“Psh. Honey, you’re going to bake him some cookies and write him an apology. Tell him he can screw all the women he wants as long as you don’t hear so much as a sound of a panty melting to the ground.”
“If I bake him cookies, he’ll think I like him. And he probably already thinks I’m crazy.” I bury my face in my hands. “We were having such a nice chat, and then I got all weird and scurried off like some psychopath. I’m so embarrassed, Bryson.”
“Cookies.” He glances up at the ceiling like he’s deep in thought. “Oatmeal chocolate chip.”
“Why oatmeal chocolate chip?”
“Because they’re wholesome and unsexy. Like you.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, girl. You’re adorable, but you are not sexy. You’re not bringin’ it. You could be sexy if you wanted. You choose not to be.” His quirky delivery makes it sting a little less, like the swift rip of a Band-Aid on a day-old injury. “But my point is, it’s a benign gesture.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not baking him cookies.” I finish my drink and glance at my office door. I have a good couple of hours’ worth of bookkeeping to do, and I’m a week behind on inventory. How I envy Presley and Bryson. They get the easy jobs.
“Where are you going?” Bryson asks when I rise.
“My office. To work.”
His eyes snap to the ceiling and back to me. “Fine. Be that way.”
“Love you,” I call out with a wink.
“Love you too, but just a little bit less than you love me,” he teases.
***
The other side of my bedroom wall is silent as I slide into my sheets around midnight. I can only hope for a quiet night. It’s almost always around three in the morning when the thumping begins.
The sooner I fall asleep, the sooner this day will be over. The sooner it’s over, the sooner I can try to forget about looking like a giant weirdo in front of Crew earlier. The last three months have been nothing but one giant, unlucky streak. There’s a giant black rain cloud following my every move, clouding my judgment, and making me act like a complete idiot at the worst of times.
The store’s failing is probably a blessing in disguise, and I hate that term.
Blessing in disguise.
Father Nathaniel used to use it any time someone would complain about something. He could take the worst possible thing to ever happen to you and spin it into something akin to divine intervention.
“Mathias falling out of love with you is a blessing in disguise, sweet Calypso,” he’d said to me one night when he found me crying at the edge of the woods. “You losing those pregnancies was a blessing too. You were all wrong for each other. Mathias needs a young woman who can give him a large family, and I would hate to set you both up for a lifetime of heartache. This is a blessing for both of you. Someday you’ll see.”
I loved Mathias Shiloh with every breath I took, and as a woman on the edge of young adulthood, I’d never felt more discarded than the moment everything we had was tossed aside when I couldn’t bring his child into the world. We were zero for three. I couldn’t carry past the first trimester, each pregnancy lasting a week longer than the one before, but never lasting long enough.
Nathaniel’s mother coddled me every time, personally attending to my every whim. Bringing me teas and special herbs. Blankets. Pillows. Books. I’d never felt so pampered and special. But as soon as the pregnancies ended, so did Penelope’s kindness.
Shiloh Springs elder women examined me, saying my hips were too narrow, my cycle too erratic. They checked my skin, my eyes, asked invasive questions, and then proposed some kind of fertility ritual involving a drum circle and laying of hands.#p#分页标题#e#
In retrospect, I had no business having babies that young anyway. Besides, I was nothing more than a vessel for Father Nathaniel’s legacy, and I was replaced the second I was deemed useless.
Shutting my eyes, I roll to my stomach, curl up into a ball, and bring the covers halfway over my head. I can only sleep when I’m tucked into myself, like a broken little turtle needing to shield herself from the outside world at all times.
***
A funny noise filters through the wall, pulling me from my deep sleep come three in the morning. I throw the covers off in a fit of half-asleep rage and rise to my feet. With a million profanities under my breath, I stumble around my dark room in search of something to punch. A throw pillow. A pile of clothes.
I’m so fucking angry it hurts. It physically hurts. My jaw is clenched tight. My stomach is knotted. This isn’t normal. It has to be the culmination of several months’ worth of sleep deprivation.