Page 97 of Full Circle

PAIN…SO MUCH PAIN

CELESTE

Rock bottom should at least come with complimentary ice cream. If you’re gonna find yourself in the gutter, the least the Universe could do was give you a sweet to make you feel better.

The look on Wesley’s face as he left haunted me. Getting hit by a semi might have caused less damage because while the body can physically heal, your heart never fully recovers. That was a lesson I had learned the hardest way possible and now here I was inflicting the same pain on another person.

Shame.

Regret.

Those were the only two thoughts on my mind as I slowly returned to the front of The Comfy Cushion. Jesse eyed me sadly as though he knew something was up, and the fellas from the auto shop wouldn’t make eye contact with me as they shoved a twenty dollar bill in my hand. I moved on autopilot through the rest of my morning, agonizing over the best way to approach the situation. Would it be better to give Wes his space? Should I force him to talk to me?

And worse—what could I do about Iris? If she was able to come to the restaurant after school, she would have a million questions after the bizarre episode she witnessed this morning, and while I would love to tell her everything, I was already skating on cracked ice with Desiree. I didn’t want to challenge her any further.

However, there was also Wes to contend with. He had obviously met Iris and formed enough of an impression on her that she trusted him enough to come here with him. She mentioned before that he was going to meet her at the gym in the mornings so she could practice dance in the fitness classroom. How could I prevent him from saying something to her? It would get even uglier if I asked him not to speak to her because of Desiree. He always hated my stepmother.

As if I spoke her into existence, Desiree stormed in wearing a tight black dress and large sunglasses. She whipped them off her face with a smirk, scanning the now empty dining room in triumph.

“Still no customers,” she tsked. “Hardly seems fair letting poor Mr. Madden buy the place. He’s clearly getting ripped off.”

“If that was the case, there’s no benefit to buying it in the first place,” I countered, surprising myself. I always tried to bite my tongue around Desiree.

Except I was sick of doing that. My mama raised me to be kind, but she also raised me to be fair. It had become second nature for me to take everything lying down, and I had become a version of myself that I didn’t recognize anymore. Maybe it was seeing Wesley again as a reminder of who I used to be. Maybe the imminent threat of losing my daughter and my parents’ legacy all at once was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe I was just too exhausted to deal with yet another go round. But it was time for things to start changing.

“If you’re here for the recipe book, you’re not getting it,” I stated flatly.

Her eyes flashed.

“Over my dead body will my mama’s words make that devil man more money,” I added. The conviction made my voice sound a lot surer than I felt. Desiree wasn’t going to back down.

So I wouldn’t either.

She gave me a menacing smile that made my veins turn to ice. “Oh, didn’t I mention? He’s going to buy the house and all our land, too. Excuse me—my land,” she clarified.

Our house and the six acres beyond had been in the Hendricks family for over a hundred years. We even had a cemetery further back on the property with relatives buried during the Civil War. And now Desiree was going to throw it all away? I never understood why she married Daddy in the first place, but to squander our family’s land was downright cruel.

“Madden Enterprises needs a new warehouse location and it turns out, we are the perfect spot for it,” Desiree continued. “However, he’s willing to let the house remain so long as you provide those recipes.”

It was a fool’s bargain; nothing to gain and everything to lose. Having the house there would hardly matter when our backyard became a parking lot for whatever industrial monstrosity Mr. Madden built. A hatred stronger than I had ever known filled my chest. I never considered myself a violent person—Wesley was the hothead, not me—but now I could finally understand why words fail and fists spoke.

“I’m not giving you her recipes,” I repeated firmly.

Desiree’s face contorted in fury. “Then I suggest you make peace with the fact that you’ll never see your daughter again! You’re no longer welcome in my home!”

She stormed out of the restaurant, letting the door clatter loudly behind her. All of the adrenaline left my body the moment she stalked from view and I sank to the floor, shaking uncontrollably. A sob tore from my throat, then another, and another.

“Yo…I’m gonna call Marla,” Jesse said nervously as he peered around from the kitchen.

He could call the Pope for all I cared. Everything was spiraling out of control, and I felt the darkness taking hold again, a darkness I thought I escaped after Iris was born.

But I hadn’t really escaped it, I just built a small glass cage around my mind to preserve what was left of it. And that’s the thing about glass—it shatters. After the fallout with Wesley and the desperate ultimatum from Desiree, my cage was pulverized. All the things I loved were being taken from me and there was no way out.

“Hey now, darlin’,” Marla hushed me. I had no idea when she arrived or where Jesse went, but as she wrapped her arms around me, tears obscured my vision and a caterwauling wail broke free. Both of our bodies trembled from my pain.

“Here,” I vaguely heard her say. “Take my phone and call Wesley.”

“No no no no no!” Impossible as it seemed, I cried harder.

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