Chapter 3 #3
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “It does, though. It really does.”
“He’d hate that I said that.”
“He’d say something dumb like ‘I’m not wasting my hazards on Grant’ like hazard lights cost gasoline.”
“But he’d do it anyway.”
We laugh until it turns soft and tired, fading into the hum of Penelope’s tires against the rough road.
Marley reaches for the radio, but I slap her hand away. “Absolutely not.”
She blinks at me. “Excuse me?”
“I choose the heartbreak music.”
“Halston.”
“I was cheated on. I have DJ rights.”
“You can’t drive while emotional and listening to Dashboard Confessional.”
I roll my eyes. “I can and I will.”
She shakes her head. “You’ll miss an exit because you’re harmonizing through trauma.”
“I will not.”
She groans. “You did. Last Christmas.”
“That was different. You know that ‘Vindicated’ came on. That chorus is powerful.”
I had driven past my own bakery.
She drops her hand, crossing her arms over her chest. “Fine. But one song.”
“Three.”
“One and a half.”
“That’s not how songs work.”
“It is if I unplug your phone midway through the second.”
I put on Fall Out Boy.
Marley groans dramatically but doesn’t stop me.
By the time we get back to Baltimore, I’ve stopped crying, but my eyelids are heavy.
The city looks the same, which is rude. Row houses, traffic lights, buses sighing at stops, a woman walking her dog, someone arguing on the corner like the world has not ended and restarted around the missing ring on my finger.
I drive past the turn that would have taken me to my place with Grant. The place we decorated for Christmases and hosted Thanksgivings while his parents were away.
My hands tighten around the wheel.
“Keep going,” Marley whispers. I do.
Saints & Sinners comes into view first, the black sign hanging above dark windows and old brick. Beside it, Bitter Bloom sits quiet and pretty, the blue pastel trim glowing soft in the afternoon light. My chalkboard stands outside on the sidewalk.
TODAY’S SPECIAL:
BANANA VANILLA COLD FOAM LATTE
BECAUSE REGULAR VANILLA LACKS COMMITMENT
I had written that before finding out about my fiancé’s commitment issues.
“Yikes,” Marley says when she reads it.
“I know.”
“It’s kind of funny.”
“Prophetic, actually,” I correct.
“Just a little.”
I park in the small lot behind the building, and Oliver pulls in beside me, killing the engine. He sits there for a second before getting out.
The back of Bitter Bloom is not glamorous. The dumpsters sit across the lot and the delivery door is a little rusty. The pavement is cracked and the mural I had started to paint last summer isn’t finished.
Our two businesses sit side by side, with a small covered alleyway between them that only we can access. The door to the apartment above the bar looks rusty and, well, kind of like a horror movie.
Oliver comes around carrying a bag.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Supplies.”
I look between Oliver and Marley. “You guys stopped for supplies?” It would explain how long they took.
“You were crying near a Wawa. I kind of assumed the day wouldn’t get better through starvation.”
He hands the bag to Marley, who looks inside. “We’ve got water, chips, gummy worms, ibuprofen, and a bag of peanut butter cups.”
“You do love me.” I beam.
“I don’t deal with hungry people,” he mutters as he moves to my trunk.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting whatever you need for the night.”
Inside are two reusable grocery bags, a box of cake boards, a pair of white sneakers, a half-empty case of bottled water, and a decorative throw pillow I had bought three weeks ago because it’s blue velvet and has little golden bees on it.
Marley stares at the pillow. “Why is that in your trunk?”
I shrug. “I was going to return it.”
Oliver picks it up, his eyebrow raised. “Were you?”
My shoulders slump. “No.”
He puts it back.
“Good,” Marley says. “It’s cute.”
Marley moves some things around. “Do you have clothes in here?”
“I have emergency leggings.”
Oliver rolls his eyes.
“And a band T-shirt.”
Marley digs through the back seat while Oliver grabs the case of water and sneakers. I stand by Penelope as they do, watching my friends take care of me.
Inside my bakery, my employees are probably still baking as customers filter in and out. There are labeled bins, prep lists. Things I need to accomplish tomorrow, and proof that at least part of my life makes sense.
Upstairs is an apartment I have never used for more than storage and the occasional nap when there’s a rush or when I’m helping Oliver late at night. The apartment with one working outlet. The apartment Grant had called “a cute backup plan” when I mentioned maybe renovating it with Oliver.
Cute.
I hate the word almost as much as I hate adorable.
“You okay?” Marley asks.
