“Okay,” I say and slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “If that’s what you need, that’s what I’ll give you.”
“Ty, I’m so—” she whispers, but I shake my head and hold out a hand.
“Rachel, you don’t owe me an apology. You don’t owe me anything, actually.”
“Don’t hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. Rachel Rose taught me how to love. I place one last soft kiss to the apple of her cheek, and then…I walk away.
Back to my car and back to the city, back into the nothingness of life without her.
Everyone acts like love is such a great fucking thing, but they never want to talk about what happens when love isn’t returned. What happens when you want to give someone your heart, your everything, and they don’t want it?
What happens then, huh? Fucking misery. That’s what happens.
Ty Winslow doesn’t get the girl in the end. Cleo was wrong, and the fortune dog is officially dead.
Tuesday, March 12th
Rachel
I should be in class, but I can’t bring myself to step foot on campus. At least, not today.
Not after my near cross-country escape, buckets of tears, and breaking the heart of the one guy I didn’t want to break.
I did manage to send my two professors an email, letting them know that I wouldn’t be in attendance today, and while it’s not good to miss out on any class when you’re at the graduate level, I needed a mental health day.
Surely anyone would understand yesterday’s whirlwind was too much to process in a single night.
I clear my throat, push myself out of my thoughts with a little shake of my head, and make myself concentrate on taking a few photos for Little Rose Bakeshop’s Instagram page.
A simple request from my sister, and one that normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal but feels difficult as hell.
I spent several years taking photos like this and getting paid for it. Yet here I am, a woman who apparently can’t stage a fucking Instagram photo because she’s an utter mess.
Get it together, my mind whispers, and this time, I actually listen.
I arrange several of Lou’s famous lemon meringue cupcakes on a cheery yellow plate and snap some pics. Every few shots, I adjust the lighting and the angle, until I eventually capture the kinds of images that would make any cupcake lover salivate.
But before I can load the new photos on to my laptop for a quick edit, my sister’s voice fills my ears, coming from somewhere in the front of the bakery.
“Rachel!”
“What?”
“Delivery!”
I walk toward the doors behind me, the ones that lead to the dock where all the truckers drop off ingredients and supplies, but when I swing them open, there’s nothing. No one. Not a truck or a delivery in sight.
“There’s no delivery!” I yell over my shoulder, and she’s quick to respond.
“Yes, there is, and it’s for you!”
What is she talking about?
Instead of continuing our shouting match through the bakery, I walk toward the front, swinging open the divider door with a hard push. It crashes against the wall, and Lydia glares at me from her perch behind the register.
“Easy on the muscles, John Cena.”
I put a hand to my hip. “There’s no delivery at the back.”
“I know,” she answers and grabs a brown-paper-wrapped box from the shelf beneath the register. “This is the delivery I was talking about.”
I take it from her hands and stare down at it with a furrow of my brow. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay…?” I look up to meet her eyes. “But where did it come from?”
“A messenger dropped it off this morning.” She shrugs, slides open the glass cabinet, and starts to move sugar cookies from a tray to the inside display.
“They dropped it off this morning, and you’re just telling me now?”
“It’s been a busy morning, Rach,” she explains, her voice tinged with frustration, and keeps focused on her cookie task. “Did you get the photos done?”
Apparently, I’m not the only one on edge today.
“Just need to make a few edits, but yes, boss.”
“Okay. Can you email those to me? I’d like to post one later this evening.”
“Yeah. No problem,” I answer, waiting for further instruction. When none comes, I prompt her myself. “Do you…uh…need anything else?”
“Nope!” she calls over her shoulder. “It’s all good in the bakery hood!”
Is it just me, or is she acting really flipping weird? Whatever. I don’t have the time or the emotional capacity right now.
I spin on my heel and head toward the back, the package still clutched between my fingers. I almost get back to photo edits, but my curiosity over the mystery box wins out.
I set the package on the stainless-steel countertop and snag an unused knife from one of the kitchen drawers. One delicate slice through the line of tape at the center, and two of the cardboard flaps pop open.