Page 41 of You Cake My Breath Away

Okay, that last one is a lie. I’m not going to try with Mom and Dad. Bite me. They deserve every bit of my contempt, and if you don’t like it then you should convince God to rewind time, so your dumb ass doesn’t get yourself killed. I gotta run. But just know that I’m going to make you proud.

-Arch

Chapter twenty-two

Tilly

I’m a coward.

I couldn’t go back into the bakery and pretend like nothing happened. I’ve been sitting inside Rosie’s cafe for an hour trying to convince myself I wasn’t upset by Deidre’s appearance, or that my heart didn’t break a little bit when I imagined him embracing her after I left.

I’m a married woman.

Or, I was.

None of the therapy groups I went to after Jessie died covered the part of grief where your heart starts to beat again. They didn’t tell me it’d hurt like a broken-down machine coming back to life, the cogs and gears rusted over, whining as they shift back into motion.

If this is what moving on without the person I thought I’d have forever with feels like, I don’t want it. It’s like I have the flu; my skin is constantly feverish, muscles achy from being so tense, and my stomach is on a carousel, spinning too fast.

“Want another?” Violet stops by the table, jolting me from my self-loathing.

I’m on a pathway that’s splitting. I can go back to the bakery and pretend like nothing happened and get back to work, or I can call Shantel for some emergency girl time and text Archer an excuse.

Fear wins out and my fingers swiftly move across the screen typing out a message to my sister-in-law.

“No, thank you.” I rise from the booth and pitch my half empty cup into the trash, stopping a moment to leave a tip in the jar.

I flip through the radio, trying to find something to take my mind off what I’m driving away from. Archer texted back that he hoped I’d get some rest and feel better and that he’d finish up the wall today so we could start setting up the front of the bakery.

His kindness creates another hole in my armor and reignites my reasoning for getting away from him. The more I’m around him and the nicer he is to me, the harder it is to fight the attraction.

“Hey girl hey,” Shantel chimes when I arrive at the salon.

She’s mid-way through shaving the side of an elderly lady's hair. The woman is tattooed and has purple streaks going through her braided hair. She’s everything I hope I’ll be when I grow up.

“Hey.” I sit in the empty stylist’s seat beside Shantel’s area.

“Why the long face?” the elderly woman asks. “Rough day?”

I snort. “You could say that.”

Shantel’s eyes narrow, pinning me to the chair and wrapping themselves around me like zip ties. “What happened with Archer?”

I cock my head, eyes darting to the woman she’s trimming. “Nothing.”

“I presume you’re Tilly,” the woman says.

My mouth pops open, eyes burning a hole into the side of Shantel’s face. Unbothered, she shrugs. “She was here last time he came in bitching about me threatening to tell you about the bakery.”

“That man is one fine hunk of real estate.” She fans a hand in front of her face. “If only I was forty years younger and didn't live in a retirement village.”

I chuckle. “I’m sure he’d love you no matter what age you are.”

“So, what did he do?” she asks while Shantel turns on the electric shaver and presses the blade to her head. “He didn’t cheat on you, did he?”

I sputter out a cough. “Oh, no. We’re not…we’re not together.”

“But you want to be,” she supplies.

---