I nod, but she can see right through it. “I am. But I feel like if I go inside, it’s real.”
Oliver starts walking toward the door leading up to the apartment. “It’s already real.”
“You’re not being helpful,” Marley hisses.
I swallow and look at my bakery.
Something that’s mine.
Not Grant’s or his father’s, even though Barrett Whitaker’s review did help launch it. Not some charming little project attached to the future Mrs. Whitaker.
But mine. Something I started building before Grant, and something that will stand far after him.
It may not be graceful at all times.
Maybe it’s while crying in my walk-in.
Maybe it’s being angry enough that naming lattes things like Men are Decorative at Best feels cathartic.
But it’s mine.
The keys shake in my hand as I unlock the door.
I want to go into the bakery. I want to feel at home. But there are people there, and I don’t want to answer a million questions from my employees.
“Come on, Hal,” Oliver says softly. “Today it’s food, shower, and sleep.”
“What if I want to make a list?” I say suddenly. There are a million things to do. Things I need to accomplish. Desserts I need to bake.
“You hate lists.”
“I may be a new woman.”
He rolls his eyes. “No one becomes a new woman the day they run out of gas near a Wawa.”
Marley heads up the stairs, the grocery bag swinging from her hand. “Do you have clean sheets up here?”
“If I do, they’re in the bin,” I say, trying to think. “I think the blue one.” There are probably twelve bins.
The stairs are narrow and steep. I climb slowly, one hand trailing along the wall. The paint is chipped near the top, and the ceiling light flickers.
“Charming,” Oliver grumbles.
The apartment over Saints & Sinners is small and strange, with slanted ceilings, old hardwood floors, and windows that look over the back.
Oliver and I rented the whole building after the previous owner sold it.
I had said it would be cool to turn the upstairs apartment into some kind of cozy retreat.
It didn’t have to be much. Maybe a writing nook or some kind of guest space.
Maybe a bigger office that we could both use.
Instead, it became a place where we stored seasonal decor, extra cake stands, bins of ribbons, and a mattress I had ordered during a holiday rush when sleeping upstairs between bake cycles seemed like the easiest solution.
The air smells like paint, cardboard, dust, and old wood.
Oliver sets the water near the tiny kitchenette while Marley sneezes. “This is livable,” he says simply.
Marley walks to the window and peers out. “Is that the squirrel?”
“What squirrel?” Oliver asks.
I move beside her. Outside on the fire escape railing sits a gray squirrel beneath the rusty bars.
It nibbles on something unidentifiable with the grim determination of a tiny Victorian chimney sweep.
One eye is clouded, and he’s missing one leg right below the joint.
His tail is patchy. The guy looks like he fought God and demanded a rematch.
“That’s Sir Nubsworth.”
“You named him?”
“He lives here.” He’s lived here for a long time.
For some reason, the tiny, battered squirrel makes me feel a little less ridiculous. He’s alive. Maybe lopsided, and maybe a little suspicious and full of diseases, but he’s alive.
Maybe survival doesn’t have to look graceful. It can be eating mystery crumbs on a rusty railing while three emotionally unstable adults stare at you through a window.
Marley turns away first, clapping her hands. “Sheets.”
“Blue bin,” I say as if that helps at all. There are at least three out of the twelve bins up here.
For the next twenty minutes, Oliver and Marley turn the place from a disaster to something that only slightly resembles shelter.
Marley finds the sheets in the second blue bin while Oliver makes the bed with military precision, tucking corners so tightly I’m afraid to disturb them.
Marley locates a clean t-shirt and leggings from my car wardrobe and Oliver tests an outlet, finally declaring it “not actively smoking,” before plugging in my phone.
I stand in the middle, mostly useless, the blue bee pillow hugged tightly to my chest.
At some point, Marley takes it from me and places it on the bed. “There,” she says. “Home.”
It hits me a little too hard.
I sit down on the mattress, and Marley sits next to me. Oliver stands near the small kitchen, his arms crossed.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Always,” Marley replies as she leans her head against my shoulder.
Oliver looks at the floor. “Don’t drive to Florida without gas again.”
I smile weakly. “Is that your version of always?”
“Yes.”
I wince. “It needs some work.”
“It gets the point across.”
Marley lifts her head. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”
I do. But I also want to be alone.
I had been rescued today. I had needed to be. But I don’t want to feel afraid of being alone.
“Can I try being alone?” I ask her.
Her face softens. “Of course.”
Oliver glances at me, and I can tell he understands.
I just want to try.
Marley squeezes my knee. “I’ll keep my phone on.”