And then he stepped back toward the front door, one hand bracing against the frame. Late morning light caught the tips of his dark hair, and for a moment, Hazel saw the boy he’d been— quiet, observant, and kind. Not much had changed.
The door clicked shut behind him after he said goodbye, and the silence returned.
Hazel stood in the center of the bakery, the checkered mug still in her hands. She looked around. The space didn’t feel empty, but it didn’t feel full, either. It felt suspended in a sort of in-between, a purgatory filled with nothing but question after question. And only Hazel could provide clarity.
One by one, she unwrapped the remaining pieces. The paper crinkled softly, each layer revealing something different: imperfect curves, thumbprint textures, glazes that caught the light.
She took her time shelving them. Not just placing them, but listening— letting their shapes and colours suggest where they belonged. Mostfound a home on the open shelving behind the counter, where one day she might ask,“Pick a mug?”
She grouped some by glaze, others she scattered by shape or mood. One that stood out was tall, elegant, and faintly iridescent, so she placed it at the center of the shelf, where it could catch the faintest hint of sun through the papered front window.
The overflow she wrapped up again, sliding into the cabinet below. For quiet days, for breakages. For the customers who didn’t want to choose, or who needed a second cup.
It wasn’t just organization, it wascuration—a gentle act of care.
She stood there for a while, hands braced on the counter, surrounded by vessels waiting to be filled.
And in the hush that followed, something surfaced. Not a plan, exactly. Not a certainty. But a pull.
She used to want this, fiercely. A little shop of her own with warm light spilling through the windows, the scent of butter and brown sugar in the air, and people starting their mornings with somethingshemade. It had once felt like the clearest expression of who she was. A way to offer comfort, to create beauty, to be part of someone’s beginning. To invite people in, to trust them to stay, even if just for a little while.
Somewhere along the way, that version of herself had gone quiet. Tucked down beneath deadlines and disappointments and the ache of trying to be enough in a world that didn’t seem to notice when she slipped away.
But she wanted to find her again, that girl who had dreamed of a bakery. Of a place people wanted to linger.
Maybe, if she built somethinghere,with her own hands, people would see her differently.
Hazel didn’t let the thought settle fully— just let it brush the edge of her ribs, light and unsteady. But she didn’t turn from it, either.
She looked across the room at the shelves she’d filled, at the dust still lingering in corners, at the silence waiting to be broken. And then she drew a breath, slow and deep, and made herself a quiet promise:
She would try.
Not just because her grandmother had wanted it. But because some part of her still did, too.
By the time Hazel locked the door behind her, the street had gone still— the kind of stillness that felt earned, as if the world itself had wound down after a long day. Her fingers lingered on the key, feeling its cool weight before she tucked it into the back pocket of her shorts. She stepped off the bakery stoop and onto the sidewalk, her shoulders stiff.
She hadn’t meant to stay so late. But once she started making phone calls, placing orders, navigating the messy maze of applications and licenses, she couldn’t stop. There was a strange kind of comfort in checking things off; it gave shape to her grief. It let her make sense of it in a language she understood: lists, action, forward motion. One more supplier account confirmed. One more step towards making Rise real.
The lamps on Main Street cast wide pools of golden light, their glow soft around the edges like halos dulled by fog. A few window displays flickered in the distance, old fairy lights left up year-round and hand-lettered chalkboard signs promising deals on acrylic markers and second-hand books. The shops were dark and the street was empty, but the hush wasn’t eerie, it was intimate.
Hazel tilted her head back on instinct and exhaled toward the sky.
There they were. The stars.
More than she remembered. More than she’d seen in a long time. They were pinned like lanterns against a velvet black sky. In Boston, light pollution had always blurred whatever loomed above. Even on the clearest nights, she could only ever catch a few of the brightest ones, scattered like crumbs. But here—here,the sky held things. The steady pulse of something older than her pain.
She slowed her pace, eyes still trained upward. Her breath caught when she found Cassiopeia; those familiar five points tilted on their side, right where they used to be when she was a girl. In the summer, she would climb out onto the flat patch of roof just beyond her bedroom window, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, shingles warm beneath her. With her grandmother’s soft hums drifting through the open frame behind her, she’d trace constellations with the tip of a pencil, name her own stars, and believe in the kind of magic you could see but never hold.
If she stayed out too long, her grandmother would tap the wall just inside her room— tea in hand, voice amused but never scolding— and tell her to come inside before she floated away and turned into a constellation herself.
Hazel smiled at the reminder, small and crooked. The ache in her chest had dulled, replaced by something quieter. She reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out her grandmother’s rosary, one of the many physical reminders that tugged on the jagged edges of her heart. Her fingers caressed over each of the worn beads with reverence, remembering late night prayers that had once been whispered to her before she fell asleep.
She was so caught up in the memory, she didn’t notice she was no longer alone on the street.
There, just up ahead, was a shadowed figure.
A man.
