Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Paisley

Cold day today. Even with the windows shut, it was an older building, and the cold seeped in from where the skies were gray and the trees were well through losing their leaves. Moody cloud cover had been threatening rain all day, but I’d been up in the bakery since four this morning and it had never made good on its promise. Just making me expect something and then not following through.

I shot off a text to Oliver, helping him coordinate the new endcap display at the bookstore, and I looked up to where Anders was picking out his mini-cupcake from the rack. I pushed the phone away, stepping up to the register, and I put on a smile.

“Morning,” I said, ringing him up before he even got to the register. He had a heavy expression on his face.

“Morning, Paisley.” I didn’t have to tell him the price—he handed over a crisp dollar and two quarters, and I put it in the drawer.

“How’s Nancy?”

He sighed. “Not feeling too well lately.”

“Oh.” I pursed my lips. “Something happen?”

He shrugged helplessly. “We’re old, Paisley. We don’t need a reason to suddenly feel badly. And it’s a bit scarier when it’s us curmudgeonly old folks it’s happening to.”

It wasn’t like Anders and Nancy hadn’t had the occasional health issue since I’d gotten here—nothing that a little bit of extra rest couldn’t fix, some regular checkups, the occasional house call, me or Emberlynn bringing over dinner and spending time with them, and sometimes Nancy coming in to pick up her own cupcake instead—but his expression wasn’t usually this serious. I focused on boxing up his cupcake.

He really needed to just get a reusable container. He could probably have built a castle out of the used ones by now.

“I hope she’ll be okay,” I said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”

He shook his head, taking the box. “Don’t you worry yourself about it, Paisley. You stress yourself enough these days. It’s bad for your own health, you know. You’ll land in the hospital again.”

Well, maybe if I did, then Harper would come back again. Maybe if I worked a little harder, went a little further, broke myself a little more, she’d come back again. Come break my heart again.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can send Emberlynn to do, then.”

That got a little laugh out of him, smiling softly as he stepped away from the counter. “You know, it’s good to see Bayview has youth like you in it. You and Emberlynn, Aria, Annabel, everyone.”

One less person than I wanted it to have. But I wasn’t saying that. Speaking aloud about her was taboo these last few weeks since she’d disappeared again with only a letter left behind, as if saying anything about her might summon back the dull, aching pain I’d had after I’d woken up alone and wandered like an abandoned child through the house calling her name.

Was the sex that bad? Ugh.

“See if Nancy says the same thing,” I said, putting on a smile. “I’ll bet she has some complaints about us youth.”

“Ah, c’mon. You know she loves you, no matter how much she complains.” He held up the box in a wave. “See you tomorrow, Paisley.”

“See you tomorrow.” I was back to the text with Oliver as soon as he was out the door, checking over the pictures he sent, and I typed up suggestions for it while I headed out onto the floor and tidied up the shelves. Rung up Krystal for her cinnamon chip muffins and headed into the back to finish up the next round of baking, rotating racks in and out of the ovens, getting the fresh pies out to cool, getting the cookies out into their clamshells for the floor. Just carrying on through the little gestures, the little motions, all just for something to focus on, and when I got back to the floor, I scowled at the sight of Emberlynn there at the counter with a multigrain loaf.

She was in late. I hated knowing what that meant.

“Sorry, we’re closed to huge losers,” I said, walking past her and getting the huge stack of cookie clamshells onto the shelves.

“I just saw Millie Cooke walk out of here this morning with arms loaded, and I know how you feel about her.”

“Yeah, she was unbearable. Just the worst. I decided to enact the policy in the wake of her being in here.”

“You know, just because she beats you at card games…”

I finished getting the last of the cookies on the shelf, walking back around to ring up Emberlynn’s order. “Enough talk of her. Makes me gag. Ugh. Well, I didn’t put up the no-losers sign in the window yet, so I guess you get in on a technicality. What’re you doing for dinner?”

“That pumpkin sage soup you love. Aria leaked the family recipe to me, and I’m feeding you tonight.”

I sighed. I didn’t like being read as so miserable that I couldn’t cook for myself, or the way Emberlynn had fussed over me eating ever since I got hospitalized. “I can feed myself.”

She shoved a hand in her pocket, looking away. “Do you know how much it worries me when you refuse free food?”

“I’m not refusing free food, I’m going to eat it. I’m objecting to being patronized.”

“We cook for each other all the time. You’re just touchy about it now.”

“Yeah, well, nyeh-nyeh. Just the bread?”

“Just the bread.”

I bagged the bread, taking her card and ringing her up. “Hear back from your label manager friend yet? What was his name, Edgar?”

“Uh. Do you mean Julie?”

