Chapter 11

Kelcey

Big, full, productive day of… data scrubbing.

I didn’t know why I even bothered looking through the files. I knew I wasn’t actually supposed to be working, and that they were totally fine. But it felt like I was working, and that made me feel a little better as I scrolled through one after another after another doing nothing, and I went to bed that evening a productive and accomplished member of society.

I lay in bed wishing I could cry as I watched the ceiling fan turn slowly and the silky curtains rustle in the breeze, and somewhere between a thousand and a million hours spent thinking horrible thoughts about Veronica that ripped something raw out of my chest, I slipped into dreams where I got to think of her there instead.

And I woke up to another nightmare, because I trudged in a haze through making breakfast and morning coffee and took a shower that mostly involved me standing there staring blankly ahead at the wall under the hot running water, and I was just getting out of the bathroom when I heard a quick thump-thump at the door before footsteps rushing down the stairs. Package delivery. I didn’t remember ordering anything, but… I would have absolutely forgotten after yesterday.

I popped the door open enough to peer out at a white USPS box with a label taped to it—home delivery. My heart sank as I took it, stepping back inside… no return address, but made out to my address. Maybe it was the heft of the box and the sound it made, or maybe it was just the situation, the world, everything, that made it obvious what it was, but I sat down with it and opened it anyway, my hands moving dutifully for me as I peeled off tape and pulled out a beautifully-wrapped gift box, red wrapping paper with cute little reindeer designs on it and a big green bow on top. Because… of course she knew how to cater it perfectly to my tastes. Pulled the bow off gently and peeled tape to open the wrapping paper without tearing it, wanting to treasure it impossibly, and I opened a little white box inside to find that stupid red-and-blue nutcracker, nestled in tissue paper with a note.

Stole him for you, and a little heart at the end. My stomach twisted in tight knots. Thanks for letting me work on this project with you, Kelce. You’re a lot sharper and have better instincts than you think. And then below it, Sincerely, Nic.

I wanted to be furious and scream and throw the thing in the trash, but… the shipping label was dated from before yesterday. It had just been bad timing… not her trying to win me back with gifts again. I slumped back in the couch, curling up into myself, welling up a little looking at the nutcracker.

“You’re a menace,” I said, my voice cracking. “Apparently you caused two scenes at that café. Do you realize that?”

He didn’t say anything. That was good. He passed the test. No evil haunted nutcrackers here.

I sighed. He really was a cute little guy. Even more than in the pictures… he had a lot of charisma. A real winning smile. A funny little hat.

Dammit. Why did she go buy the nutcracker off them and send him to me? Did she think I was going to be so charmed with it all that once I found out she was Veronica then I’d just be like, oh, that’s fine and I’d let her have sex with me?

No… because she said she was going to tell me after the project was done because she knew I’d hate her for it. And then that just left me with, well… maybe she just did this because she wanted me to have something I liked.

When my phone pinged with a Slack message, I forced myself to look, hoping maybe it was someone calling me back into the office with a big serious task to take on and I could go forget about Veronica Preston and her perfect brown eyes and the way they’d gleam when she laughed while it was just the two of us, but no such luck—Lucy Masters, with a message, Morning, Kelcey, just checking in on if you’re doing all right. Anna and I are here for you. You can talk about anything.

Could I? Could I really? Because I didn’t think I could talk about this. And yet… maybe I did think that, because I stared at the phone, and back at the nutcracker, and back at the phone, for a while, before I hit the call button on the chat, and Lucy picked up like she was expecting me to.

“Hey,” she said. “You hanging in there okay?”

She was at the office already. It wasn’t even eight yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Anna had slept there together. I meant, I already knew they’d slept together there before, but… that was something different. “Why does it keep coming back to her?” I said, my voice shaky, and she sighed.

“Dunno… she’s a difficult one, that’s why.”

I paused. “Wait. Do you already know?”

“She told me and Anna about it last night.”

I swallowed, a sick feeling in my throat. “What—she did? Why?” I said, my voice wobbly, sitting up taller, antsy in every part of my body.

“Ah…” She cleared her throat. “Do you really want to know why?”

“Ugh. No. But I need to. Please tell me.”

She was quiet for a second before she said, “Well… she came around and went to pluck Anna’s eyes out for having the audacity to fire you.”

I froze, clutching the phone.

“That’s hyperbole, by the way,” she said. “Everybody’s eyes remained in.”

“She’s trying to… what, get me the position back? In hopes it makes me want to be with her again?”

“No… in fact, she told us that we’re strictly, expressly forbidden from telling you she did that. So I’m in trouble now that I did,” she said, and I could hear Anna’s laughter softly down the line. My chest ached, thinking about the two of them together in their office. “If I disappear, you know what’s happened.”

