23. All In The Wreckage （Hattie）
ALL IN THE WRECKAGE (HATTIE)
S tupid me.
Stupid Ethan.
Stupid life.
My eyelids start drooping until I smack my cheek.
It’s an effort to stay awake as I stare at the Closed sign on the front door. Behind me, Sarah, one of our part-timers who stayed on, is busy sorting books.
I have my version of a business plan in front of me. Lots and lots of scribbles in a dark green notebook. A disjointed mind-map of ideas and authors and plans for redecorating when we have the funds to spare.
I’ve run the bookstore through every AI renovation design app in existence.
Not the most technical approach, but it’s the kind of mindless semi-productive entertainment that helps keep my brain in a happy place.
It helps me avoid remembering why I have this freaking store in the first place.
I never wanted it like this.
I never asked for it, but Ethan just had to let his ego off the leash.
He had to step in like the impatient, heavy-handed prince he is and buy it for me on a whim, and now I’m saddled with a place that reminds me of him everywhere I turn.
At least my employees are happy, and so hardworking it screws my head back on. There’s a second wind around here since musty Mr. Sneed left.
If I won’t take this seriously for me, then I have to do it for them.
That’s the only reason I’m here, pretending to be a manager instead of a useless lump curled up on my sofa with a book and a pint of Jeni’s.
I’m their livelihood.
And I won’t be the reason these book happy people get borked right out of a job.
The bell jingles. I look up to see an elderly gentleman walking into the store.
Sweet, a distraction.
“Hello, sir,” I say too brightly, swinging out from behind the front desk.
Sarah also looks up and approaches the guy, ready to help.
It’s an unintended pincer movement. The old man looks briefly intimidated before her smile softens him.
She’s the kind of girl who could charm a nail out of the wall.
Her smile has just the right amount of teeth and her green eyes sparkle.
She gets to him first, probably just as bored as I am, though probably not as desperate.
“Hi, I’m Sarah. What can I help you find today?”
Deflated, I go back to my mind-map.
Even to my eyes, it looks childish.
I have no clue what I’m doing running a business—and definitely not running Sneed’s Books.
Also, yes, it’s a terrible name. Ethan was right.
Oh, Ethan.
My stomach cramps when his stupid cocky face appears in my brain.
I should probably be used to him when this happens multiple times a day, but every time it hits me like a sickness sweeping in for the first time.
We weren’t together.
It wasn’t even a breakup.
It shouldn’t feel this awful.
I hate him with every itty-bitty fiber of my being.
But sometimes I dream about the way he touched me, gently and delicately, like I was something precious.
I smile in my dreams where he still cherishes me.
Then I wake up with hot tears scalding my face.
All because he showed me what it meant to matter.
What it was like to be touched and kissed and adored.
What it was like to be loved, even if he only showed me silently and never said it.
Then he dropped a sledgehammer on my head.
God.
I steady my hurt breathing and tear a few useless pages from my scribbles, crumpling them in my hand before I toss the paper in the trash.
On a new page, I write a simpler plan: PAY DICKHEAD BACK .
Believe me, I know I can’t until I’m seventy.
He might think he can pay me off by gifting me the store, which was never part of the agreement, and sending me the rest of the money for a job I never finished, but that’s not how this works.
That’s not how I let him live rent free in my head forever.
So maybe I’ll take the original wad he paid me because I did pretend to be his fake fiancée for a bit. Fine, fair compensation.
That’s all I agreed to do.
Also, the practical voice inside me reminds me I could really use the money.
There’s not much of a cushion around here when the bookstore is barely up and running, certainly not with a lasting vision yet.
I’m not Ethan.
Even without Blackthorn Holdings, he’s still a rich man.
He has enough funds to hit reset on his life a hundred times over, and seeing how he’s disappeared from Portland, I guess he’s punched that button a lot.
No big goodbye.
Even Margot hasn’t heard from him. She called me the other day to ask if he’d gotten in touch because he hasn’t been texting her back.
But no.
Good thing, too, because if he texted right now, I’d drop my phone in a vat of acid just so I don’t have to see his texts anymore.
Crazy, but so what? I’m entitled to be a little unhinged and live my best Bateman murder fantasies.
I hope he falls in a vat of acid.
Ideally, after I’ve paid him back for the bookstore and the second installment, which sits in my bank account, teasing me to spend it.
I feel nauseous.
Because I’m the petty bitch I am, I hunch closer to the paper and draw Ethan, drowning in the nice big acid pool. Then I doodle him getting crushed by the big pile of money I send back.
