Chapter 3
Oh, I’ve heard, all right. I’ve heard it at the grocery store from two aisles over while pretending to read cereal labels.
I’ve seen the Instagram post of the ring glinting with a reminder of what could have been.
And of course, I’ve heard it in the teacher’s lounge—because why suffer alone when you can suffer in a shared space with stale donuts?
The news has been following me all week like an overly enthusiastic puppy—except instead of adorable, it’s just painful.
Even Mrs. Jenkins, who runs the pharmacy and can’t remember which day to take her own medication, managed to corner me by the cold remedies to express how “sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, dear.”
Mysterious ways. Right. Like orchestrating my ex-boyfriend’s engagement to my former best friend. Real divine comedy there.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I say with a snappy voice as I lean forward and refocus on the song in front of me, which now reads about as cheerful as an obituary. The lyrics about puffy white clouds have somehow morphed into morose metaphors about thunderstorms and rain.
Mom stands at the kitchen sink, washing dishes my siblings left behind. “He’s a good boy. Always greets me in church. Such a shame it didn’t work out between you two.”
I feel my face rage with fire. The fact that Andy still greets my mother every Sunday while sitting three pews behind her with Lindsey makes my skin crawl. The audacity of small-town living.
I grip my pen so tight, it might just split in half. My knuckles turn white, and I swear I can hear the plastic cracking under the pressure. “Can we just eat breakfast without dredging up the ghosts of boyfriends past?”
The words come out harsher than intended, but the burn of betrayal has that effect on me every time the wound reignites.
Mom doesn’t reply, just keeps scrubbing dishes as I stare at my half-finished plate and pick at the pancakes. My appetite threatens to abandon ship entirely.
In Maplewood Springs, gossip spreads faster than a fire during a drought.
Everything you say becomes public domain.
And Mom, bless her heart, unknowingly contributes by attending a Sunday book club that hasn’t read a full novel since The Help came out.
Instead, the ladies gossip about the town’s latest rumors, and I have zero intention of being the next chapter in their verbal fanfiction.
After all, I’ve never said a word about why Andy and I broke up, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Over the past year, the town’s rumor mill has already suggested everything from irreconcilable differences over paint colors to my supposed inability to commit.
If they knew the truth, I’d never escape the pitying looks and whispered conversations that would follow me down every aisle at the Piggly Wiggly.
“What are you working on?” Mom asks, drying her hands on a paper towel.
The sudden change of topic gives me whiplash, but I’ll take it. Anything to escape the Andy-and-Lindsey show.
“A song for the kids,” I say, scribbling lines about rain clouds with silver linings that feels a bit too on-the-nose even for first graders.
“Are they behaving?”
“They’re first graders, Mom. Mischief is literally in their DNA.”
Twenty-three tiny humans with sticky fingers and boundless energy—it’s exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. But at least their drama is refreshingly straightforward. No hidden agendas, just honest chaos.
She chuckles and takes a sip of juice. “I always thought you and Andy would end up together. Both of you being teachers and all.”
My fork hits the plate with a clatter. “Mom!” She doesn’t know that he changed schools after he cheated on me, and I’m not about to tell her.
“I’m just saying.” She tilts her head, looking at me intently.
Her expression is a blend of concern and meddling that only mother’s frown can achieve.
“This town is running out of eligible bachelors. And you’re not getting any younger.
If you don’t put yourself out there again, you’ll end up lonely and miserable. ”
Right. Because nothing soothes the soul quite like a maternal doomsday forecast.
Lonely and miserable still sounds better than betrayed and blindsided. That day with Andy is forever seared into my memory—hot, raw, and painful.
It had been a regular Tuesday. I’d been chaperoning a field trip to the Maplewood Springs Historical Museum with a bus full of loud chatter and sugar-high first graders when I started feeling unwell.
My head pounded, my throat burned, and all I wanted was home, cough syrup, and sleep.
I came home early, expecting Dayquil and silence.
