40. Salem
SALEM
Itold myself I would make it quick.
In and out. Ingredients, flowers, done.
That was the plan.
I grabbed a basket and moved through the aisles without thinking too hard about anything, letting habit carry me from one shelf to the next. Eggs. Butter. Flour. Chocolate chips.
Could I fit ‘I am so sorry. I am an asshole. Please do not move out’ onto a cookie?
No. She deserved something tangible. Something that didn’t rely entirely on words I could never get right. I couldn’t think of a grand gesture, so this was my starting point.
I paused near the front of the store and shifted the basket on my arm, turning toward the small floral stand tucked near the registers.
The selection was minimal, but it didn’t need to be.
I reached for a bundle of soft pink flowers and turned them in my hand, checking the petals to ensure they would last.
Rowan would love them.
“I didn’t peg you as a baker.”
I stilled.
I knew that voice.
I turned slowly.
Lucy stood a few feet away with a basket hooked over her arm, her expression calm. She looked how she always did—put together, like the trip to buy bread took a mood board and a glam squad. Very Lucy.
“Guess you don’t know everything about me,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to the flowers in my hand, then to the ingredients in my basket. “Apology baking?”
“Something like that.”
She nodded once, like that made sense. For a second, neither of us moved.
She adjusted her grip on her basket. “Did you and Ethan have a good night?”
I held her gaze.
I could have been vague about it and let her fill in the blanks, but I didn’t have the energy for that kind of performance, and I didn’t think she deserved the dishonesty. I was over all the games.
“We’re not talking currently,” I said.
Her expression shifted—small, a release of something she’d been holding—but I caught it. “Oh. That’s unexpected. You two looked so happy at the Gala. ”
“Yeah… But I feel like maybe that is not entirely shocking for you.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I don’t hate you, by the way,” she said after a moment. “I want you to know that. I don’t even dislike you. I actually think, if things had been different, we could have been friends.”
“Is that why you posted the video?” I asked. “And the photos? And everything else?”
“I was going to fight for what I wanted, no matter what. That part I won’t apologize for. But I didn’t think about how you would feel. I just didn’t. And I should have.”
It was simple. Just the truth said plainly and left there. I should have been mad. Part of me expected to be. But I wasn’t—just relieved, honestly.
“It’s love,” she said. “It makes you do things. I’m not saying it was right. I’m just saying that’s where it came from. And I owe you an apology for that.”
“Love shouldn’t make you hurt other people.”
Her expression tightened. “No. It shouldn’t.”
The silence between us settled into something different. Less like a standoff and more like two people who had run out of things to fight about.
“I convinced myself you didn’t even care about him,” she said finally. “You were so hard to read. It was easier to tell myself that.”
“I cared, but I get it. It started out fake .”
She studied me. “And now?”
I sucked in a long breath. “Now I’m buying apology cookies and flowers for my best friend. Not for Ethan.”
She nodded slowly. “Right. I hope it works out. With your friend.”
“Me too.”
She gave a small nod and turned toward the registers, already moving on.
I stood there for a second longer, then I looked back down at the flowers in my hand. The pink ones felt wrong —too soft, too much like something I had grabbed without thinking. I set them back and reached for a different bundle.
Something brighter. Yellows, purples, and oranges.
Something that looked like I had meant it.
I added them to my basket and headed for the checkout.
I sat in the car for a minute before starting it. The grocery bag was on the seat beside me, the flowers leaning against the side.
I didn’t take my phone out. I didn’t check anything. I just sat there.
Lucy could have the narrative. The comments and the posts and whatever version of events she was still building. That was hers. I wasn’t going to fight her for it, correct it, or do anything for anyone’s benefit anymore.
What I was going to do was go home and make cookies, put flowers in a vase of water, and apologize to my best friend properly. Then, maybe I would wrap my head around what to do about Ethan.