Page 38 of Bake the Town Red

Nothing calms the throbbing ache in my ribs. Nothing makes missing Dahlia any less agonizing.

My eyes burn. I scrub them once, twice until my vision clears. Get up and out of the chair. After a quick shower, I throw on a pair of jeans and a dark T-shirt. I have a light dinner.

And it’s still early. Early, as in Sweet DeNights is still open.

I sprawl out on my couch. Stare up at the ceiling.

Yesterday, I ached for Dahlia. My bones hurt. That pain led me to her shop, where I saw her with the older lady.

My fucking heart was destroyed at the sight. Memories of her spending afternoons at our place flashed before my eyes. Suffocated me. While I’d been her formal legal guardian, my grandma had taken on the role of being Dahlia’s grandmother.

On the long days Dahlia had waited for her brother to show up, she visited us. Did her homework in our living room. Helped Grandma around the kitchen. Read the newspaper to her or ask her for her opinion about the cupcakes she baked.

Dahlia had looked at my grandma the same way she looked at the old lady at the shop yesterday.

But my grandma isn’t here anymore. She’s gone.

I was there to see her dead body in our apartment. My grandma’s intestines sprawled on the floor. Slipping between Dahlia’s fingers, who hugged her. Who tried to push them back in.

Guilt and shame and pain barreled into me like a freight train. A punch to the gut would be too delicate of a description of what I experienced.

Then to imagine it might happen to Dahlia if I stayed…

I couldn’t stay at the bakery a second later. I turned around and speeded in the direction of home. Bumped into a guy’s shoulder on the way. Probably another target.

The distance didn’t help. Didn’t make me miss her any less.

It never does.

My arms need to hug her. My heart demands to leave my lonely, stubborn chest and find its mate.

No.

We’re better off apart.

We are.

So why am I in my boots? In my hoodie? Heading downtown by foot?

To see her. I have to see her.

And then what? Touch her. Have my hands on her. Fingers digging into her neck, arms, waist. Fuck. It’s wrong. It’ll put her life in danger.

I don’t want to go to her. Ihaveto go to her.

I walk through the alley that’d lead me to Sweet DeNights. At the end of it, I have a view of her storefront. I don’t step into the street, don’t expose myself under the streetlamp. I remain where I am, hidden in the shadows.

My hands are deep in the pockets of my hoodie. My thoughts are with the sweet psycho killer that isn’t mine and yet is absolutely, completely mine.

Dahlia’s barely visible in the dim light inside the shop. I see her still, behind the short line of people.

I’d recognize her in a crowd of a million faces. They could all be blonde. All be the same height. Same weight. Same everything.

I’d spot Dahlia and yank her into my arms in a heartbeat.

My phone says it’s seven forty-five.

The line of four people turns to three. They know better. She almost always runs out of cupcakes by this time.

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