Chapter 23
BAILEY
I was sitting at one of the tables in my bakery when Eva stepped inside, her familiar smile already in place. The moment she saw me, it faltered. She slowed, reading the accusation in my unsmiling face.
“Oh dear,” she said softly. “You already know.”
“Sit down, Eva,” I replied. My voice was steady, too steady. “Let us talk about what has been happening. The past few days. Or maybe months.”
She exhaled and took the chair across from me, her shoulders heavy.
“My mind had been spiraling,” I said. “I felt like my world was staged, like everyone around me was acting. Lies ruined my life once before. I could not survive them again.”
She winced. “This time it was a good lie. I know you will say that makes no difference. But it came from good intentions.”
“I was tired,” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to keep it calm.
“People I trusted kept hiding things from me. I was pushed from every direction. I had just cut ties with my father. I exposed my child to her father, who was now fighting for custody. And now I found out that even coming back here was part of a plan.”
I swallowed hard. “You used to tell me returning was a good thing. That I could fix what was broken and finally find closure. Now it felt like opening a tin of worms. What was broken would never heal. It only cracked wider and bled.”
Eva’s face crumpled. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. Instinctively, I wanted to pull away. I did not need comfort from her, not now. After the lie, she was no longer in a position to be my friend.
No wonder she had kept urging me to think carefully before selling the bakery. She had been buying time, trying to anchor me here until I changed my mind. I would not have been surprised if she was the one who posted the job vacancy, the reason strangers suddenly walked in asking for work.
“I am so sorry, Bailey,” she said quietly. “I never meant to hurt you. I did not think about your feelings when I agreed to help Ashton. At the time, I believed it was what Marie wanted. As her friend, I would have done anything to fulfill her wishes.”
She hesitated. “I also know about the letter Marie left you.”
“Were you the one who put it in the drawer?” I asked.
“She wanted me to give it to you myself,” Eva admitted. “But in the end, I left it there so you could find it on your own.”
Another plan. Another choice made for me.
“She wrote that she would understand if you decided to let this place go,” Eva continued.
“I wrote the letter for her because she no longer had the strength. But those words were hers, Bailey. She meant them. She knew the time had come for her to let go. Whether this place stayed or disappeared, she would not be here to see it. What mattered to her were the people she left behind. You, me, her children. Everyone who left a footprint in her life.”
Her voice softened. “She loved this bakery. It held her memories from the very beginning. She lived through joy and loss here. She lost her husband too young. Her children grew up and left to build lives far away. Once, she had everything. Then she was alone. Even in her final days, she spoke of this place. She was afraid to leave it behind.”
She squeezed my hand. “I wanted you to stay. Not out of obligation. Marie never cared about that. I wanted you to stay only if this was what you wanted.”
I pulled my hand back at last. “I had a life somewhere else,” I said. “I could not exist in two places at once. And even if I stayed, the history of this town would always hold me back.”
The words hung between us, heavy and unresolved, as the silence stretched on.
Eva met my eyes. “Bailey, have you felt any hostility since you returned? Have you seen the same faces that hurt you before?”
I stayed silent.
“This town has changed,” she continued gently. “People moved on. Most of those you grew up with were raising families or living in the city. They were not trapped in the past anymore.”
Her words landed heavier than I expected.
I sat there, stunned. Had everyone truly moved on?
Thinking back, I realized no one there had treated me unfairly. Most faces were unfamiliar. New. The few I recognized kept their distance, polite and distant, never cruel.
A quiet question settled in my chest, heavier than any accusation.
Had it only been me, still living in the past?