“Yeah, her. You hear back yet?”

She looked away. “Yeah, considering me for the next album… last one went well, but she likes Philip, so after how much he shit-talked me last time, it’s kind of up in the air.”

“This label is nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Makes me wonder why I get caught up in this stuff.”

An awkward silence settled over both of us. I tore her receipt once it finished printing, tossed it in the trash can, and I handed the bag over without a word. She took it, without a word.

When someone pushed out through the door behind her, she jolted back to the present and put on a thin smile.

“I’m okay, though. Really. I conquered my demons getting things done with them after all, and I don’t really care if they don’t want me back.”

“Sounds like sour grapes to me, but what does little old Paisley know?”

“How to stick her nose into everything.”

I felt a smile come on. “Too true. Any update on your family?”

“Yup. Mom’s arriving on the Monday before Thanksgiving, and what’s more, my sister’s apparently getting that whole week off, so she’s coming by too. Hallelujah.”

“Hey. Promise is still on to hang out at your place and scare them into behaving.”

Even if that promise felt like it was another lifetime. Back at the festival, where I’d attended alongside Harper…

I couldn’t think about her right now. But I stopped myself too late, because Emberlynn caught that look I must have had in my eyes. She softened.

“Are you okay?” she said, voice low. I looked away.

“I’m good. I’ve got work to do.”

“Aria and I worry about you. A lot.”

“Ew, gag.”

She reached over the counter and squeezed my arm. Blessedly, she didn’t pursue the subject any further. “I know you’re pulling a double shift with the bookstore, so we’ll have dinner later tonight. Come by at eight.”

What a sap. I tried to smile. “Trust me, I’m tempted to call off the entire shift, close the bookstore down altogether if it means I get soup.”

It was a transparent lie, but Emby pretended she believed it, which was pretty cool of her. She left with her bread in tow, and I went back through the motions, one step after another, just… living.

I wondered how long it was going to hurt like this. Did Harper coming back restart the clock and I’d lost those six months’ progress in healing?

And what if I didn’t want to heal?

I finished up at the bakery, closing the store, spent the next forty-five minutes cleaning up and preparing for next morning’s open. Went upstairs, took a shower, got changed, and I headed down the short walk to the bookstore, down the steps and into the plaza where I pushed in through the old door that jingled overhead and waved to Oliver behind the counter, ringing up a line of orders. Did the inventory count while he cleared out his line, and I took over the front, letting him go.

“Have fun with your kayaking,” I said, and he stopped, looking back over the register.

“Thanks, Pais. That’s next week, though.”

Right. Time was all the same to me. “Okay, have fun with sitting at home alone or whatever you do, now scoot.”

I was halfway through a numbingly quiet shift—everybody was waiting for Black Friday sales at the end of the month, so most of my shift I had nothing to do but stand there and think, which was my least favorite part of every day. I was in the middle of tidying up the same display I’d already tidied twice this hour when the doorbell jingled, and I looked at where Kay came in with a cup of bubble tea. Matcha. What was once my favorite flavor was now as appetizing as dishwater.

“Hi, Pais,” she said.

“You’re coming to a bookstore? You mean you can read?”

She put a hand on her hip. “Is that any way to treat paying customers? I’m going to leave a scathing review of this place.”

“Looking for something?”

She beamed. “Yeah. You. Um… there was extra… matcha that was cleared to go at the end of today, so I whipped you up your favorite drink and brought it here. Just figured it was better than throwing it out.”

“When was the last time your matcha ran to the end of its shelf-life?”

She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Um, it happens sometimes…”

“Who told you to bring me a drink?”

“Nobody!”

I crossed my arms. She cracked.

“Okay, you can’t tell anyone I told you, but it was Emberlynn.”

How on earth did I know? I sighed. “I already ate a pastry this morning, so I don’t think I have room.”

She scrunched up her face. “It’s not just Emberlynn who’s worried about you. It’s all of us ever since—”

“I’ve got stuff to get to,” I said, turning around.

“Paisley, wait,” she said, fumbling over herself after me. “We’re just worried because ever since Harper—”

I stopped at the door to the back, turning back to her with my face burning, a hotness in my throat I wasn’t used to. “I don’t know what makes you think I want to talk about her.”

Kay paused, hanging there in front of the endcap display, eyes wide. “I just don’t think—”

“I don’t want any tea. If you’re not here to shop, I’ve got work to do.”

She winced. “I’m sorry—”

“Bye then,” I said, turning back to the door, pushing into the back. A pile of paperwork that needed doing. I sat down at the cluttered desk in front of it, staring down at the papers for what might have been hours, before I heard Kay’s footsteps solemnly leaving.

