Page 41 of We Can Stay
The truth of it stings like antiseptic on a fresh cut.
“Yes. And you’re my best friend. I won’t do that again,” I promise, even as I feel the weight of what I’m still not saying.
Her lashes flutter; it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. And yet she smiles anyway. “Thank you for telling me that.”
She comes around the counter to hug me, and I can feel the tension between us melt away. Some of it, anyway. She knows that I’m keeping something from her, and it feels like she believes that at any moment I’ll break and come out with it.
But that won’t be happening. I hate myself a little bit for it, but this is the way things have to be.
“Did you see there’s an ice cream shop opening up?” Hannah asks, and just like that, we’re moving on. Thank God.
The afternoon passes in a blur of inventory, ringing up customers, and dusting. I spend twenty minutes helping her find the perfect skein. A teenage girl wants to learn to knit for her boyfriend, blushing the whole time. Two women on vacation buy enough yarn to stock a small shop, chattering about their knitting cruise next month.
It’s easy not to think too much about anything, which is one of the reasons I love my shifts at Knit Happens. Even though I’m on the same old island, being at work here is like taking a break from it all.
At six, we flip the sign on the front door to CLOSED, and Alexis, Maya, and Devin arrive promptly. It’s time for our weekly Chronic Pain Crafters meetup, a time when we “stitch and bitch” to the extreme.
“Okay, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle. Take your pick.” Maya passes around the tin loaded with freshly made cookies, the chocolate still melty. She has started baking treats as a hobby and brings new ones each week for us to try. Last week it was lavender shortbread that tasted like eating a garden. “Fair warning—I tried a new vanilla extract and might have been heavy-handed.”
“Your heavy-handed is everyone else’s perfection,” Devin says, already on her second cookie. “Now spill, Flick. What’s going on with you and the vet?”
“We’re seeing each other.” I shrug. “I mean, it’s new. It’s casual.”
“Really?” Devin cocks an eyebrow, her knitting needles never pausing in their complex dance. “Because I heard you’ve been with him every night.”
I snort. God, you can’t hide anything on this island. It wouldn’t surprise me if my neighbors have been peeking through my windows so they can give a play-by-play account to the local newspaper.
“Yes, we’ve been together,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Still. It’s new.”
New and crazy. I’ve never gotten involved with someone this fast, and maybe I should pump the brakes. Especially since I haven’t done relationships in years, and that appears to be where Sebastian and I are headed.
But I want that, right? A relationship with him?
It’s wild, but I think I do. Nothing about him makes me want to?—
“Flick, I found your Twitch account!” Alexis beams as she knits a hat for her cousin’s baby, the yarn a soft mint green that probably costs more than my weekly grocery bill.
“Huh?” I blink at her. Wait. I haven’t told anyone except Sebastian about my Twitch account.
“You…have a Twitch account?” Hannah looks at me like I’m some sort of alien. Another secret. Another wall.
My face burns.
“Why didn’t you tell us you started one?” Devin asks, but there’s pride in her voice. “That’s brilliant. Reaching a whole new audience.”
There’s nothing accusatory about her question—they’re all being friendly—but I can nearly feel the confusion and hurt radiating off Hannah. We only cleared the air a few hours ago, and now here we are, facing yet another secret.
Another wedge I’ve put between the two of us.
I clear my throat. “I’m still experimenting. I didn’t want to tell anyone about it until I got better at lighting and being on camera, you know?”
“Girl, you could film in a cave and make it look good,” Maya says. “Your color sense is unreal.”
“I shared it to my knitting Instagram,” Alexis reveals, looking pleased with herself.
My heart does a little jump. Alexis is a food writer with a pretty substantial online following, and she also has a couple extra accounts for hobbies—knitting being one of them. She’s shared news blasts about my skein lines before, and I always see a bump in sales.
“How many followers do you have?” Devin munches on one of the cookies.