Instead, I walked in on Andy and Lindsey—my best friend since kindergarten—spread out on my bedsheets.
I remember it like it was yesterday, the sound of their laughter floating down the hallway, the creak of the bedroom door as I pushed it open, the way Andy’s face had drained of color and Lindsey had clutched the sheet to her chest.
I hadn’t asked for an explanation. I didn’t need one. I packed my suitcase and drove straight back to Mom’s.
“Can I just eat my pancakes in peace?” I say, stabbing at them with little enthusiasm. The once-appetizing food now looks like rubber, and each bite requires monumental effort to swallow.
Any more talk of my love life, and I’ll lose my appetite completely.
Mom raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press further. She takes another sip of juice, her wedding ring clinking against the glass. Twenty-five years of marriage has given her the patience of a saint—and the misguided belief that everyone should experience the same.
I manage a few more bites, swallowing past what feels like a rock stuck in my throat, trying to act like the emotional grenade she’d just lobbed at me hasn’t gone off.
But of course, it had.
“What happened between you two, anyway?” she asks quietly, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin like we’re having a casual meal and not standing on the ruins of my love life.
I drop my fork and push my chair back. The scrape against the hardwood floor is jarringly loud in the quiet kitchen. This conversation has overstayed its welcome. “I have to get ready for work.”
She lets out a soft sigh as I turn and walk out of the kitchen. Better not look back. If I do, I might cry. Or snap. Or both, which I had done during Thanksgiving last year and felt extremely guilty about it for weeks
All dressed and half-prepared for another day of lessons, I step outside and let the spring sunlight warm my skin.
The morning air sweeping in from the mountains smells of trees and grass and crystal clear water—a scent that always puts me at ease.
I breathe in deeply before I spot a U-Haul truck next door.
Someone must be finally moving into the Parker house.
The place had been empty ever since Mr. and Mrs. Parker packed up and left for Florida to spoil their new grandbaby shortly after I moved back here.
I pause, keys dangling from my fingers, and study the two-story colonial with faded blue shutters.
I’d gotten used to the quiet next door, to the comforting nothingness of an empty driveway and a front porch overtaken by spiderwebs that would make Charlotte proud.
But I do miss them. Mrs. Parker always brought pie for the holidays—her cinnamon apple crumble was worth every calorie—and Mr. Parker invited us over for summer barbecues where he’d flip burgers in his “Kiss the Cook” apron and tell the same three dad jokes that we always laughed at.
A burly man in a U-Haul uniform wrestles with what appears to be the world’s heaviest coffee table, his face turning the approximate shade of a tomato. At the entrance, another mover carefully ascends the porch steps with a lamp that probably costs more than my monthly car payment.
Hopefully the new neighbor won’t be noisy. Between grading quizzes and trying to come up with witty rhymes, I need my solitude like most people need caffeine. My songwriting process requires the same level of quiet as brain surgery.
“Wait!”
Mom’s shout nearly sends me jumping out of my sensible flats.
She jogs out behind me, her fuzzy pink slippers slapping against the concrete driveway, bathrobe fluttering behind her like a floral-printed superhero cape.
She’s waving a napkin-wrapped triangle of toast like it was a peace offering after our tense breakfast conversation.
“At least finish your breakfast,” she says, slightly breathless. The toast is butter-side-down in the napkin, a smear of homemade strawberry jam peeking out from one corner.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” I say, opening the car door. The space in my stomach where my appetite used to be is now filled with that nauseating feeling only the image of your ex sending out wedding invites can brew.
Her gaze locks onto the U-Haul, and I can practically hear the gears turning in her head.
A new neighbor means new gossip, new speculations to share at church coffee hour, new lives to dissect over chicken salad sandwiches.
Maplewood Springs runs on secrets and speculation, and this poor soul, whoever they are, has just landed smack in the center of the Sunday Book Club’s crosshairs.
