Page 38 of What Comes After

And while she did pay me with money, I always got a tip in the form of desserts.

This week was her homemade crumb cake.

After getting in behind the wheel and turning on my car, I unwrapped the cake and smiled. It was rare for me to ever wait until I was home to eat whatever she’d given me. Instead, I usually took my first bite before I even drove away from her place.

Today was no different.

That was partly because I would have done it anyway, but mostly because this would be the first of at least two pieces of cake I’d eat today.

Now that I’d finished up cleaning Ms. Lopez’s house—she was my only client on Saturdays, and her place was cleaned first thing in the morning—I was going to head home to shower, change, and get ready. I was meeting Mary this afternoon to celebrate her birthday with her. Yesterday was her actual birthday, but since I’d had a full schedule, we planned to get together today instead.

Mary and I had remained in touch over the last six years. I didn’t see or talk to her every day, but I usually called her at least once a week to check in. We’d chat for a bit, and occasionally, we’d get together for lunch out, or she’d invite me over for dinner with her and Scott.

I always tried to go whenever they invited me.

I loved them dearly, and I missed not seeing them every day after I’d moved into my own apartment.

Not staying in contact with them wasn’t an option, even if it was difficult to do sometimes.

Just as I popped the last bite of the delicious crumb cake into my mouth, I took off. And on my way home, as I often did, I thought about where I’d wound up.

Life hadn’t exactly turned out anything like I had expected. The plans I’d made for myself never came to fruition.

After my parents’ house sold six years ago, I found an apartment and was doing all the right things to get myself on track to pursue my dreams. For a long while, things were going great. Well, maybe not exactly great, but in comparison to where I was now from a financial standpoint, it was the best I’d been since graduating from high school.

I’d assumed I was well on my way to making things happen for myself, and I was prepared to work hard, knowing that even if they didn’t happen in the time frame I had wanted, I was eventually going to get there.

But it seemed that from the day my parents had died, I’d been blessed with more negative moments than I cared to admit.

Car problems always seemed to be my biggest issue. Every few months, there was something else that would stop working on the car. I needed a new one, but I really couldn’t afford it.

But the car problems almost paled in comparison to the emergency dental work I’d needed to get done.

Add all of that to the steadily increasing credit card debt that had been hanging over my head, and it was safe to say I experienced more than my fair share of costly incidences.

Those were the things that sort of happened out of nowhere and always put a damper on things for me. I tried to focus on those when I thought about where my life was, because I didn’t want to think about any of the choices I’d made that hadn’t exactly been very wise.

Sadly, culinary school never happened, not even when I left the customer service job a couple of years ago and started the cleaning business full time. For a while, I’d been doing both, the cleaning business being more of a side hustle than anything else. But eventually, I grew my client base and had enough referrals coming in that I was able to leave the customer service job.

In the end, I’d wound up making more money when I freed up my schedule and only cleaned, even if it wasn’t a whole lot more. On the bright side, I was only working one job, and I had a bit more free time on my hands, which was nice.

And now I managed to make enough to pay my bills while saving up just enough for special occasions like celebrating Mary’s birthday by taking her out to lunch and baking her a cake.

No sooner did I pull up at my apartment and make my way inside when my phone dinged, indicating I’d received a text.

I really hoped Mary didn’t need to cancel. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, and I’d been looking forward to this lunch with her all week long.

While I made my way toward my bedroom, so I could dump my purse, get undressed, and hop in the shower, I pulled out my phone.

Fortunately, it wasn’t Mary texting to cancel plans with me.

The name I saw on the display was one that had me feeling a mix of emotions.

Theo.

With a part of me always craving any little scrap of him I could get, I slid my finger across the screen and opened our text chain. As was unsurprising, it was the other part of me that started wishing I hadn’t.

On my screen was something I frequently got from Theo when he sent texts. It was almost always a picture with a few words of text.

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