Page 9 of Any Girl But You
She nods. And that will mostly be the extent of our interaction. Sometimes I leave wondering more about Colby. Not in a romantic sense, although she’s attractive, with her chestnut brown hair and huge hazel eyes that seem to study everything around her. And sure, I know her name based on her credit card. Besides that, she’s one of the few townspeople who keep totally to themselves. Sometimes I try to draw her out a little more. But today I’m too distracted.
“Hey, are you doing okay?” she asks, lifting her gaze from the case.
I didn’t realize a frown had spread. I attempt to adjust it to a grin but give up. “Honestly, I had an icky interaction with a customer before this, and it escalated.”
“You escalated?” She arches a brow. “I can hardly even picture that.”
Me either. Howdidit go downhill with Quinn so quickly? I still don’t think what happened was my fault. But in the six years since I opened my shop, nothing like that, at least to that extreme, has ever happened. My stomach knots as I replay themoment I told Quinn not to return. “Yeah, it got pretty heated. And I just don’t feel good about it.”
Colby strokes Kona’s ears, and a long silence follows. “When things escalate like that, typically it has nothing to do with the event at hand, and everything to do with outside factors. It’s hard to know what someone’s experiencing in their daily life. We often get these surface-level interactions and don’t understand the underlying issue.” She pulls out a credit card for her treats. “I’m sure you’ll figure out what to do.”
And just like that, Colby has dropped a bit of beautiful advice. She’s so right. I have no idea what happened to Quinn this morning, or her lifetime for that matter, and it was probably unfair of me to not be more accommodating.
“Thank you. I think I needed to hear that.” I wrap up Colby’s raspberry-filled cupcake treat in a single serving box and put a doggie treat in a paper sleeve. “See you next week.”
As Colby and Kona make their way to the door, my cell buzzes in my pocket.
Mom: Hey honey, I had a cancellation with my bridge club, so I can take Noah tonight. Have a good night!
My mom has no idea how much relief this brings me.
You sure? I really don’t mind.
Please say yes, you’re still sure. I really need a night to myself to soak in a tub, watch some terrible reality TV show, and not think about work.
Yep, of course. Also, I’m going to drop by some homemade chicken noodle soup for you later. Going to stop by the church to give some to the priest before heading over.
And I want to hear all about your cast removal. Freedom!
She follows with so many heart emojis I wonder if it’s on accident.
Oh, my mom. She will never not be a mom, no matter how old I am. I smile.
In the office, I flop on the chair, remove my glasses, and rub my eyes with my knuckles. Oh man, what a day. I flip through a stack of mail, when my fingers pause on a pale-yellow card with teal lettering and a small heart in the corner.
My stomach drops. I already know what this is before I peek at the return address.Josie.
I know it by the handwriting and the way she loops the Y in my name. I know it by the soft yellow and teal, her favorite colors. I know that if I lift it to my nose, it will carry the faint scent of her rose and jasmine hand lotion.
This is the sixth card I’ve gotten since January. Josie was always a fan of old-school romantic gestures. Handwritten notes over texts, holding the door open rather than fending for ourselves, planning beautiful wine and cheese picnic dates. The card is absolutely part of her MO.
But why now? Why, two years post-breakup, after Josie moved to Minneapolis, after she shattered my heart, after she broke my spirit and turned me off for a very long time from dating, is she contacting me? I tap the envelope against the corner of the desk and do what I’ve done with the other ones—toss them in my drawer, unopened, until I’m ready to see what she wants.
Knowing the letters are in my desk tests the limits of my willpower. But when we broke up, I felt so powerless, so hopeless. Maybe this is a way of reclaiming that power? Who knows? Even though Josie doesn’t know I’m not reading them,I knowI’m not reading them, and it somehow makes me feel in control.
Josie was not just a love. Josie wasthelove. The kind people make movies about, others cry over in their books, and Taylor Swift writes about. She was my everything. Until she wasn’t. When I got down on one knee was when I realized she had one foot out. The rejection still guts me. I want to find love again, the kind that stands the test of time, but I can’t pretend that the ghost of our relationship doesn’t still haunt me.
For a year, I lived in this dull space between bouncing between hope she’d return, a bone-crushing sadness, and the fog of denial. I didn’t know what to do. When she said she was leaving, when she packed her bags, when she drove off for good, I froze.
It came out of left field. Or so I thought. No warning, no couples therapy, no big fights. A week later when it really hit me that she was gone, I threw up in the bathroom at the bakery.
The worst part of it all, no matter how bad I wanted to, I didn’t hate her. I still don’t. I can’t. I know she wished everything turned out differently. If I hated her, I could read the letters then maybe set them on fire and use the embers to create a specialty s’more. But I don’t hate her. Far from it. So, no, I don’t open the letters.
I hobble into the back to stack trays and double-check all the ingredients for the prep shift. Flour, eggs, vanilla, nuts…Ouch. I’ve officially pushed my foot to the maximum. I grab a stool and elevate my leg under the stainless-steel counter.
The back door opens, and a warm whoosh of summer air enters. Luna steps in and pushes sunglasses to the top of her pink hair. “Hey! Damn, it’s crazy hot out there. My skin’s melting off my bones.”
“I know,” I say and grab my pencil to make notes about the orders. “The air-conditioning can barely keep up.”