“But why…” My voice came out strangled, and Lucy made a soft sound down the line.

“Well… she does seem to care. A lot, actually. Surprising to me as much as anyone.”

I swallowed, hard, looking back at the nutcracker. A little, quiet gesture done for me without fanfare, just to make me feel good. After she’d been on a date desperately trying to move on from her ex… from me. But it hadn’t worked.

Despite her false identity, she hadn’t strictly lied about anything, not really. So all the parts about how she’d screwed up so badly with her ex, how she missed her so badly and didn’t know how to move on… how she didn’t know how to recapture that light she had when she was with her. Was that all true, too?

She’d always been talking about how intelligent and capable and talented I was, telling me not to give credit to those people who said otherwise. And not just empty words, but talking in explicit detail to try to convince me that I really was better than all those things people had said.

She didn’t… know how to own her feelings around people. And she’d said she felt safer doing it while she was anonymous.

“She can’t keep making me fall for her,” I said, my voice thin and wobbly. “Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me a hundred times and it’s just… what’s wrong with me?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Lucy said softly down the line. “Just because she’s doing any or all of this doesn’t mean you owe her anything.”

I swallowed. “I… I guess. I just…” I sighed. “Lucy, am I useless?”

“Not at all. I mean, look how you took on the video project so confidently.”

“And screwed up.”

“I’ve screwed up a million things, too. Everyone has. Except Anna Preston, but—nobody should be out there comparing themselves to Anna Preston. Making a mistake doesn’t mean the end of the road, just… just a turn in that road.”

I hung my head. “I’ll… I’ll be better,” I said quietly. “By the time I’m back. That’s a promise.”

“You don’t need to—”

“It’s a promise. Okay? Please believe me.”

She was quiet for a long time before she said, “All right… I believe you. Good luck, Kelce.”

“Thanks, Lucy. I’ll… see you later.”

I let out a long, heavy sigh once I put the phone down, staring at the nutcracker.

I needed to know. I didn’t know what that looked like, but I at least needed to know. Otherwise, sitting here at home with nothing to do, I’d turn around and around the thoughts in my head until I exploded, and nobody needed that.

“Dammit, Veronica,” I groaned, and I stood up, gathering my things, getting ready to go out. Physically ready, at least. Emotionally ready? Never.

∞∞∞

The city center was bustling right now, people pushing every which way with boots crunching in the fresh snow, along shopfronts dressed up with wreaths and ribbons, silver bells on the streetlights. The shopping center had a tree in the center that stood taller than the roofs around it, and I stepped underneath strings of lights and garland to get to the entrance of the café at the side, my stomach turning with the familiarity of it. It smelled like sweet spices when I got inside, and the warm air inside wrapped like a blanket over my shoulders as I stepped up to the counter, the barista looking up and smiling at me.

“Hey,” she said. “Light roast pourover?”

I sucked in a long, shaky breath, resting my hands on the counter and forcing them to relax. Veronica had taken me here all the time… her favorite spot, since her stint working at the music shop right across from it. Even after she left that job, she’d been attached to this place, and she took me here long enough that the baristas got concerned the first time I came in without Veronica.

I’d just laughed and said I was getting a sneaky surprise coffee for her behind her back, which she’d ended up loving. Same for the second time I went here without Veronica. The third time I went without Veronica was… well, the reason was less fun.

I hadn’t been here in a minute now. Stepping into the cozy space with its awkward triangular design making seating difficult but giving the best views of the busy shopping street, weird coffee apparatuses in shelves and on the deep windowsills —it felt like stepping into my own past. I hadn’t expected them to recognize me still.

“Let’s do a flat white,” I said. The barista studied me for a second before she smiled cleverly, adjusting her apron and turning to the espresso machine.

“Changed your tastes since you were last here?”

“Well… unfortunately, no. But I’m trying out new things all the time these days.”

“So, no muffin?”

I paused. “I didn’t say that.”

It wasn’t much longer before she had a muffin and a flat white out on the handoff plane, and I took them with a big smile and a thank you where I tried not to let my nerves show and the reassuring smile she gave me let me know that they did show, and I settled into the spot Veronica and I would always sit at, the high table in the corner looking over the café, while I sat at my phone trying to figure out what to do.

I went to the conversation with Nic, but it felt wrong. Just… the conversation with her as Veronica felt more wrong. And what was I even supposed to say?

This whole thing was a mistake. I was so heavy swimming in my own thoughts, trying to make sense of it, that I didn’t even notice where I was until my coffee was nearly gone and my muffin was just crumbs, and I’d written and deleted a hundred different messages. I was ready to pull my hair out when the doorbell jingled, and I looked up absently and found the world coming to a stop at the sight of exactly what I’d come here hoping for and, at the same time, the last thing I was ever ready to see.

