Page 44 of Once Upon A Small Town Secret
He shakes his head.
I press my palms against the counter until the cool wood bites. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it, and I hate that I mean it this much. Because I’m still angry. Because sorry feels too small for what he’s just admitted.
He nods, like he doesn’t trust his voice, and when he looks back at me, it’s all there—the stubbornness, the pride, and underneath it, the simple, awful truth of being left. I can see how that truth gets into everything else: the pub he built with his bare hands, the way he shows up for Jason like it’s his job, the panic that grabbed him by the throat when he realized he’d crossed some invisible line.
I want to say more, ask him questions, but I can see he doesn’t want that. I can see he’d rather be anywhere else doing anythingelse. So, I make the decision to do what he so clearly wants and move on. But I hold onto the information for another time.
“It doesn’t excuse what you said,” I tell him, speaking quietly. “I need you to know I’m not going to… excuse it because of this.”
“I don’t want you to.” His voice is low, steady. “I’m not telling you so you’ll feel bad for me. I’m telling you so you know why I handled it like a goddamn idiot.”
I let out a breath that shakes anyway. “You handled it like a coward.”
He doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
“And you made me feel disposable.”
“I know.” He looks like the words are nails he’s holding in his mouth. “I hate that I did.”
The oven ticks softly as it cools. A lemon seed glints on the cutting board. It’s ridiculous, the way the smallest details go sharp when the big things are too much. I pick up the seed and flick it into the trash, just to move, just to keep my hands from doing something I’ll regret.
“You said Jason is family. That you can’t afford to lose him.” I hear my own voice, tight but even. “Where does that leave me?”
He swallows. The sound is quiet but it feels loud. “It leaves me knowing I can’t ask you to risk anything for me. Not now. Maybenot ever. I can ask you to let me show up when it’s about the building. To say hi when we pass each other on the sidewalk. To fix the things that flicker or leak. I can ask for the chance to make it so you don’t have to brace when you see me.”
The word brace hits, because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since he walked in. Since he said the word “mistake” when my skin was still humming from his touch.
“And if I don’t want you to fix anything?” I ask, because I can’t help myself. “If I tell you to leave the light broken and the sink dripping because I can’t stand you in my doorway?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t just… I’ll make sure you’re not around,” he says.
It’s the right answer. It still makes my throat hurt.
I turn to the bowl because I need the anchor of doing something, anything. Flour, sugar, salt. I work the spoon under the dough and fold it over itself, then again, then again, until the streaks disappear. The rhythm helps. So does the noise—the scrape, the soft wet sound, the familiar tap of the spoon against the side. I hear him shift his weight on the rug, but he doesn’t come closer.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I ask after a while, eyes on the dough. “Not this”—I gesture vaguely toward the window, the past—“but the truth. That you were scared of losing him. That you didn’t know how to want me and not blow up your life.”
He’s quiet long enough that I have to look up to make sure he’s still there. He is. He looks wrecked and somehow steadier than he did ten minutes ago. “Because it felt like making excuses,” he says. “Because I didn’t want you to look at me and see a sob story. Because I’m not good at needing people and worse at saying the part out loud.”
The spoon sinks again. “You could have said anything besides what you said.”
“I know.” He says it simply, like it’s a fact he’s already paid for.
I grab the lemon zester and a clean bowl and set them on the counter. “Make yourself useful,” I say, because forgiveness is far away and trust is complicated, but lemon zest is lemon zest. “Careful. I need the zest, not the pith.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and the corner of my mouth betrays me. Just a little.
We work in a parallel that feels like breathing after a sprint. He drags the lemon across the small teeth in clean strokes, turning it carefully, the bright curls falling into the bowl like tiny confetti. I cube cold butter, measure sugar, and lay parchment on a sheet.
“What happens if Jason finds out?” I ask, my knife thumping through the last stick of butter. “Because secrets have a way of getting out. You know that.”
He stops mid-stroke. “You’re his sister,” he says simply.
That’s really all there is to it, and we both know it. If it came down to it, I’m his sister.
A pit forms in my stomach. There’s something so awful about it. Something that makes me feel small and protected and furious all at once.
I nod because anything else will make my voice break. I toss sugar with the butter in the mixer and click it on low. The whir is soothing, the beaters catching and then smoothing as the mixture turns from sand to cream. I don’t look at him when I speak next. “Then it can’t happen again.”
