“No idea,” I said honestly.
“Same. My parents don’t like that. They want to map out my future like they did for Park. But I kind of like not having a destination in mind. It’s like whatever happens, happens. As long as it’s not in Crestmont,” she added, bumping her shoulder against mine.
“Agreed.”
When we walked into the bakery, my mom was standing behind the counter, handing a box to a customer. The place was busier than usual. Almost all the tables were full and there was an actual line that started at the counter and went halfway through the store.
My mom’s face lit up when she spotted the two of us. “Becca!” she called, waving her hands over her head like she was guiding an airplane for landing.
I went to the front of the line, ignoring the dirty looks from one woman who thought I was cutting in. “Why is it so busy? Did those flyers catch on?”
“I wish. A bus broke down off the highway,” she explained. “Long story, but now all of these people are stuck here. And they’re starving. Can you handle the cash register? I need to help Cassandra in the back.”
I looked at the line of customers waiting. My mom was right. They looked exhausted and hungry, like they’d jump over the counter any second.
“Becca?” my mom asked again, holding out her apron.
“I’ll cover cash. Go help in the back.”
“I can help too,” Jenny added.
My mom looked like she was about to hug her. “Stay here with Becca and help with the line,” she said before running off into the back. I quickly put the apron on and got set up behind the counter.
I turned to Jenny, handed her a spare apron. “I’ll take the orders, you prepare them. There’s tongs and boxes behind you. Good?”
She nodded. We faced the line together.
“Next!” I called.
An hour later the line was gone, there were empty cupcake wrappers littering the floor, and half the tables were either missing a chair or had too many extra ones. Cassie was sitting down in one, looking like she’d just run a marathon. We all looked that way.
The door to the bakery opened and we all groaned.
“Welcome to—” I began before Jenny cut me off.
“That’s my brother,” she said, taking off her apron and hanging it on the hook on the wall. I looked at the guy standing in the doorway—curly black hair, dark skin, dressed in slacks and a button-up. He looked different than my vague memory of him.
“Thank you for your help, Jennifer,” my mom said, giving her a quick hug.
“Anytime, Ms. Hart. I’ll see you at school, Becca.” She walked over to her brother and the two of them left without another word.
“That’s Parker?” Cassie gawked, pressing her face into the window and watching them leave. “He looks so different from high school.”
The bell chimed again a few minutes later. A family walked in with two children. I took their order, handed them their food, and they took a seat at the table beside the window.
I watched them eat. The kids had strawberry jelly smeared all over their faces and their mother kept leaning across the table with a napkin to wipe it off. The dad was sitting back in his chair, watching the three of them with a smile on his face. The sugar-packet tower the little boy built tipped over and he started to cry. The mom closed her eyes, like she really needed a break from crying, before her husband reached across the table and started to rebuild the tower. The little boy stopped crying.
It was all so normal. Taking your children to a bakery in town and building towers out of sugar. And even though one of them looked exhausted and the other was crying, the controlled sense of chaos was wrapped in a thin veil of love.
I looked at Cassie, sweeping the floors with half her hair sticking out from her ponytail.
I turned to the window into the back room and saw my mom kneading dough at the counter, flour on her cheeks. She glanced up, spotted me, and smiled.
I looked back at the family and realized not everything had to be conventional. Life didn’t have to fit into a four-sided box that was neat and tidy. It was okay if the box had three sides or the fourth one was hanging on with duct tape. It was okay if the corners were dented and if there was a big red FRAGILE sticker on top.
It was all okay.
I took off my apron and placed it on the counter. “Mom,” I called, running into the back. “Can you and Cass close tonight? I have something I need to do.”
She looked up from the dough. “Of course. Where are you—”
“Thanks!”
There was all this anticipation building up inside me. I felt great. Grand. Energized. Larger than life. I grabbed my coat and ran out the front door before Cassie even looked up from the broom. I was running down the street, my feet following that familiar path they’d walked in secret for too long now. Not anymore. There were no more secrets. After today, there’d be no more FRAGILE sticker on this box.
I ran past the bookstore. Past the church. Past the intersection that led home. I ran and ran and ran until I was standing on his street. I hunched over, hands on my knees, caught my breath, then ran again. I had to keep moving. If I stopped to think, I might turn back around and let another five years pass by. Not anymore. I was tired of having one foot stuck in the past when I was trying to move into the future.
I had let myself fall for Brett. I didn’t hide those feelings down inside me anymore. I shoveled them up and brought them into the light. But there was still a little darkness buried in some corner within me. There were still questions lingering that I had been too scared to say out loud.
I wasn’t scared anymore.
I ran to my dad’s house, up the driveway, and knocked on the door. My heart was beating too fast. Unnaturally fast. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think and then the door was opening and his wife was standing there. There was a baby girl squirming around in her arms.
“Becca,” she said. “You’re back.”
She knew who I was. All this time.
“Is my dad home?” I asked.
“I’m Maeve,” she said, holding out her hand. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”
“My dad—”
“Is probably in his office, nose stuck in a book. I’ll go get him.”
I felt sick, nauseated as she walked down the hall. I told my brain to ignore the book comment but it was all I could focus on. It was so weird that there was this person, this huge part of who I was, living a few streets down from me. He’d felt so far away all these years when he was right here, reading and laughing and having children and starting over.
I almost turned around. I almost ran back down the driveway, but I couldn’t run forever. I had to do this. For myself and for my mom. For Brett. For us. For the future I wanted to have and the person I wanted to be in it.
Footsteps from down the hallway pulled me back to the door, to the person now walking toward me. I had seen him from afar all those days I watched from down the street. But this—this was different. This was real. There were no more separate lives. It was a full-blown collision.
Now I could see the gray strands of hair interspersed with the brown. I could see the lines wrinkling the corners of his eyes and the hand with that shiny new wedding band. I had never met such a familiar stranger.