Veronica Preston was so beautiful, I didn’t know what to do with myself. She pushed in through the door with a matter-of-fact, don’t-get-in-my-way demeanor I wasn’t used to seeing from her, and she looked a little worn, like she hadn’t slept much, but even with that, she was radiant, wearing a long dark coat down to her thighs and her hair pulled up into a casual knot—everything about her screaming work mode. Still… doing the animations for whoever was on the project now? It made my chest ache, thinking about Veronica on communications with somebody else, a hot flare of jealousy even though that was the worst thing to feel.

I found myself staring as she got up to the counter and ordered, my heart pounding—I’d meant to text her, ask her to meet me here as a neutral ground, for her to make her case, but this was… I couldn’t make myself move, rooted to the spot staring with this aching sensation in my chest, torn between running away altogether and running into her arms and telling her I loved her and I wanted her, neither of which was exactly what I came here for. Oh, god. Why did my brain always shut down completely when she was around? She was so beautiful. I melted into the seat, my heart beating faster and faster, and I strained to listen to her low voice talking to the barista—I didn’t care what they were saying, just small talk, something about how much Veronica had been working here on her laptop lately, but I just wanted to hear Veronica’s voice again, silky-smooth and sweet like melted chocolate.

“Thanks, Jen,” Veronica said, taking her mug of latte in hand. That was her working beverage. When she just wanted to sit down and enjoy a coffee, she’d have a cappuccino, but when she wanted to get work in, she’d have a latte— I drink it slower if it’s a latte, she’d explained once when I’d asked, eyes sparkling like she knew it was a little silly but she didn’t care. And having coffee around for longer gets me through the unbearable prospect of doing labor.

I wanted that version of Veronica back, so desperately. And I was so rooted in those aching thoughts that I didn’t even register the logistics of the situation, because she turned away from the handoff plane, saw me at the table right behind her, and when her eyes met mine in a spark, the rest of the world—

Well, the rest of the world suddenly became very pressing, because she flinched so hard she sloshed half her coffee down her front. She didn’t seem to notice, even though everyone else in the café did.

“What—Kelcey—” She whitened. “I-I’m so sorry—I had no idea you were here—”

“Oh, god, Veronica, you just—” I gestured to her, my voice shaking. “Veronica, you’re burning yourself!”

“What?” She looked down, and she frowned. “Oh… oh yeah.”

“Are you okay?” I stood up, my face hot, and she looked up to meet my gaze again, stopping there like she was having some kind of religious experience just looking at me.

“I’m… I’m fine,” she said reverently. “I’m… I’m so sorry, I’ll… go,” she said, and before I could say anything to stop her, she knocked back the second half of the latte in one go, and she turned back to the doors.

“Veronica!” I fumbled around the table after her, but she moved too quickly, and I slipped—my boot came down on the squeal of coffee on the floor, and I fumbled against the handoff plane as Veronica raced out the doors, letting them swing shut behind her even as I called, “Oh my god, wait!”

The barista looked at me and back after her, and she said, “Veronica’s going through some stuff lately… you’ll have to be careful with her.”

Oh, god, I was that some stuff. My throat felt tight. “Has… has she?”

“Yeah, she’s been in here working nonstop on this project. Says she wants to make it good enough to get her client their job back? I don’t really get it.”

Dammit, this woman. What was she trying to pull? Was she still doing overtime trying to support my case even after I’d screwed it up and then told her to go and never talk to me again?

I looked at the barista. “Tell me that wasn’t extra-hot.”

“No, just… regular hot. At least she didn’t spill it on her laptop.”

“Did she not? I don’t know how she managed that.”

The barista gestured to where—I only just then clocked it, that Veronica’s laptop case was here on the handoff plane. “Mostly by forgetting it here.”

“Oh, god.” I put my hand on it—the solid weight of her phone in the front pocket, too. She’d really just ditched everything and run.

“I guess she’ll be back here soon enough…” the barista said, and I don’t know what got into me—I stood up taller, and I took the laptop case myself, sliding it towards me.

“I’ll bring it to her. I know her address.”

“Oh, would you?” she said with a radiant smile. “Thanks. You know, all those times coming in here and I never actually got your name.”

“Kelcey.”

Her face fell. “Oh… oh. The one she’s been stressed about.”

“Yeah… that’d be me.”

“I hear you threw her into a Christmas tree.”

I lost my confidence, flushing as I looked at her. “Uh—did she mention that?”

She laughed. “She said she didn’t realize you were that strong and that it was kind of attractive, but to never, under any circumstances, tell you she said that.”

Oh my god, that damn woman. She was always making fun of Lucy for how Anna “could punch her in the face and she’d thank her,” but here she was literally doing the same thing with me.

I was done overthinking this. I was going to give her a piece of my mind.

And her laptop back, because… well, that seemed important.