Page 59 of Bleeding Hearts

“Fuck.” I throw my phone down and start rushing to get ready when I realize it’s already seven fifteen a.m. and I was planning to stop for coffee before getting there early.

“You should really change your alarm to an actual alarm sound rather than the soft wind chime thing you had going. I could’ve slept through that for hours.”

“Shut up, you’re not helping.” I rush to my suitcase, throwing clothes out of it and onto the floor in pursuit of a perfect outfit.

“How about I throw on some clothes and go grab you coffee while you get ready? Would that help?” he asks, sitting up in the bed and running a hand through his messy bed hair.

“Really?” I look over to him, eternally grateful to him for the promise of caffeine. “You’d get me coffee? And a bagel?”

“Yeah, I’m on it.” He laughs.

The rest of the morning goes by fairly well. Asher gets me the biggest coffee he can find, plus a bagel. He even splurges on a slice of coffee cake because even though I didn’t specifically ask for it, he knows I love it.

I make it downstairs in time to get a seat in the lecture I wanted to hear, and it’s everything I hoped it would be.

The speaker, Giselle Dellucci, is a chef I’ve watched more online videos of than I care to admit. She started out working in her uncle’s kitchen at just seventeen, and now at thirty-three, in my opinion, she’s become one of the best Italian chefs.

She talks about how she struggled at the beginning of her career to make a name for herself or for men to take her seriously.

Then she talks about how her drive and passion are what ended up proving them all wrong in the end. No matter how many nos she got, and there were a lot, she never let them deter her. She believed in herself, and because of that, someone eventually believed in her.

As I sit and listen, jotting down notes when I remember, I think about my lack of confidence in myself. Self-doubt has been a constant in my mind for as long as I can remember and it always comes in the form of my father’s voice.

I’ve always been able to ignore it to an extent, confident in myself in most ways, but when it comes to cooking, a part of me is always scared.

Scared that I’ll never be good enough.

A part of me being where I am now is because I didn’t put myself out there enough, something I know and regret. But I wonder if part of the reason I haven’t gotten any of the jobs that I have applied for over the years for cooking is because of my lack of confidence in myself.

Giselle’s words resonate with me. How is anyone ever going to believe in me if I can’t even believe in myself?

After the lecture, I rush to the next class I want to take, making it just in time to fill one of the last available spaces before they close the doors.

The class is called The Art of Plating. It’s supposed to focus on cooking a rather ordinary meal and utilizing knife and plating skills to turn it into something beautiful.

The chef teaching the course, Luisa Alvarez, owns three Michelin-starred restaurants that are on my bucket list of places I’d love to eat at one day. Like the name of the class, Luisa’s food is beautiful and masterful, like art.

The class is absolutely amazing, and the things I can feel myself learning just within an hour are more than I ever have.

That’s until I fuck it all up exponentially and cut my finger open while attempting to work on my knife skills.

I don’t make a big fuss and most people’s attention stays firmly on their own plates, so I at least avoid the embarrassment of that.

The cut isn’t long, but at first glance, looks deep enough to cause me concern. The medic takes a look and she confirms what I am fearing, I need stitches.

I’m about to call Asher to take me over to the hospital when the medic who’s about to be off shift, Harper, offers to drive me over herself. I take her up on it, not wanting to bother Asher more than I need to.

Also, I may still be avoiding him a little after this morning while I work out what to do with how I feel.

Harper drives me to the nearest hospital, walking me in and making sure I’m good before heading out. She wrapped my finger back at the hotel ballroom where the class was, so I’m not considered too urgent.

I wait in the lobby for about half an hour before I’m finally called in to get stitches.

It’s not even the stitches or the cut that piss me off. What pisses me off is that I got accepted to this convention, drove three hours to be here, and now I’m going to miss at least one lecture I would have benefited from because of my own stupidity.

The doctor is nice enough, although he seems frazzled and in a rush, as he stitches me up, gives me aftercare instructions and heads out. The nurse goes over everything with me a second time before leaving to get discharge papers for me.

I figure as soon as I’m let go, I’ll Uber back to the hotel. The drive was only about ten, maybe fifteen minutes, so I doubt it’ll cost me much. But then my phone buzzes from where it’s sitting next to me.

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