“Did you know someone was moving in?” she asks, momentarily distracted from her mission to nourish me. There’s a gleam in her eye that I recognize all too well—the look of a woman who’s about to add a new chapter to her mental encyclopedia of neighborhood knowledge.
“Just noticed it myself,” I reply, dropping my tote bag onto the passenger seat. “I’m sure you’ll have a full biography by dinner.”
She puffs up like an indignant parakeet. “Maisie Jane Lang, I do not gossip. I gather information.”
“Uh-huh.” I raise an eyebrow. “Sherlock Holmes gathers information, Mom. He doesn’t bring casseroles to his suspects afterward.”
Mom’s lips twitch, fighting a smile. Then her expression softens, the neighborhood detective vanishing beneath layers of maternal concern. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”
My gaze meets hers, and I see the genuine worry there, buried beneath the misguided helpfulness. She means well, even when she drives me crazy.
“I’ll be okay, Mom. Promise.” I try to infuse the words with a confidence I don’t entirely feel. Because honestly? I’m not sure when I’ll be okay again. Maybe when the news of my ex’s engagement stops feeling like a sucker punch.
She nods, though I can tell she’s not entirely convinced.
I close the car door before she can press the toast on me again. “Gotta go, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you, too, honey,” she replies, waving as I back out of the driveway, her eyes drifting to the U-Haul again.
Halfway to school, my stomach growls so loudly it startles me. That’s what happens when you eat three bites of pancakes and storm off like a moody Jane Austen character. I should have taken the toast. Pride: 1, Stomach: 0.
The increasing hunger pangs feel like tiny angry gremlins staging a protest in my belly. I make a mental note to swing by Granny Jo’s Diner on my way to work for a coffee and bagel—maybe one of those cinnamon ones with extra cream cheese.
I turn on the radio to drown out the mental reruns of the breakfast debacle and to keep myself distracted from growing hunger. My beat-up Volkswagen Golf’s stereo crackles to life.
“This is the Morning Buzz! We are your hosts, Billy and Nelly, with all the latest celebrity gossip!”
Billy’s voice booms through my car with the artificial energy of someone who’s either on their fifth cup of coffee or secretly contemplating a career change.
Great, more gossip. At least mindless chatter is better than the voice in my head, and honestly, the absurdity of celebrity problems sometimes makes me feel a little better about my own.
While I’m dealing with an ex’s engagement, celebrities are dealing with accidentally wearing the same designer gown as their arch-nemesis to the Oscars. Perspective is everything.
Nelly’s voice—way too chipper for 7:42 a.m.—pipes through the speakers. “. . . and coming up after the break, we’ll be talking about the latest juicy scandal involving none other than our very own Logan Humphries!”
My mouth parts slightly. Logan is Maplewood Springs’ most infamous son. Even hearing his name makes me shudder a little.
A memory surfaces: third grade, art class.
He’d always been the terror of the elementary school playground—stealing snacks, smearing mud all over dresses, and once, in a truly sociopathic move, dumping an entire bottle of Elmer’s glue into my hair during art class.
I still remember that terrible pasty smell and the hours it took to get it all out.
I cried so hard my eyes puffed up like marshmallows, and Mom had to cut a chunk of hair from the back of my head where the glue had hardened into what could only be described as DIY cement.
To think that a kid like that would become a pop star—a troubled one, but still. His songs play everywhere. Even the kids in my class hum them during story time.
But I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I mean . . . Okay, fine—a few of his songs are catchy. They burrow into your brain and play on loop while you’re trying to pay attention during staff meetings or explain the concept of subtraction to a room full of six-year-olds.
Despite his notoriety, everyone treats him like a hometown legend, like he’s cured small-town boredom with good beats and a dash of controversy.
Last summer, the mayor even tried to establish a “Logan Humphries Day,” which thankfully got shot down when someone pointed out Logan had once toilet-papered City Hall as a kid.
My eyes narrow as I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. What scandal could possibly top his childhood shenanigans?
When the commercials finally end, I turn up the volume.