Chapter 28
“Claire, it’s going to be okay.” Lennon is outside my bathroom at The Porch, and I’ve locked myself inside. I’m doomscrolling
through the comments on videos I’ve been tagged in.
And I’m crying.
After we packed up the booth, I refused to go home without inspecting my kitchen. And Shannon in Chicago was right.
I guess I was so distracted when I was unpacking groceries and setting up the kitchen that I poured the giant bag of salt
into a canister and the giant bag of sugar into an identical canister and then mislabeled them.
In a true rookie move, I didn’t bother to check either one when I was baking. I was in a hurry to get everything done and
packaged and ready for the market.
I rushed, even though this was my debut event.
I rushed, even though this was the first time the good people of my new city were going to be introduced to the bakery.
The bakery that I decided to start with my entire savings and a loan from the bank.
This is what I get for thinking I could pull this off.
I hear the outside door open and someone enters the kitchen. Then I hear quiet conversation. It’s a man’s voice. Probably
Daniel. Probably came to collect his wife and save her from her disaster of a friend. “Get out while you still can, Lennon,” I imagine him saying. “This woman is a mess. And nobody needs more mess in their life.”
But then there’s a soft knock on the door. “Claire?”
It’s not Daniel. It’s Miles.
My heart clenches with wretched embarrassment.
“Can you unlock the door?” he asks calmly.
I don’t move right away. This feels like such a punch in the gut. The second chance I’ve been building so meticulously is
about to implode, and it’s completely my fault.
John was right.
The thought makes me feel even smaller.
My phone buzzes with a text.
Miles: Hey, let me in.
Claire: I think I need to be alone.
Miles: No, you don’t.
Claire: . . .
Miles: Don’t make me pick the lock.
Claire: Do you know how to pick a lock?
Miles: No.
But I’m smart and persistent. And there’s probably a YouTube video I can watch.
I stare at the words. Why is he here? Why does he care?
I reach up and unclick the lock, but I don’t open the door.
After a beat, Miles opens it and steps inside. When he sees me sitting on the floor, he closes the door, locks it, and sits
down next to me, his shoulder pressed into mine, legs stretched out in front of him.
It’s like he doesn’t want his presence to be a disruption. It’s thoughtful, and it makes me want to cry again.
I sniff. My cheeks are tearstained, and I’m sure my eyes are puffy. “You know this floor is probably filthy.”
“Yep,” he says.
In the pause that follows, I wipe my cheeks with the balled-up toilet paper I’ve been squeezing in my hand.
I shut my eyes and softly hit the back of my head against the wall behind me. “Why are you here, Miles?”
“Came to check on you.”
I look at him. “But why?”
He looks back. “Because that’s what friends do.”
I quietly scoff, gaze dropping to the ball of toilet paper in my hands. “Friends?” I sniff. “Is that what we are?”
“I mean . . .” he lilts, “at the very least, yeah.”
I turn back, trying to read his face.
“We can’t get into that right now.” He smirks.
I sigh a tired sigh and bring the already-used tissue up to my nose again. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says.
I shake my head. “There’s no coming back from this.”
He reaches over and takes my hand. “There is. We just need to find it.”
I look at him like he’s nuts.
He pats my hand. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to rage out for, like, three minutes. In that three minutes,
you’re going to voice every single negative thought you’re thinking right now. Okay?”
I frown. “Why three minutes?”
“Because I don’t want to listen to you for five.”
I snort out a laugh, and Miles’s mouth twitches up in a tiny smile. He lets my hand go, pulls out his phone, and sets the
timer for three minutes.
“You’re serious,” I say.
“Always serious about raging out,” he says.
“Is this some trick you learned in therapy?” I swipe my nose with the back of my hand.
“No,” he says. “I’m just spitballing here. I have no idea if this is going to help. But it’s the verbal equivalent of a punching
bag, so it seems like it would.”
“A punching bag might be better.”
He eyes me for a beat, thumb hovering over the start button of the timer. He shakes the phone as if to ask if I’m ready.
I sniff and wipe the last of my mascara off my face. I nod. “Ready.”
“Okay . . . go.”
When I close my eyes, the floodgates open, and I decide not to censor myself at all.
