Page 86 of Scrape the Barrel
My grandmother had filled that void while my mom was out with a new boyfriend every week, and Charlotte only made me miss her presence more.
Oh, what my grandmother would say if she saw me now.
Don’t get hung up on boys that aren’t hung up on you.
But that was the problem.
Jason was hung up on me for all the wrong reasons; he wanted control, and he saw me as an easy target.
Callan was hung up on me for all the right reasons, but I felt guilty for it.
And the sad part was that I fucking shouldn’t.
I should let him be there for me, but every instinct in my body told me to shut down and leave. To take Avery as far away from here as possible so Jason could never find us again.
But I’d already tried that once, and it didn’t work.
Ruining the life I’d built here wouldn’t create a better one. It’d just restart the cycle.
So I had to hope that the police found Jason and he was sent back to prison for violating his parole by crossing state lines. I’d filed for a restraining order yesterday as well, which made Callan feel at least a little better.
We all knew a piece of paper wouldn’t keep Jason away, though, which was why I’d been too scared to do it years ago.
I’d barely slept last night, staring at the ceiling with Pudding laying on my stomach and wondering when this would all be over. Every noise made me jump, and I was thankful Avery wasn’t at the house. After hours of laying in bed, I’d gotten upsometime around four a.m. to make coffee. With only a few hours of sleep and my spiraling thoughts, the caffeine didn’t help all that much, and now I was just an anxious mess.
All I wanted was to call Callan, but he had a life. A job. A family. I couldn’t just disrupt it because I needed him.
I didn’t want to become a burden. The problems I had with Jason were already laid bare for Callan, and though he hadn’t moved a single muscle yesterday when I told him everything Jason had done to me in the past, I didn’t want to interrupt his life because of mine.
Scooting the dining room chair back and setting Pudding on the ground from where she’d been laying on my lap, I got up and went into the kitchen. I wished for nothing other than the smell of cookies to fill the house, but I couldn’t find the energy to make them.
Baking was my therapy, but even now, thinking about getting the ingredients out made me want to curl up in a ball on the floor and waste the day away.
I ran a finger along the knobs on the front of the oven, staring at the numbers and dashes that indicated certain heat levels. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I didn’t need fancy appliances or kitchenware. The comfort they provided was enough for me.
A knock at the door made me pull my hand back as I looked over my shoulder toward the front entry. My heart seemed to skip a beat, a bass drum thumping in my chest like the soundtrack to my own doom.
It wasn’t Jason.
He wouldn’t just show up here.
But he’d shown up at the cafe, hadn’t he?
I grabbed the closest thing to me, gripping the wooden stirring spoon in my hand as my feet dragged themselves to the front entry. Twisting the lock, I wrapped a fist around the knob and turned, opening the door an inch to see who it was.
My shoulders relaxed, my grip on the spoon loosening. “Callan?”
He eyed the crack in the door, probably wondering why I wasn’t opening it further, then in less than a second, realization struck. Taking a step back, I pulled the door open wider.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He held a grocery bag up in his hand. “Figured you might want company.”
A crease formed between my brows. “What’s that?”
His eyes fell to the spoon in my hand. “Why do you have a spoon?”
Dropping my gaze to the utensil, I twisted it in my fingers, momentarily having forgotten that I was even holding it. “I, uh, I thought you were someone else.”