Funny. It had been Kay telling me I was free to be something new, something different. Now I was being something new, and it was snapping at Kay for trying to bring me something I liked when I wasn’t feeling well.

Funny how the universe worked.

I scrolled through my phone, through all the pictures, just looking at her face. Just looking at her.

I should have deleted them. That was part of healing, right? Needed to round up the pictures and delete them, needed to cart out all her things and trash them. But right now, it felt tantamount to cutting off my own arm.

She was so perfectly beautiful. I just hated how in every picture, there was that look in her eyes, like she wasn’t really there. Like it wasn’t really her.

I wasn’t the only one putting things on. Wasn’t the only one pretending to be something I wasn’t. And I realized too late.

The rest of the shift was excruciatingly long, but I handed it off to Hazel at seven—she’d only just started working here, so I was still just giving her half-shifts at closing, and I knew I looked awful when even Hazel barely spoke to me during the changeover—and I headed back up to my house. Got cleaned up, went over to Emberlynn’s for dinner, spent the whole time listening to Emberlynn and Aria talk, stirring my soup idly.

I’d used to love this soup. Maybe Emberlynn screwed up and that’s why it tasted like cardboard. I had to believe that.

I was early to bed after that. Woke up a quarter to four and dragged myself up despite everything in my body screaming for me to lie back down, curl up and rest. The pain, the exertion, was like a knife that cut through the haze in my head, and I needed all I could get.

The bakery. Early morning baking. Opening for the regular morning crew. Watching the sunrise through the tiny windows I had in the back, cracked to let in the biting cold against the sweltering heat of the bakery. Tidying the shopfloor after the first peak. Ringing up Emberlynn when she came in early for a baguette. Getting Gwen her rolls for a nice dinner tonight, ringing up a cake-for-two for Annabel saying Priscilla had been stressed out of her mind lately and needed a surprise, and Anders’s mini-cupcake. Asking after Nancy—still not doing well today, seeing the doctor. Emberlynn passed me an invite to a casual get-together at her place, and the tone in her message said she already knew I’d refuse.

I said no.

Closed up, cleaned up. Took over at the bookstore. A little busier today, thankfully. Kept me working steadily until close, and I went right back home, picked together a couple of things from the fridge I could get myself to eat, and then to bed.

Was I dreaming? The whole thing felt surreal, like images imposed over one another. A hazy, empty day led into another, and it was only in uncomfortable stabs of lucidity here and there that I saw myself. Kneading a bread dough by hand and stopping partway, looking up across the room at nothing. Cleaning the display case for the donuts after the afternoon rush had passed and stopping in the empty shop, looking at my faint reflection in the glass. Fixing books on a shelf in the bookstore that had been put back wrong, except I took one down and then questioned what the order was supposed to be and overthought it until I had no idea how it was supposed to work. Checking the register to make sure the count was right and getting the wrong number, doing it again and getting a different wrong number, doing it again and getting a different wrong number. Cleaning the bakery floor until I could see myself in the reflection. Scrubbing the counter and scrubbing the same spot over, and over, and over, and over, and…

The bell rang. Not the one on the door, but the one on the counter, while I was standing literally right there. I blinked. The bakery. I’d been in the middle of midday cleanup and zoned out. Priscilla stood on the other side of the counter, her finger hovering over the bell, giving me an inquisitive look.

“Oh, hi,” I said. “I was thinking about stuff. What’s up? Want a recommendation? I personally recommend the most expensive cake.”

She smiled softly. “I’m here to take you to a party.”

I blinked slowly. “This might blow your mind, but I’m, uh, I’m working.”

“Trust me. It’s been blowing my mind for months seeing you working so much.”

I looked away. Priscilla was not who I needed right now. “I’ve got stuff to be doing.”

“Mm-hm. It can wait.”

“I’m in the middle of my shift.”

“Not anymore, you’re not. Did you not notice I turned the sign to closed, turned down the lights…?”

I scowled up at the ceiling. How badly had I zoned out?

Only for like… the past week. Or several. God, Emberlynn’s family was visiting after the weekend, and I’d completely blanked.

“You can’t just close my bakery,” I said, and she smiled.

Ugh. I got what she was thinking. I scowled at her.

“Okay, look. I can close down the bakery when I know someone needs a break, but…”

She smiled. I groaned.

“Jeez, since when were you such a party fiend that you’re going to shut everything down to get me there?”

She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “I’m pretty sure Emberlynn and Aria put it on just to get a chance to talk to you, so… they were also putting out the word that you were closing early today.”

