Page 113 of Every Little Thing

“Are you? What do you want?”

“A custard tart.”

She gestured to the bakery. “They’re all around you. What do you want, Paisley? What’s—what’s that thing that makes your heart ache with want, that you can’t get enough of—what’s that thing you’re ashamed to tell other people how much you want because ofhow much you want it?”

“What do you think it is?” I snapped, not expecting the waver in my voice. I sank against the counter. “I… I want… to see Harper again. I just… I miss her… and I don’t know what I did wrong to make her keep… to keep giving up. On me. On us. I don’t know what I did wrong. What else was I supposed to do?”

I was crying now, undignified and embarrassing as it was. Priscilla didn’t hesitate—she came around the counter, putting an arm around me, and she pulled me into a hug, and I cried on her shoulder, letting myself be the ugly, humiliating mess I hadn’t let myself be with anyone since…

I sniffled, trying to pull it all back in. “Ugh, I’m a disaster—”

“Shh.” She patted me on the back. “C’mon. Be a disaster. Cry it out.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Oh, yeah, you do.”

I sniffled. “I do,” I said, and I cried on her a while longer still, no idea what time it was anymore or where we even were, just sobbing while I gripped my hands into fists against her back, gritting my teeth and forcing in shaky breaths.

“Grief is unbearable,” she whispered. “The least you can do for yourself is not try to bear it alone.”

“Grief.” I snorted, pulling back and turning away, leaning against the counter feeling drunk. “I’m not the one grieving.”

She softened. “I know Harper was carrying such a huge burden… like she was living her whole life just for someone who wasn’t even there anymore.”

“It’s awful. But what’s the point in continuing to punish yourself—and everyone around you—for… for…” I gestured vaguely at the air, but something panged in my chest. “It doesn’t even… make any sense,” I said, quietly.

“I know it’s not—”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said again. “Why would Lindsay have gone driving? She was too young.”

Priscilla blinked. “Er… what?”

It reached me like an ocean of sadness, just drifting, floating lost in it, and I stared out the window. “Ugh… she’s always been so stubborn.”

“Well, you are one to talk…”

I let out a long sigh. “Hey, Prissy.”

“Ew. Don’t call me that.”

“What would you do in my position?”

“Call me by my actual name, first of all.”

“Okay,Priscilla Sorenson.What would you do in my position?”

She softened into a smile. “Why are you asking me? You already know.”

Yeah. That was a good question. “Let’s go to the party,” I said. “Although… is the bubble tea place still open or did you close them down too? I want to get matcha.”

Chapter 29

Harper

I was staring quietly at the picture—something I kept telling myself I had to stop doing—when Solomon caught me, leaning in the office door behind me and knocking on where the door stood open, most of the office empty around us by now. I turned back to him with a vague sheepish smile, setting the picture down.

“Hey. Sorry. Something up?”

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