Chapter 9 Piper
FIVE WEEKS LATER
The kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off.
Every surface was covered—cooling racks lined up on the counter, mixing bowls stacked in the sink, a fine layer of white powder dusting the floor. I'd run out of counter space an hour ago and started putting sheet pans on the dining table. Then the coffee table. Then the floor.
Right now, I should have been getting my hair done.
I turned back to the stand mixer and started on another batch of dough.
By 4:00, I should have been putting on my dress. The one that was still hanging in a garment bag in the closet of an apartment I hadn't been back to in more than a month. White silk, fitted bodice, the kind of dress I'd tried on seventeen times before saying yes.
I measured out flour. Added baking soda. Didn't look at the clock.
By 5:30, I should have been at the venue. Walking down the aisle on Dad's arm while two hundred people watched. Liam waiting at the altar in his navy suit, the one his mom had helped him pick out.
The mixer whirred and I added chocolate chips. Way more than the recipe called for.
By 6:00, we should have been married.
I hit the off button and stared at the bowl of dough.
My phone buzzed on the counter with a text from one of my bridesmaids—Sarah, who'd been my roommate in college.
Thinking of you today. Love you.
I looked away and went back to baking.
The front door opened around seven. I heard Maya's keys hit the entry table, her footsteps in the hallway, then silence.
"Holy shit," she said from the doorway.
I didn't look up from the pastry I was rolling out. "I'm making croissants."
"I can see that." She stepped into the kitchen, carefully navigating around the sheet pans on the floor. "How many batches have you made today?"
"I don't know. A few."
"Piper." She picked up a cookie from one of the cooling racks. "There are at least six dozen cookies here. And is that… are those three cakes?"
"Four. There's one in the bedroom."
"In the bedroom."
"I ran out of space."
Maya took a bite of the cookie, then set it down and walked over to me. She grabbed the rolling pin out of my hands and set it on the counter.
"Hey, I wasn't—"
"You've been baking for twelve hours straight, haven't you?"
I looked at the clock. 7:14 PM. I'd started at six this morning.
"Maybe."
"Babe." Her voice was gentle. "You need to stop."
"I'm fine."
"You're covered in flour. There's butter in your hair. And I'm pretty sure you haven't eaten anything that wasn't cookie dough all day."
My throat felt tight. "I just needed to stay busy."
"I know." She squeezed my shoulder. "But you've been staying busy for weeks now.
You've baked enough carbs to feed a small army.
My coworkers are starting to get concerned about the amount of baked goods I bring to the office.
Rachel from analytics asked if I have a side hustle she doesn't know about. "
I let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
"Come on." Maya steered me toward the sink. "Wash your hands. We're ordering pizza and watching trash TV and absolutely not thinking about what you would have been doing now.”
"It’s 7:15. We'd be doing the first dance right now," I said quietly. "Liam picked the song. Some Ed Sheeran thing."
"Well, Ed Sheeran is objectively terrible, so you dodged a bullet there."
This time I did laugh. Small, but real.
An hour later, we were on the couch with pizza and wine. Maya had changed into sweatpants and I'd washed the butter out of my hair. The TV was on but neither of us were really watching it.
"So," Maya said, picking pepperoni off her slice. "I got the final numbers from the venue today."
I set down my wine glass. "And?"
"They refunded half the deposit. The caterer gave back about thirty percent.
The photographer was a total loss, but the florist felt bad and gave you everything back.
" She pulled out her phone and scrolled.
"All together, with what Mom and Dad didn't end up spending and what we got back from vendors.
.. you've got about nine thousand dollars. "
Nine thousand dollars. Money that should have paid for flowers and food and a DJ. Money that should have celebrated a marriage that was never going to happen.
"Okay," I said. "I'll pay you rent—"
"Absolutely not."
"Maya—"
"You're my sister. You're not paying rent." She set down her pizza and turned to face me. "But I do think you should spend that money on yourself."
"What do you mean?"
She gestured toward the kitchen. "Look at that disaster in there.
You've been baking non-stop for more than a month, and not because you're sad.
I mean, you are sad, but that's not why you're baking.
You're baking because you love it. Because you're good at it.
Because when you're covered in flour and swearing at croissant dough, you look happier than I've seen you in months. "
I opened my mouth to argue, but she kept going.
"You know what Rachel said when I brought in those lemon bars last week? She said they were better than anything she'd ever bought. She asked if you took orders. And she wasn't the only one."
"Maya—"
"You've been talking about opening a bakery since you were in college.
You've been putting it off because Liam said it was too risky, because teaching was stable, because there was always some reason to wait.
" She grabbed my hand. "Stop waiting and use that money.
Take a class. Start selling from home. Do something. "
"I have to go back to work in a couple of weeks,” I said. "School starts—"
"So? Bake on weekends. See if it works. And if it does?" She squeezed my hand. "Then maybe you quit teaching and do the thing you've actually wanted to do your whole life."
I looked toward the kitchen. At the mountain of baked goods covering every surface. At the flour-dusted counters and the mixing bowls and the cooling racks lined up like soldiers.
Three weeks ago, my life had imploded. Liam had pulled the pin on a grenade and destroyed everything I'd been building toward—the wedding, the house we were going to buy, the future I'd spent six years planning.
But now, sitting here in Maya's apartment surrounded by the evidence of five weeks of manic baking, I realized something.
Maybe he hadn't just destroyed my future. Maybe he'd cleared the way for a different one.
For six years, I'd made myself smaller. Pushed my dreams aside because they weren't practical, weren't stable, weren't what we needed.
I'd stayed in a job that was fine because Liam said the bakery was too risky.
I'd planned a wedding instead of planning a business.
I'd built a life around someone else's vision of what my life should be.
And now that was gone.
All of it, burned to ash.
But in the rubble, there was something else. Space and possibility. Nine thousand dollars and a kitchen full of proof that maybe—maybe—I was good enough to do this.
"I don't know if I can," I said quietly.
Maya smiled. "Yeah, you do. You're just scared."
I looked at the kitchen again. At all those pastries and cookies and cakes.
Maybe Liam had pulled the pin on a grenade. But I was the one who got to decide what to build in the aftermath.