I got a sick feeling turning in my stomach. “I don’t need people gathering around me to patronize me, pat me on the shoulder—”

“I know. You need something a lot bigger than that, don’t you?”

I shot her a look. She smiled, softly, sweetly.

“It’s okay to need what you need, Paisley. The whole purpose of changing how you come across to the world isn’t to change your needs, it’s to make it more likely you’ll get those needs met.”

I raked my fingers back through my hair. “Kay really chatted to the whole town about my insecurities, didn’t she?”

She cleared her throat. “I mean, she tried to keep it a secret. But you know how it is… saying unprompted Paisley isn’t feeling any insecurities around how she fits into the world, so I don’t know anything about why she’s suddenly doing these kinds of things.”

“Remind me never to tell her anything again.” I sighed, leaning back against the wall behind the counter. Being forced out of my routine shook me out of the trance, and I wasn’t sure if I liked being out of it, but I was out of it now. “Is she at the party? I kind of owe her an apology…”

“She is. And I can promise you she doesn’t blame you.”

I looked out the window, watching the tree branches scrape on the glass. Priscilla followed my gaze, letting the silence steep before she spoke again.

“You’ve taken on quite the project, Paisley. It’s honestly impressive. So I wanted to ask if you… do you like the results?”

“Doesn’t matter.” The words tumbled out automatically.

She smiled. “You really are just like her, aren’t you?”

I scoffed. “We don’t talk about her.”

“Just think about her?”

“I’m done thinking about her.”

She didn’t say anything. I shifted, a heavy weight in my stomach, and I heard my voice come out smaller.

“I, um… I dunno. I’m kind of just on autopilot.”

“The same way you were before?”

“What? It’s nothing like that.” But I scrunched up my face, a nervous feeling turning in my stomach. Priscilla just smiled at me, and it was overwhelming before too long, and I looked away, back to the window. “This is the life that I designed.”

“So was the old one. And every day, in its own way. I think we’re all continually rediscovering ourselves. Isn’t that what life is? If you only wanted one static thing, one experience, read a book. Watch a movie. Isn’t the whole point of life this—to be able to change everything, do anything?”

I sighed. My head hurt.

“What’s the point of trading out one form of living life for other people for another?”

“I’m living life for me.”

“Are you? What do you want?”

“A custard tart.”

She gestured to the bakery. “They’re all around you. What do you want, Paisley? What’s—what’s that thing that makes your heart ache with want, that you can’t get enough of—what’s that thing you’re ashamed to tell other people how much you want because of how much you want it?”

“What do you think it is?” I snapped, not expecting the waver in my voice. I sank against the counter. “I… I want… to see Harper again. I just… I miss her… and I don’t know what I did wrong to make her keep… to keep giving up. On me. On us. I don’t know what I did wrong. What else was I supposed to do?”

I was crying now, undignified and embarrassing as it was. Priscilla didn’t hesitate—she came around the counter, putting an arm around me, and she pulled me into a hug, and I cried on her shoulder, letting myself be the ugly, humiliating mess I hadn’t let myself be with anyone since…

I sniffled, trying to pull it all back in. “Ugh, I’m a disaster—”

“Shh.” She patted me on the back. “C’mon. Be a disaster. Cry it out.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Oh, yeah, you do.”

I sniffled. “I do,” I said, and I cried on her a while longer still, no idea what time it was anymore or where we even were, just sobbing while I gripped my hands into fists against her back, gritting my teeth and forcing in shaky breaths.

“Grief is unbearable,” she whispered. “The least you can do for yourself is not try to bear it alone.”

“Grief.” I snorted, pulling back and turning away, leaning against the counter feeling drunk. “I’m not the one grieving.”

She softened. “I know Harper was carrying such a huge burden… like she was living her whole life just for someone who wasn’t even there anymore.”

“It’s awful. But what’s the point in continuing to punish yourself—and everyone around you—for… for…” I gestured vaguely at the air, but something panged in my chest. “It doesn’t even… make any sense,” I said, quietly.

“I know it’s not—”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said again. “Why would Lindsay have gone driving? She was too young.”

Priscilla blinked. “Er… what?”

It reached me like an ocean of sadness, just drifting, floating lost in it, and I stared out the window. “Ugh… she’s always been so stubborn.”

“Well, you are one to talk…”

I let out a long sigh. “Hey, Prissy.”

“Ew. Don’t call me that.”

“What would you do in my position?”

“Call me by my actual name, first of all.”

“Okay, Priscilla Sorenson. What would you do in my position?”

She softened into a smile. “Why are you asking me? You already know.”

Yeah. That was a good question. “Let’s go to the party,” I said. “Although… is the bubble tea place still open or did you close them down too? I want to get matcha.”