Anything But Lonely (Hey Honey’s Baristas #3)

1. Emerson

EMERSON

If one more person asks me how I’m doing, none of us are making it out of here alive.

The thought of explaining to anyone how I’m feeling right now literally makes me want to set myself on fire.

Sure, it makes sense that people want to know how I’m feeling—it is my mom’s funeral after all. But I learned early on that feelings are better left unsaid.

And if I answer their concerns truthfully, it means admitting to everyone—even myself—that I haven’t been okay for as long as I can remember.

Besides, people don't actually want to hear that my heart was ripped out of my chest and stomped into the pavement.

That kind of honesty makes people uncomfortable.

But they also don't want to hear that death is inevitable, and at least she's not suffering anymore.

Being practical about death earns you the same look you'd get if you casually admitted to burying bodies in your backyard.

So I've learned there's a narrow range of acceptable grief. Too sad, and you're a burden. Too okay, and you're a serial killer.

Indifference is easier. Or at least it looks better from the outside.

You shove the feelings so far down they settle somewhere beneath your ribs and start collecting dust. Eventually, you can't tell if you've healed or just gone numb enough to stop noticing the wound.

You can pretend they don’t even exist.

Indifference—apathy—is how I cope.

A cool breeze causes goosebumps to pebble over the black ink covering my skin as I pull the sleeves of my sweater over my hands, my eyes continuing to avoid the headstone just inches away from my black loafers.

I look over at my older brother, finding his usually stoic face streaked with tears as he holds his daughter in his arms. His posture is rigid as his fianceé—and one of my best friends—rests her head against him, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

Her brown hair blows when another gust of cool air blows past us.

It’s a reminder that fall is coming to an end. That winter is just around the corner.

A season, coming and going. Expected. Normal. But the thought is like a punch to the gut.

Because it’ll be the first season without my mom.

I feel a familiar prickle in my nose that radiates to the backs of my eyes, and it feels more painful than usual. Maybe because holding back these tears has guilt piling high in my stomach.

My mom deserves my tears. She deserves my grief.

They’re all I have left of her.

But the prickle dies almost as quickly as it came, the feelings dissipating, leaving me empty once again.

I didn’t like the way my mom tried to hide her tears in her already-tired eyes when she saw me upset. Even as young as five years old, I hated how seeing me cry made her cry.

She was the one getting eaten alive by her own body while the man who gave her the STI that caused her ovarian cancer walked out the front door and never looked back. My father barely wanted to be part of our family before the cancer—the diagnosis was like his one-way ticket out of our lives.

Leaving her with two kids who spent the rest of their lives in doctor’s appointments, hospital rooms, and in a state of constant fight-or-flight, waiting for good news that never seemed to come.

So I stopped crying.

“Emmy?” I hear, bringing me back to the moment, finding my brother looking at me. “Did you hear me?”

I didn’t realize most of the other guests had already left, heading over to the coffee shop I work at for the celebration of life, leaving just me, Jack, Rumi, and my niece, Evee.

“Obviously not.”

Jack inhales through his nose. “I asked if you wanted to say anything before we head to Hey Honey’s.

” His voice is tense, like he’s trying to scold me, but I ignore it.

Jack being annoyed with me is nothing new—it’s par for the course with an eight-year age gap, our shared grumpy demeanor, and spending most of our respective free time with the same group of friends.

Not to mention the current circumstances.

“I’m good.” I cross my arms over my chest, looking out at the other headstones lining the cemetery grounds.

All of them besides the one right in front of me.

The grass has faded to a sickly green, completely drained of life.

It’s as though the earth itself is mourning beneath the darkening sky.

The muted color of the dreary, depressing day mirrors the ache that’s been settled deep in my chest since I felt my mom’s hand go limp in mine; the flatline on the machine next to her hospital bed still sounds in my ears whenever it gets too quiet.

“Are you sure?” Rumi asks. My best friend’s soft voice is such a stark contrast compared to Jack’s, and I hear the concern in her voice. It’s the same concern I feel in the way my brother’s eyes watch me closely as they both wait for my answer.

There’s guilt there too. From both of them.

While they’ve been getting engaged and becoming a family over this last year, I was taking care of Mom.

Jack was always willing to help, balancing his shifts at the fire station and his family to take some of the responsibility off me.

But in the end, it always fell on me.

My mom got her cancer diagnosis when I was two, and Jack was ten. For nineteen years, the disease was just a part of our lives—our childhoods and eventually our adulthoods too.

I grew up learning the rhythm of her bad days before she even had to utter a word—the way she would move slower in the mornings while pretending she was fine. I learned how to keep track of the medications and appointments and how to steady her when her body felt like it was crumbling beneath her.

By middle school, we all just pretended I wasn’t more of a live-in caregiver than a daughter.

Because back then, I didn’t have football practice or ACT practice tests or the fire academy like my brother did.

And now, I don’t have a daughter or a fiancé. I just have my barista job and the occasional freelance clients for book cover designs or picture book illustrations.

“I’m sure,” I answer curtly, pretending I can’t see the way the words cut through the air, making Rumi flinch.

I’m lucky Ava isn’t here. My other best friend would rightfully call me out on my bullshit attitude if she wasn’t freshly postpartum and caring for a newborn.

But there are no words left to say—at least none that are appropriate to say in front of my two-year-old niece.

Because fuck this.

Fuck everything about this.

And most of all, fuck cancer.

Rumi looks at me like she wants to say more—Jack too. Their eyes scan over me like I’m a flight risk. Like I’m seconds away from bolting and never looking back.

And they’re right.

If only I had somewhere else to go.

Somewhere that isn’t the coffee shop that reminds me of all the times my stomach dropped when I got a phone call. Somewhere that isn’t my mom’s house that has air that feels too still now. Somewhere that isn’t my apartment that just reminds me how alone I really am.

Somewhere that isn’t here.

Before they can say anything, I turn and start heading for the parking lot.

“See you at Hey Honey’s?” Rumi calls to me, and I give her a thumbs-up without even turning around.

I think we all know I won’t be there.