“When I decided to move here, John told me it was a terrible idea. He said I’d never make it without him, even though, if
I’d stayed in Colorado, I would’ve had to move out of our house and figure out a way to make it without him anyway. But that
planted this little seed that moving here was stupid. A bad idea. That I wasn’t going to be able to hack it.
“Then I got here, and I was terrified. And I was afraid he was right. Afraid that I couldn’t do this. Who am I to even try?”
I draw in a breath, thinking back on those first weeks here in the city. Thinking back on the app dates that were terrible,
but slowly helped me build my confidence. The walks around my neighborhood that started to get more familiar. The people who
had come into my life along the way.
I look at Miles.
“I was on a mission to find the thing that made me excited to get out of bed in the morning. And no, I’m not saving lives
with muffins or whatever, but I thought maybe I could put some joy into the world. Because that’s what my gram did for me.
When everything was hopeless, she showed up with biscuits. And my world wasn’t bleak anymore.”
Miles reaches over and takes my hand.
“So I decided to go for it. To sink everything I’d saved into this place because I was so smitten with this crazy idea. To
bring that front-porch feeling to people who’ve been running around, searching for human connection without ever meeting a
human face-to-face. The apps made me more aware than ever that people and relationships have become disposable, and I wanted
to create a spot where they were celebrated.
“But I failed. Royally. In the worst way. Before I even started, really. I couldn’t do the one thing I do well. I didn’t even
give myself a fighting chance,” I say, voice rising. “And that’s my greatest fear! The thing I poured everything into, the
thing that was supposed to help me rebuild my life”—I shake my head—“I screwed it up! John was right! Again! I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m not qualified for any of this!”
I feel heat and anger and embarrassment and frustration, all rolled together in a tangled mess, and I go quiet for a few moments.
Miles just sits. Patient.
My emotional RPMs rev down out of the red, and I say the one, familiar, horrible coincidence that has hit me the hardest.
“The worst part of all of this?” I take a deep breath, because saying this is so humiliating. “Once again, my failure is plastered
all over the internet for everyone to see.”
“Again?” Miles asks.
“Yeah. Again. These Porch videos? They now have thousands and thousands of views. You know what else has thousands and thousands of views?”
I pull out my phone and search “Messy drunk falls into fountain at charity gala” on YouTube. And hand the phone to Miles, sniffing. “It’s a riot.”
His phone chimes. The timer is up.
I feel empty. Hollowed out. But strangely not the same as three minutes ago.
I look at him. “Why are you friends with me again?”
He chuckles to himself, clicking the timer off. “I’m starting to wonder . . .”
I sink back against the wall, thinking that this exercise was oddly cathartic. Like an out-loud journal.
In front of Miles.
Who, I only now realize, is still holding my hand.
Miles sets his phone on his lap as the screen on mine goes dark. “Well done. Perfectly timed, actually. Do you feel better?”
I nod. “Yeah, I do, actually.”
He rubs a thumb across my knuckles. “All right.” He stands, then holds his hand out in my direction. “Come with me.”
I frown. “Aren’t you going to contradict everything I just said? Tell me all the reasons I’m awesome and give me some sunny
pep talk about how I can’t quit now?”
He frowns back. “Why would I do that?”
“I thought this was the pep talk part.”
“I’m not going to contradict your feelings. They’re feelings.” He shakes his hand in my direction, a reminder that he’s waiting
for me to take it. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I eye the hand suspiciously.
“You’ll see,” he says.
In the silence that follows, he stands there, hand still stretched out in my direction, patiently waiting until, finally,
I slip my hand in his and let him help me to my feet.
Once we’re face-to-face, he scans mine and his frown lines deepen. “Oof. You look terrible.”
I smack him across the arm, but then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I have to laugh. Because he’s right. I
do look terrible. Puffy and pale with streaks of black still on my cheeks. I walk over to the sink, splash some water on my
face, then turn to find him holding out a paper towel.
“This is all so humiliating,” I say. “I swore I wouldn’t let this happen again.”
“I do feel the need to contradict one thing you said,” he says as he opens the door to the bathroom. “You said your failure was plastered all over the internet.” He looks at me, forcing eye contact with a kind and quiet intensity.
“But the cheater is the failure, Claire. Not the one who got cheated on.” He flips the light off and steps out into the kitchen.
The simple movement reminds me of Lennon’s words—“He flipped your switch”—and I have to breathe in a very long, very slow breath to calm the nerves that have bubbled up inside me.