“It’s my family’s café. You remember that, right?” I pull out our worst cookie for Sasha: it’s vegan and overstuffed with dried cranberries. I call it a pregnancy creation, since Cate came up with it to satisfy a craving and is the only person who actually enjoys it.
“Right. Of course,” Joe says. He’s squirming, and I like it. Yes, his gaze keeps traveling back to Sasha and the armchair and the fire, but he stalls next to me. Shuffles in a little closer. Cups a hand over mine and squeezes. “Well, I’ll buy you a cookie somewhere else sometime soon, okay?”
His hand is warm and his voice is so low and close, I can feel the breath and vibration of it on my neck.
“Please don’t hate me,” he says. His eyes meet mine, and they are coffee brown and watery with feeling. His long lashes look both beautiful and absurd on his stubbly, thick-jawed face.
“I wish I could,” I say at last. Joe’s hand leaves mine, and he gives me a half smile before finding his way back to Sasha with the crappy vegan cookie and another smile that I guess is made just for her. What was so full a moment ago is immediately empty when he’s not locked on me anymore, and I have to close my eyes for a breath at the counter before returning to the chaos of the café and the rest of my life. I consider logging back onto that website, with the silver font and the freckled knees and the cryptic deep thoughts. I could use some escape.
Sasha squeals like Joe is tickling her, and the sound travels from the base of my spine all the way to my mess of hair.
I’m boiling with how much I hate Joe. Also: how much I love him. And hate myself. And love how he makes me feel. So there’s a lot going on inside, and it’s starting to show in the way my fingers and arms are starting to shake.
“I need a break,” I say when Cate slides back behind the counter a moment later. Not that I’ve been working hard anyway, but she softens her mouth and opens her eyes up wide and nods like I’m the saddest girl in the world and can have whatever I want if it will just maybe make me smile.
And maybe I am the saddest girl in the world. Maybe, right now, I’m even sadder than sad, sad Sasha Cotton.
We have a breakfast bar set up in front of the registers—a few tall, wobbly stools in a line so people can sit at the counter like at an old-time diner. I take a stool and reread conversations Joe and I had over the last month. It’s torture and I know better, but I can’t stop clicking through them, searching for clues to I don’t know what.
At the end of September, a little over one month ago, Joe told me he liked my new haircut and he’d never noticed how blue my eyes were until that very day. He told me Sasha wasn’t as much fun as me. He told me he’d had a dream about me.
I glance behind me when I reread that chat conversation, to see if Joe and Sasha are maybe somehow looking this way. But they’re not. They’re locked in some kind of extensive eye contact, and then Sasha starts breaking pieces of cookie off and feeding them to Joe. He does the same to her, and she giggles every time in total surprise. This cannot be the same guy who told me I’m “incredible.”
This cannot be the same guy who I sort of considered showing my life-changing copy of The Secret Garden to.
Anyway, Joe can probably only stomach that shitty cookie because he’s high. I have a nose for that particular smell, and it was rubbed into his fingers, wafting off his neck. I don’t know what Sasha Cotton’s excuse is, but she licks her finger after every bite, like it’s chocolate chip and not pregnant-lady vegan-creation. The woman sitting next to me, a regular who seems nice, with thick bangs and a dozen strands of turquoise beads hanging from her neck, smirks. She’s noticed how annoying Sasha is too.
In my ideal world, the Red Margin Note Taker looks exactly like Bangs ’n’ Beads here.
I email Elise: Sudden realization. Sasha Cotton has man hands. Elise probably won’t respond, because she doesn’t really like when I get bitchy about other girls. Girl power or something, I don’t know. She’ll probably just send back a smiley face or ask me if I’m okay. I love Elise, but when I need to say terrible things about Sasha Cotton, it’s Jemma I really miss. She was jealous and angry and bitter and judgmental too.
I flip back to an old chat with Joe and try to remember what it felt like to have him telling me I was special.
“Okay, no more computer,” Cate says, swooping in and pressing her face close to mine. “You’re getting all worked up. We’re losing business.” She’s smiling, but I know she’s serious too, and I can feel my heart going crazy underneath my bulky wool sweater (I still rock the cozy winter wear even if I like a deep V-neck. I mean Vermont in November is no joke). Adrenaline. Serious, heart-pumping, hand-shaking adrenaline. I’m on it. Plus the coffee I keep refilling. I take a deep breath and Cate rubs my shoulders.
“Sorry,” I say. “Got caught up in stuff.”