I’m okay, I texted back. How was your date?
Three fire emojis popped up in response, followed by an eggplant and . . . were those water droplets? Oh, dear. I had no answer for that.
When April said she was going to take care of me, she meant it. She shuttled Caitlin back and forth from Faire all weekend so I wouldn’t have to go anywhere near it. She fed me wine in the evenings in the hopes I would get sleepy, but the alcohol only made me giggly, then morose. But I was so thankful she was there, and it would have been a much, much worse weekend without her.
I was almost glad to go back to the bookstore on Tuesday. Rip off the Band-Aid, stand on that same sidewalk where I’d told Simon I didn’t want to see him anymore. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door to the shop. This was my new life, after all. Just another Tuesday morning. It was an elaborate lie I told myself.
Chris was due in later that morning, and I couldn’t stand the wait. It had to be common knowledge by now that Simon and I had broken up; people had found out we’d gotten together quickly enough, after all. What was she going to say? I was still the newcomer. All my friends here had been Simon’s friends first. Had I lost not only my burgeoning relationship with Simon, but my new sense of community? Not to mention my new job?
I busied myself by hauling out the stepladder and dusting the tops of the bookshelves, and when the bell over the door chimed and Chris walked in, my heart climbed into my throat. Moment of truth time. I tossed down the dust rag and hopped to the floor. For a moment we looked at each other, then she stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug.
“Are you all right?”
I let my forehead fall on her shoulder as I hugged her back. “I think so.” I straightened up and swiped at the tears stinging my eyes. I must have stirred up a lot of dust. “I take it word got around?”
Her nod was almost a shrug. “It was an interesting weekend.” She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t ask her to. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m fine. It’s not like we were together very long.” My voice and my expression were light, casual even. I tried my best not to reveal that my heart was broken. “It was just a summer thing. A half-of-the-summer thing. We didn’t work out. That’s all.” The words hurt to say out loud, as though there was a fist around my heart and each sentence made it clench tighter and tighter.
Chris looked at me like she knew I was lying, but thankfully she didn’t call me on it. “You’re really not coming back to Faire?”
“No. I can’t . . .” I couldn’t face Simon in his Captain Blackthorne persona. I couldn’t pretend to be Emma, the wench in love with a pirate. I couldn’t cheer on a chess match or let him kiss my hand with promises in his eyes, especially now that I knew for certain those promises weren’t real. “I can’t,” I said again.
She gave my hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
I tried to keep that in mind all week as I kept myself busy and tried not to think about Simon. He certainly did his part; he didn’t stop by the bookstore once, and my phone was silent when it came to his number. With no more Faire for me and Simon vanishing into thin air, it was like that part of the summer had never happened. I half expected to snap awake at any moment from a fever dream caused by binge-watching Shakespeare adaptations, back in my old apartment in Boston.
Chris was very kind and didn’t bring up the crash and burn of my love life after that first morning, and for the most part I followed along. But something in the back of my mind kept bothering me, and by Thursday morning it wouldn’t let me go. I had to say something.
“Are you still seeing Simon next week?” His name almost hurt to say out loud, but I pushed past it. “To talk about Faire next year?”
“That’s the plan.” Her face was so full of sympathy I had to turn away from her, look down at the armload of books I carried. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask him to drop by the store. I know you can’t avoid him forever in a town this size, but I’m not going to . . .”
“No.” I waved a hand. “That’s fine. I mean, yes, thank you, I can’t . . .” My breath started to shudder, and how long was I going to cry about this? I shoved the emotion down. “That’s not why I was asking.” I put down the books. I was going to shelve them, but multitasking was off the menu today. “Look, when you talk to him, about next year. He needs help.”
Her brow furrowed. “Well, of course he needs help. That’s why I help him plan . . .”
“More than that,” I said. “I know he loves doing this Faire. It’s his highest priority.” Boy, did I ever know that. “But sometimes I think . . . Chris, I think he’s taking on too much. He’s drowning in it.”
“What?” She looked startled for a second, then shook her head. “No, he’s fine. Faire’s his thing. He’s always a little burned out at the end of the summer.”
“Faire isn’t his thing. It was Sean’s thing, and now Simon has to do it.” My heart was pounding hard now. I felt like I was bringing up something I had no right to discuss. Chris had known Simon for years. Decades, even. I’d known him for a handful of months. But all I could see were Simon’s eyes. How tired they’d looked. How trapped. If I truly was the only person who saw it, I needed to say something. “He’s doing it the way Sean did it because he doesn’t know what else to do. And he can’t move on. He’ll keep doing this Faire till he drops, and he’ll be nothing more than Sean’s little brother forever, carrying on what Sean wanted. But he needs to be his own person with his own life.” I ran out of nerve and shrugged. “I don’t know. I could be wrong. You probably know him better than I do. Just . . . could you ask him? Make sure he’s really okay?”
Chris looked at me carefully, and I waited for her to tell me that it was none of my business. I had broken up with Simon; what right did I have to tell her how he felt? But instead she nodded, her face as kind as ever. “Of course. I’ll talk to him, don’t worry.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the books and went back to work, ignoring the tears that had dropped to my cheeks. I’d said what I needed to say. Maybe Simon and I weren’t meant to be, but if saying something to Chris could help him in some way, it was worth it. Fixing things was what I did, after all.
* * *
• • •
A little after noon on Friday the bell over the door chimed, and I was surprised to see Stacey walk in, wearing her blue work scrubs and carrying a bag from the deli down the street.
“You haven’t eaten, have you?”