Chapter 39
Four days.
That’s how long I get to hide before being forced to see Beck again.
Despite wearing gloves, I have melted chocolate beneath my nails and between my fingers. I’m pretty sure there’s some behind my ear and smeared across my cheeks, too. I stopped checking the time hours ago.
The only good that did was remind me that he hasn’t called or texted.
Brielle’s engagement party is tonight, and since I’d already told her that I’d be the one delivering the treats, she’s expecting me there. Forcing Ruthie to do the delivery for me would only make me look worse than they probably already think of me now.
My mood sours further when Ruthie bumps shoulders with me and gives me the stink eye.
It’s the fifth time so far today she’s looked at me like that, and I’ve had it.
I jab a cake pop into the pink chocolate and bite down on my tongue.
The pain doesn’t distract me from the stifling tension in the kitchen.
“What’s your problem today?” I snap.
She grunts. “Just focus on the treats.”
“Because you’ve made that so easy.” I roughly tap the excess chocolate off before setting the cake pop down on the parchment. It goes down too hard, and I watch with a grim expression when it cracks and falls off the stick. “Fuck.”
“That’s the tenth one! I should just finish these up myself.”
“Not happening. We made extras for a reason.”
“You coming in here today and acting like a bull in a china shop wasn’t the reason why. Either knock it off or go home.”
I clench my teeth, ignoring her ultimatum.
Neither of us speaks as I take another cake pop and begin the dipping process.
The never-ending line of them on the counter still needs to be decorated with the gold Brielle requested.
It’s been hours, and I’ve never felt more defeated.
The pressure on my chest won’t disappear, and every minute I spend down here dipping treats in chocolate, the worse it gets.
With deep purple bags beneath my swollen eyes, I glance across the room and finally check the time. 12:47. We’ve been doing this for seven hours. It feels like it’s been double that. Time drags. It has for days now.
“When are you going to talk to me?” Ruthie asks, her voice sharp, blunt.
I exhale and swap the chocolate-covered cake pop for a bare one. “About what?”
“You broke up with him, didn’t you?”
“How could I have broken up with him when we weren’t dating?” I counter bluntly.
I sound . . . void of emotion. And it’s scary. This goes far deeper than just my feeble attempts at being nonchalant or unbothered. There’s no misinterpreting this as anything other than sad.
“I could shake you. Hard. You know better than this.”
My jaw jumps. “I’m really not in the mood, Ruthie.”
“Does it look like I care if you’re in the mood?” She abandons the icing bag in her hand, leaving the sugar cookie she was decorating with “Mr. & Mrs. Shore” with only the first two words outlined. “You made a mistake.”
“I haven’t even told you what happened.”
She laughs humourlessly. “You didn’t need to. I love you dearly, Quinn, like you are my own granddaughter, but you are predictable. You fell in love hard, and that scares you. It didn’t feel natural. And now he hasn’t been here in four days. That’s not natural, either.”
I glare at her, ripping my gloves off. They hit the trash silently, yet I can hear the impact like the bang of a drum.
“Why are you so angry with me? You hardly knew him. Why do you care if he never comes back?”
“Because he brought new life to this place! To you, Quinn. I didn’t need to know everything about him to see the way you two were together. To see the way he looked at you like you hung the moon and the sun and every single star in his sky. You don’t throw away a love like that.”
My heart roars in agreement, still at odds with my mind. I ache so deeply it’s wormed its way into my soul. I can’t feel anything but the fissures in my heart that he held together for so many months, even when I hadn’t shown them to him. Now they’re open wounds again, and all I taste is metal.
The stubbornness inside of me has no end to it, though. It never has. Not when it comes to protecting myself, even at the expense of losing someone—something—so precious to me.
“Beck has always looked at me and seen something shiny. I’ve been perfect in his eyes for so long that I refuse to show him just how imperfect I really am.
Once he learned the truth, he’d have left either way.
I’d complicate things that were supposed to be fun and easy, and that’s just reality.
We were living in a fantasy world, Ruthie.
This is a clean break for him. He doesn’t need me. ”
I rush out of the room the moment my chest quakes. There shouldn’t be any tears left to cry after how many have found my pillow. Yet they fall ruthlessly, too fast for me to wipe them away. They smear across my cheeks and chin.
