Page 11 of Again, In Autumn

“Sure,” she understands softly, coming to sit beside me.

I close my eyes against those memories flooding back. “I was so young. I wanted to do so many things.”

“Like…”

“Open a bakery, like mom. I wanted to live in the city, not in the suburban outskirts. I wanted to learn a new language and be brave and adventurous.”

I open my eyes. “Adam wanted to make a living as a musician. He wanted to travel. To write music and meet people and impact the world with all his eco-friendly mumbo jumbo.”

“And?” she prompts.

“He did all of that. He did all of the things he said he would do, and I didn’t do any of the things I said I would.”

Heddy thinks for a moment in this square, quiet room. Her hand plasters atop mine, thumb running back and forth, the comfort of it pinching my nose. A lump forms in my stomach.

I wish my mother could see how Heddy stepped up for us. She could never replace our mom, but in the absence, Heddy became more than just her best friend. In the dark hole of losing a mother, we gained a guardian and a confidant, and the math added up to a gift.

She begins, “What about the Instagram cookie competition thing?”

My cheeks flare with embarrassment. “They didn’t pick me. I didn’t get in.”

“They probably had a million applicants, Vienna. I’ve seen your cookies and I’ve tasted your baking. You’re talented.”

“Not enough.”

“Just because it didn’t work out once or twice or twenty times, doesn’t mean that it won’t work out in the end. That’s only if you don’t give up. This is the first time you’ve put yourself out there with your baking.”

I sigh and unclip my hair, shaking it out. “I’m not professionally trained.”

“Bullshit,” she spits. It’s off-putting in this calm, spiritual room.

“Don’t let the sage hear you use that kind of language.”

She says, “You spent years working at that bakery during high school, and that one in Athens. Ingrid propped you up next to her and never talked down to you. I had never seen a five-year-old hold a knife like that and you’ve still got all your fingers. You’ve been baking your whole life.”

I insist, “I’m not professionally trained. There’s a difference.”

“Neither are the people on The Great British Baking Show,” she scoffs.

“Well, I wouldn’t be able to get into that competition either!”

I exhale. It’s easier to not try than to allow yourself to feel stupid and small and defeatist, which is why I don’t often put myself in situations where I get rejected.

Heddy twirls a chunk of my hair in her hand. “Then go to culinary school if that’s why you want. And just because it didn’t work out with one boy when you were a teenager, doesn’t mean that you need to give up on all those dreams you had back then.”

My jaw clenches. I cast her a sidelong glance. “What if it could have worked out with him?”

She drops her hand.

We don’t talk about Adam. We don’t talk about that summer, and she’s never pressured me into going back to the house, not even when Francesca demands to know why I won’t visit anymore. I blamed my father for turning my head when he stopped Adam and me from getting married, but Heddy stood beside him, spinning my dad’s wheels.

You’re too young.

You don’t know him.

He’s some loser who thinks he’s going to win a Grammy one day. It’s a pipe dream. You’re going to end up poor and pregnant and back on one of our doorsteps.

“I had my reasons,” she says simply. “I won’t apologize for them. I didn’t then, and I won’t now.”

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