2. Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE
MARGERY
“ Y ou’ve got a package!” Adalisa yelled as Margery sauntered through the door.
“A package? From who?”
Margery wasn’t expecting a package from anybody. There weren’t many people left in her life who would send her a package. Most of her family had moved to a different state once they graduated from high school. And they no longer had any contact with her.
They didn’t like the person she had been dating in high school, the person she’d planned on marrying.
But he had died and part of her had died too.
Margery remembered that day like it was yesterday; not over seventeen years ago. She still vividly recalled waking up thinking she was going to see him that day, but instead, she got the devastating phone call, telling her that he was dead.
Yes, a phone call.
His sister had called her, sobbing, and she knew that something was wrong. She didn’t know Bonnie well, but she had talked to her a couple of times, and they had exchanged phone numbers.
Since his funeral, they hadn’t been in contact. Margery had thought about texting her several times, but she knew Bonnie looked just like her brother. But Margery wasn’t ready for that, and she didn’t know if she would ever be ready.
“Margery?” Adalisa called out. “Are you okay?”
She gave her coworker a smile and nodded. Everyone knew about Ethan’s death. It had been one of the most horrific car crashes and had been all over the news, talking about how it happened and if there were any survivors.
There weren’t.
Margery had been in a funk for several months. Okay, that was a lie. After seventeen years, she was finally getting out of the funk. Slowly, she was moving on with life, no matter how hard it was for her. And she needed to do it because life was moving on without her.
“So, does the package say who it’s from?” Margery asked as she placed her handbag under the counter.
“It doesn’t.”
She looked over at her coworker, confused. “Then how do you know it’s for me? It could be for you.”
“Silly! It has your name on it.”
Margery furrowed her eyebrows. The package that had her name on it, but it didn’t have anything else? That was a little weird.
“Did somebody give it to you?” she asked.
“Nope. It was sitting out front when I got here to open. Had your name on it. Figured they knew what time I got in and left it a couple of minutes before. Come on, open it up!”
Unease filled Margery as she took a step toward the box.
“Today really isn’t the day. Maybe we can just say it’s for you? I’m not expecting anything,” Margery gently said and sighed.
“Feeling unwell?” Adalisa asked.
“Thankfully, no, but I have no doubt I will at some point. It’s been a while since I was last ill. I hope I don’t get sick any time soon.”
“Just take some preventative medicine: multivitamin, vitamin C, zinc. Get ahead of it,” Adalisa listed off everything.
“I’m not going to do that. You know I don’t really like taking medicine. Not unless I absolutely have to.” Margery rolled her eyes.
“But it could help you,” Adalisa gave her a knowing look.
“Or I could just eat right, get enough sleep, exercise, and drink enough water.”
Her friend raised her hands in the air. “Okay. Okay. I’m not going to change your mind. That’s fine. Now, will you please open the package? It has your name written in bold, and I want to know what it is.”
She exhaled and walked up to the package. Adalisa was right—her name was written in bold.
Her breathing stopped for a second as she looked at the handwriting. It seems so familiar. It was Ethan’s handwriting, but there had to an infinite number of people with the same style.
“Well, are you going to open it?” Adalisa asked.
“Uh, yeah.”
She grabbed the scissors off the counter and started to cut through the tape. Excitement bubbled inside her as she saw short, colorful hair. What could it be?
Margery pulled the softest multicolored zebra out of the box. It looked almost identical to the one Ethan had given to her eighteen years ago. Who else knew she had one like this?
“Oh, my goodness. That is so cute! And look, it has your name embroidered on it!” Adalisa squealed. “Wait, what is that?”
Margery looked down at the heart—Adalisa was right. But what else was she talking about?
“Is that a binkie?” Adalisa questioned.
Hanging around the neck of the stuffed zebra, sure enough, was a binkie. Why was there a binkie on it?
Did the person who sent this to her know she liked to suck on them every once in a while? Especially when she was stressed?
“Do you know who gave it to you? And why would they put the binkie around the neck of the stuffed animal?” she asked. “I know you said you’ve been on a couple of dates. Maybe one of them gave it to you. But the binkie wouldn’t make any sense.”
Margery nodded. She had been on a couple of dates recently, but none of them knew that she was a Little. It wasn’t something she gave up on the first date. And none of her dates knew she even had a stuffed animal.
How weird. The binkie threw her off though.
“I don’t know. Maybe it could be one of them, but I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m going to keep it, though, just in case I see one of them. Then, I can ask.”
“Why don’t you just message them? And what about the pacifier?”
She shook her head. “Not happening. I don’t want them to think that they need to send me a gift’. They also don’t really know that I’m talking to multiple people. I’m not dating any of them. They don’t know I’m keeping my options open. And as for the binkie, I have talked about wanting kids. Maybe one of them sent it as like a ‘I want to have kids with you’ gift? It is weird and if I see one of them, I’ll ask about it if they bring it up.”
That was going to open a can of worms she wasn’t ready to deal with, and Margery was just starting to move on. Part of her was excited, but she also felt like she was betraying Ethan. They were supposed to get married. He had been and still was the love of her life.
Margery knew she shouldn’t feel guilty about moving on, but it was hard. So hard when, for two years, they had talked about getting married after they graduated. They had started to plan things, but it all went down the drain when he died.