Regret. I feel so much regret.
The emptiness of the office unsettles me further. I stare at the empty dog bed and the dog-sized Blank Page apron resting atop it. Bodi’s blanket and stuffed giraffe are still there, and I blink to clear my vision, wishing I’d at least been able to drop these off.
Someone dropped off my overnight bag the night I came home to my empty apartment and found it completely finished. Not a single screw on the floor or particle of sawdust in the air. It wasn’t Beck who delivered it. I never asked Eli for confirmation, but I just knew.
It’s the same instinct that told me he wasn’t coming in for any more coffee or to try to flirt his way into a date with me.
There won’t be any more terrible park jobs or a giant baseball player crouching over my sink, wearing neon green gloves while he scrubs dishes.
No more bingo nights or burger runs that end with a make-out session in the cramped back seat.
His friends won’t ask me to go to baseball games with them again, and I wouldn’t want to go, anyway. Watching him play the sport he loves while knowing I won’t be the woman waiting in the family suite for him afterward . . .
Strong, wrinkled hands grip my shoulders and forcefully turn me around. Ruthie’s features are crumpled, but her eyes remain determined, so bright with her confidence. She brings her hands to my head and holds me in place, forcing me to stare at her.
“You. Are. Not. Damaged. Goods. You went through hardship, but you’re not any less worthy of love because of it.
If anything, it makes you deserve it more.
And walking away before you can tell Beck everything you need to is only doing the both of you a disservice.
If you didn’t trust him, you wouldn’t have suggested him as a fake boyfriend or called him the night your pipes burst. His home became yours because you felt safe there. He is safe, isn’t he?”
I drop my head, and she holds it up for me. Her touch feels so familiar to me, as though it’s my nan in front of me instead. The thought sends a fresh wave of tears down my face. I sob, and then she guides my face to her chest, holding me there.
“I hurt him,” I whisper.
“So fix it.”
“He won’t want to hear what I have to say now. I messed up so badly.”
“You don’t fall out of love with someone simply because they hurt you. There’s always time to ask for a second chance.”
“He joked about grovelling once.” My laugh is wet. “Turns out I’m the one who has to.”
She breathes against my ear and rubs my back with soft strokes. “You’ve never been one for gender norms. Plus, we both know that women can grovel better than men can.”
I hope to God she’s right.
The rage I’ve been battling since I turned my back on Beck and left him standing alone in the bullpen has become a constant.
It clings to my skin and poisons my heart like a disease eating piece after piece of the useless organ.
I deserve the discomfort, even with my growing plans for how I’m going to somehow convince him to take me back.
I’ve never been so ashamed of myself. Never wished that I could have been more different or that I’d taken the time to work through my shit before it cost me someone like him. Everything would have been avoided if I’d just . . . grown up, I guess. Moved on.
My phone buzzes again, and I don’t need to check to know it’s Callie calling again. I ignore it the way I have the last few days and stare ahead of me. A cold drip crawls up my spine, then wraps around my neck like bone fingers, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
To no one’s surprise, the trailer I grew up in is worse off than it was twelve years ago.
In my mind, I hear the slam of the screen door and swallow, fighting back a shudder.
The familiar sound of grasshoppers in the broken-down playground at the centre of the park mixes with the scent of motor oil and marijuana, turning my stomach.
A couple argues from one trailer, and another cheers. The wind is warm, sticky on my bare arms. I blink and force myself to walk deeper into what I once considered a neighbourhood. Before I knew better and learned what sat beyond this place. The promise of community and safety.
The weight of where I need to be in an hour presses against my back and guides me forward, closer to the place where I grew up. Regret and determination are at war with themselves, the battle becoming bloodier with every step I take.
Tears burn my eyes, blurring my vision. I could find this place with a blindfold on, though. There’s no forgetting the place where you grew up. Not if you have the best, happiest memories there or the ones that keep you up at night with a scream in your throat.
The last three nights, I’ve seen Mom’s bloodshot, bruised eyes hovering above me and heard her frantic screeching in my ears, asking where I hid her drugs.
Last night, I woke in a cold sweat with five phantom nails scratching my neck in a wild grab for a drug I wish hadn’t been created.
It was a memory I’ll never completely shatter.