Maybe I should mail it to him in one-dollar daily increments starting today?
Is that too cruel?
Ha, he’ll beg for the acid after a few weeks of that.
With a bitter giggle, I hope he feels guilty.
I hope he feels every sting of guilt and shame for what he did.
But I also hope he’s okay, dammit, wherever he is.
I hope he hasn’t let his demons win.
I hope they aren’t making him drink himself to death.
Mostly, I hope I never have to think about him again.
My chest caves in every time he strays into my thoughts, the same way he only struts into my life to pummel the happiness out of it.
Thunk!
My forehead falls forward onto the paper I’ve been doodling. I stay there long after the old gentleman leaves and Sarah goes back to sorting shelves, pretending she’s not looking at me like she’s watching a crazy person.
This sucks.
With a bad book, you can just close it.
With life, it’s never that easy.
I have a sampler of my favorite books piled up beside me, starting with my pretty, leather-bound copy of Pride and Prejudice .
Then a massive Edgar Allan Poe collection, poems by brilliant new poet Dakota Burns and my old fave W.S. Merwin, several Harry Potters, half the books ever written by Kristin Hannah, and even a few fun reads by Lauren Landish and Brittney Sahin.
But nothing’s working today.
That’s how you know it’s bad.
The rainbow portal to happy reading world just won’t open.
Ethan, soul-sucking lizardman from the heartless deep, has stolen my ability to enjoy books.
I hate him.
“Is nothing sacred?” I whine out loud, looking around my apartment like I’m expecting the tall stack of thrillers on my coffee table to answer me.
Nope.
I contemplate pouring myself a drink.
I’m not a big solo drinker, but I think Margot might’ve left some vodka and Bailey’s here from the last time we had a girls’ night.
Right now, the idea of sitting and drinking alone has a Bridget Jones kinda feel.
If I dramatize my life, it doesn’t have to feel so real.
But then that searing hot poker jabs me in the chest again.
I briefly forget how to breathe, function, or generally survive, but a girl can’t have everything.
For now, I’ll settle for a little peace and quiet.
Then the buzzer sounds, gratingly loud from the intercom on the wall.
Ugh.
Pretty sure my heart leaves my body, cartwheeling through a whole panicked gymnastics routine.
Ethan.
That’s my first thought.
It’s not even a sensible one.
Mr. McHeartstabby wouldn’t just drop in uninvited without so much as messaging me. There’s no scenario where I open the door and find him standing behind it, ready to apologize and eat his last cruel words.
Still, my mind goes wild with possibilities.
I walk to the door and he’s standing there, handsomely disheveled and slightly wet even though it’s not raining.
His eyes are haunted.
“Pages, I’m fucking sorry,” he says breathlessly, his voice torn. Over me. “I never meant to hurt you. I love you. Let’s start over. What can I do to make it up to you?”
For a second, I just stand there, sad and conflicted and barely breathing before I answer.
“Will you jump into a pool of acid?”
Ha.
You know it’s a fantasy when it’s too perfect for real life.
The buzzer growls again, shattering my daydream.
Just in case it is him, I hide my depleted box of tissues on the table and scoop all the used ones into the trash.
No need for him to see I’ve been crying over him.
But when I answer the intercom, it’s not Ethan.
I knew it wouldn’t be, but my heart still sinks through the floor.
Mom shows up a second later after I let her in.
“Hi, Hattie,” she says in front of my door, holding a small white box. “I thought you might enjoy this.”
I peer through the plastic windowpane at the pie underneath.
…did I wake up in a mirror universe?
Because my health freak mother brought me blueberry pie.
Not an egg white quiche horror which might have a few blueberries baked into it with piles of spinach.
Not a blueberry smoothie that looks chalky brown from protein powder.
Not some low calorie ‘blueberry’ ice cream that’s actually just a lump of frozen coconut cream flavored with crushed blueberry skins.
An honest to God pie made with sugar.
“Mom, are you okay?” I croak, sounding as broken as I feel.
“Yes, dear. Can I come in?” she asks.
I step aside, waving her into my apartment with the offering.
She wrinkles her nose when she sees the place, and I sniff, wondering when I last showered.
No one at work hinted I smell, but I’m losing track of time.
Then again, no one at work has looked me dead in the eye since the news spread that Ethan and I broke up.
Devastating, really.
That’s what happens in a town as small as Portland with celebrities you can count on one hand.
A fake relationship turned into a very real breakup, and it’s already public.
No doubt the gossip accounts are tweeting all sorts of awful rumors.
They probably say Ethan figured out he can do better.