How was she supposed to move on from that? Margery was young at the time, but she knew Ethan was the one. She didn’t want to find someone else and not love them as much. It didn’t feel right, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she could love someone else as much as she had loved Ethan.
“How was your date last night?” Adalisa asked as Margery put the stuffed animal back in the box.
They had several customers come in a day, and she didn’t want them asking questions. She also didn’t want the chance of someone taking it when she was with a customer.
“It was all right, but the person was missing something,” Margery replied.
“What do you think he was missing?” Adalisa inquired.
Out of the two of them, Margery was the one who was going out on dates. Her coworker wanted to, but said she was looking for Mr. Right. She couldn’t blame Adalisa for waiting for him because she had found hers.
But it might never happen. Adalisa didn’t put herself out, so there was no reason for her to find Mr. Right.
“I don’t know. He’s just not the love of my life,” Margery told her. “I know. I know.”
“Nobody’s going to be like Ethan. You need to get that out of your head.”
“I know but it’s hard. I grew up with Ethan. We talked about getting married. We were going to get married.”
“But now you can’t. It’s harsh, but someone needs to tell you. You need to stop comparing every man to Ethan. Because they won’t be Ethan, and you’re going to end up disappointed every single time.”
“I know. I’m trying to but it’s so difficult,” Margery said, trying to get this whole morning out of her mind. “Let’s just get to work. We’ve got things to stock, and no doubt customers are going to be flocking in soon.”
A week had passed since Margery got the stuffed zebra from her secret admirer. She wondered if one of the guys she went out on a date would send another thing, but there was nothing.
Nothing .
To say Margery and Adalisa were bummed was an understatement.
Maybe she should have contacted the guys about it, but it didn’t feel right. She had kept the box it was in and looked at it several times, trying to find a note or something.
But there wasn’t anything.
Who could it be? Why was it sent to her?
Margery was starting to believe it was from Ethan. It was like he knew he was going to die because several months after, she received things from him. But that couldn’t be right.
Ethan had been dead for over seventeen years. He didn’t think that far ahead.
There was no way to know when a person was going to die. For all Margery knew, he could have bought those and sent them to her place as gifts. He had talked about buying her presents, something he hadn’t done often.
Not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t have much money. But something had changed. All of a sudden, he had started to buy her things and told her he got a job. Margery didn’t know what it was then, and she didn’t now, but she knew it wasn’t a daytime job. They hung out during the day, and during the night, he went out.
She needed to stop thinking about that. It was years ago, and she needed to move on. It was about time .
Margery grabbed her knife from her bag as she got closer to her house. She felt eyes on her as she walked home. Flitting her eyes around, she didn’t spot anybody.
Who would be out at this time? Not many people. It was weird that the nail and hair store she worked at was open this late, but she just attributed it to it being in New York. They did have customers come in this late to buy things.
An eerie feeling washed over her the closer she got to her house. She knew she was being watched, but by who’. Maybe it was just her imagination. She walked home from work every single day; she walked to work as well. Margery did have a car, but why drive when it was between a five and ten minute walk?
She let out the breath she was holding and relaxed her shoulders. There was no reason for her to feel this way. No reason at all. Sure, she needed to be diligent and aware of her surroundings, but she shouldn’t be so paranoid that it freaked her out. And if anything happened, she had a knife in her hand, ready to use if she needed to.
The view of her porch came into sight, and she felt her shoulders drop and muscle loosen as she got closer. That was until she saw another stuffed animal at her door.
Margery didn’t tell any of her dates where she lived. She didn’t want them to know, but they could have asked around. Adalisa might have given it to them if they asked. She was encouraging Margery to get out more, have one-night-stands, and do things she wouldn’t normally.
She’d have to ask Adalisa tomorrow when she got to work. There was’ no reason for her to panic right now. It was very plausible for her coworker to do that. She had never given her address out, but she had given her phone number out several times.
Margery grabbed the big stuffed zebra by her front door. Daddy’s was embroidered on the heart with Y. L. underneath it. Were those the initials of the person? None of the guys she was talking to had those initials. Not even close.
Another binkie was added around the neck. What was up with that? Why were they added? None of them knew she liked to use them. Most people thought it was weird when a grown adult did.
She was starting to worry as she continued to look at the stuffed zebra. Why did it have Daddy’s embroidered on it? Nobody knew she was a Little. The only person she had thought about telling was Ethan, but he had died before she could.
It was one of her biggest regrets. She had pushed it off for so long because part of her was embarrassed. But looking at it now, she wished she had told him when she first was starting to figure it out. It was torture keeping it from him, but she didn’t know how he would react.
He would have loved her no matter what. She knew that now, but she hadn’t back then. Or she didn’t fully believe it.
Margery looked around, trying to see if anyone was around. When had this been dropped off? Was the person watching her?
But the longer she looked around, the more she thought ’there was no-one there. She ’couldn’t feel any eyes on her . She was really going to have to talk with Adalisa about giving her address to people. It wasn’t safe.
It was probably one of the guys she had gone out on a date with. He could have a Daddy kink for all she knew. Hopefully, it was just that Adalisa had given out her address and nothing more sinister.