fresh hurt.
“What are you really doing here, Han?” Because she doubted it was to talk about her illicit affair with Sam’s boss. Ex -boss.
“I was with Coco when you called.” Hannah had the decency to look abashed.
“I tried to get her to agree to give you the time off. I figured it was, I don’t know, the least either of us owed you, considering …
well. But she was being petty, Sam, and trust me, I told her exactly what I thought about it. ”
What did Hannah want her to say to that? Cool? Thanks for trying? “ Petty is pretty much par for the course with Coco.”
Hannah winced. “Coco is … she’s complicated, Sam.”
“Coco’s not my problem anymore.”
“Right. That’s … good for you, honestly.” Hannah nibbled on her bottom lip. “What do you think you’re going to do? I mean”—she waved at the boxes and packing paper—“what’s next?”
Sam blew out a breath and shrugged. “Melissa’s going to let me crash at her place until I figure things out.
” No one was going to approve her for a new apartment while she was unemployed without money coming in.
“I think I saw that bakery on Seventy-Fourth—you know, the one that always has those cute window displays? I saw that they were hiring.”
Hannah frowned. “That place is a cupcakery. A cupcakery café . You can’t go from working in a Michelin-starred restaurant to a café.
For God’s sake, you’re a formally trained pastry chef.
You’re too good to be slinging coffee.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes for a count of five, then dropped them, shaking her head.
“This is exactly what I was talking about. This could be your moment. You could be looking for a job as an executive pastry chef somewhere or—or trying to build a following online or applying for Top Chef , but no. You could be the next Candace Nelson, Sam, and own a whole chain of cupcakeries. You could be great, but instead you’re still going to be punching a time card in five years because you’re back to thinking small. ”
Normally, when Hannah got on a tear like this and told Sam she was thinking small, Sam would feel small. Small and ashamed and guilty, like she was letting Hannah down by not dreaming big enough.
She waited for the shame to hit, but for whatever reason, it didn’t.
“You don’t really know me at all, do you?”
Hannah gave her an incredulous stare.
“I don’t want to be the next Candace Nelson.” Sam didn’t want to be the next anybody. She wanted to be the first Samantha Cooper and, quite frankly, it didn’t matter if no one knew her name. She was okay with that. “That’s not my dream. It never was.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying you actually have to be the next Candace Nelson, Sam. It was an example. I’m saying you could be if you tried.”
If she tried ? “Hannah, all I did was try with you.” To want what she wanted.
To be the person Hannah wanted her to be.
She’d tried so hard for so long that somewhere along the way, so gradually she hadn’t realized it was happening while she was in the thick of it, Sam had lost sight of who she was, what she wanted, why she’d moved to New York.
All she had been able to see instead was everything Hannah wanted her to be that she wasn’t.
All the places she didn’t measure up. “I think what it really comes down to is that no matter how hard I tried, it was never going to be enough, was it? I was never going to be enough.”
Hannah took a step toward her, her face falling when Sam took one back. “Sam—”
“You always told me I could do anything, be anything, and I thought, Wow, she must really believe in me. ” Sam blinked back the sudden sting of tears.
“But that’s not what you were saying, was it?
When you were telling me I could be anything, really, you wanted me to be a completely different person.
” A little poke here, a prod there; Hannah had been trying to mold Sam into something she wasn’t, something she would never be. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
Hannah’s silence spoke volumes.
It hurt less than Sam had thought it would, having her suspicions confirmed. At least now she wouldn’t wonder for the rest of her life if it would have mattered had she done something differently. “Thank you.”
Hannah looked up at her, eyes wide. “For what?”
“For seeing the writing on the wall before I did. I mean, you could’ve had the decency to call it quits before you started sleeping with my boss, because full offense, Han? I don’t really care how unhappy you were with me, that was a shitty thing to do.”
Hannah cringed. “For whatever it’s worth, I didn’t mean to hurt you.
I swear I didn’t. I came by the restaurant one night and you had already left.
Almost everyone had, but Coco was still there, and I was going to leave but she offered me a drink.
We got to talking and I had too much wine and the next thing I knew, she was leaning in and kissing me and—I’m not proud of what I did.
I’m not. But Coco and I, we both know what it’s like to be ashamed of who we used to be.
She understood me in a way that no one else ever has.
We understood each other. Neither of us grew up like this, Sam, and we’d both do anything to make sure we don’t have to be those people again. ”
“And you think, what? That I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth? In Grosse Tête ?” Don’t make her laugh.
“The difference is, I’m not ashamed of the person I used to be.
” Sam didn’t want to forget about the girl from Grosse Tête who dreamed of moving somewhere she could be her whole self.
Sam still carried that girl inside herself and she owed it to them both to stop trying to live up to someone else’s ideals and start living up to her own.
“For whatever it’s worth to you, I liked the girl you used to be. The one I met.”
Hannah ducked her head and swept a finger under her eye, catching a tear before it could fall. A pang of sympathy echoed inside Sam’s chest, but absent was the burning need to make Hannah feel better.
“I should probably go,” Hannah said, and Sam nodded.
“That would probably be best,” she agreed.
Hannah turned, picking her way carefully past bubble wrap and packing paper.
“Hey, Hannah?”
She paused and looked at Sam over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“I hope you’re happy,” she said, meaning it. “Whatever happy looks like for you.”
Hannah smiled wanly. “You, too, Sam.”