When the oven timer beeped again, she didn’t hesitate. She reached for the tray automatically— too fast, too bare— and the edge of it grazed the soft underside of her wrist with a sharp, blistering sting. Hazel hissed aloud, a strangled sound that scraped up her throat as the metal clattered back against the rack inside the oven. She backed away on instinct, breath caught in her chest, eyes already stinging— not from tears, not yet, but from the jolt of pain so sudden it made the world lurch sideways. She reached for a nearby oven mitt and removed the tray properly the second time, though the damage had already been done.
A moment later, Hazel turned on the sink with trembling hands and shoved her wrist under the cold stream. The shock of it made her shoulders lock, but she didn’t move. She just stood there, hunched over the basin, watching the cold air rise and disappear in slow curls while her pulse hammered in her throat. The water roared over her skin, numbing the sting, but it couldn’t reach the ache building somewhere deeper.
She stood like that for a long time, letting it run, letting herself vanish into the white noise of it.
And that was when the question came.
What am I even doing here?
Not just in the bakery, not just in this moment, but in Bar Harbor.
In this life.
In this body that kept getting hurt and trying again, anyway.
She looked around at the empty kitchen, at the golden light starting to creep across the tiles from the lampposts outside, at the familiar curves of the bakery she’d poured herself into. And for the first time, she didn’t feel held by it, she didn’t feel steady. She felt like a ghost floating through a room that used to mean something.
This was supposed to be the dream,she thought.The healing. The home.
But instead, it felt like another place she’d built out of need, not belonging. A shrine to someone else’s memory. A story she was trying to finish with a voice that didn’t sound like hers anymore.
She dried her wrist, flinching at the dull burn that still lingered across her skin. And then she moved through the rest of the opening routine like someone playing a part in a play that had lost its script. She stacked muffins, topped the cinnamon rolls with glaze, poured herself a coffee and left it to go cold beside the register, unable to stomach the taste of it against her tongue.
Six-thirty came and then passed. And Beck didn’t show.
Not at six thirty-one, when he usually arrived just as the hands of the old antique clock on the console table ticked, always a minute behind.
Not at six thirty-three, when she glanced toward the window and saw only sidewalks slick with snow and distant headlights.
Not at six thirty-five, when the ache in her chest began to shift into something tighter. That familiar kind of emptiness that left a hollow sound in your lungs when you breathed too deep.
He’d been there almost every morning, even when the roads were bad, even when neither of them had much to say. He showed up. Hestayed.
And when he couldn’t, he sent her a message to let her know. She reached for her phone, then, thumb sliding across the screen. It blinked to life, but displayed no new messages.
The door stayed closed. The bell remained steady and still in its position against the frame.
Her breath hitched, just once. She told herself it was nothing. That he was late, or busy, or had been called to the docks. But the words didn’t land.
Instead, another voice rose.
Maybe you scared him away.
Maybe last night was too much.
Maybe he saw you,reallysaw you, and realized it wasn’t worth the weight.
Her fingers curled around the edges of the pastry tongs she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her knuckles had gone pale and bloodless from the pressure. She set them down and stepped away from the counter, trying to force air into her aching lungs.
The bakery felt heavier than it had before. Too warm. Too still.
She remembered her father’s voice. The flatness of it. The wordmanageable,tossed like a verdict, like a life she hadn’t earned. And for the first time in a long time, she wondered if maybe he was right.
Maybe she wasn’t built for this. Maybe she was just pretending. A little girl playing at being whole.
Maybe sheshouldsell the house.
The thought came quietly, like fog rolling in over the water— soft at first, then suddenly it waseverywhere.It wasn’t new, just louder now. More plausible. More dangerous.
