“I’m really happy for you,” he said, his dark gaze pouring into hers, unyielding. “You deserve this.”
Hazel felt the words land somewhere deeper than they were meant to. She offered a quick nod, the safest thing she could give him.
Then, as he started to pull back, he added, “The pictures are good, too.”
She glanced up, eyes following his movements, flaring a bit wider.
“You look like you,” he remarked, lifting his to-go cup to take a sip, his gaze fixed to hers above the lid.
Hazel blinked. Her mind scrambled for footing, but nothing held. It was a strange thing to say, and yet not unkind, not cruel. Just… intimate in a way that caught her off guard.
A beat passed before she found her voice. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
He tilted his head, his lips curving into a smile. “It’s a compliment, Hazel.”
But even as he said it, she couldn’t quite sort out how to feel. She wanted to smile, to let it settle in and warm her from the inside out, but the distance of the last week still clung to her ribs, and the kiss-that-wasn’t still hung unspoken in the air between them like a warning bell. And this— this soft, lingering moment— it made the ground tilt a little beneath her feet.
After a moment, she managed a small, wry smile. “Sure it is,” she said, half under her breath, as if brushing it off might make it sting less.
Beck didn’t push. He just lingered a moment longer, his fingers pressing lightly once more into her arm before fully letting go.
And then he walked out the door without offering her a goodbye.
The bakery filled and then emptied again in the hours that followed. Customers trickled in, but for a breath of time after Juno had finished her shift, Hazel stood alone behind the counter. Her arm was still warm with the lingering pressure of Beck’s touch. She’d felt it move with her throughout the day, as she served drinks and plated pastries and switched cookie sheets from the oven to the cooling rack and then back again.
She pulled out her phone again, trying to quiet the parts of her mind that felt particularly dangerous— the ones that whispered she’d imagined it all with Beck, that the soft smiles and quiet mornings didn’t mean what she hoped they did, that maybe she was still the only one standing in the middle of this thing, holding her breath, waiting for the truth of it to take shape.
The article was still open in her browser, the photo of her beneath the bakery’s sign catching sunlight on her hair, her name printed bold beneath it. She scrolled without thinking, fingertips twitching, until the bottom of the page came into view.
75 comments.
Hazel blinked. Her stomach pitched and rolled like a ship too small for the sea. 75 comments. 75 people, at least, had read it, and had cared enough to say something. That felt… impossible. Terrifying. And, maybe, just maybe, a little bit electric.
She hesitated, thumb hovering over the button, then tappedDisplay All.
The screen shifted. Names and timestamps filled the space like a tide rushing in.
I live in Bar Harbor and we LOVE Hazel’s cinnamon buns!
This place looks like a dream. Adding it to my must-visit list next time we’re up north.
So glad to see a story like this. We need more places like Rise and more people like Hazel.
One after another. Little flashes of light, all of them. Some of the comments were from people she knew by face, and others were strangers entirely. And yet they knew her. Not everything, not all the hard and hidden parts, but they knew her name. Her food. Her place. And they liked it.
She didn’t realize she was crying until one of her tears smeared one of the screen’s lines.
It was a strange thing, this feeling. Not joy, not pride exactly, but something quieter— like finding your name written down in permanent ink, in someone else’s handwriting.
She hadn’t been left behind. Not this time.
And then, before she could talk herself out of it, she copied the link and opened a thread that had always remained empty. She typed in his name, starting with the letterD.
Dad.
Check this out!
That was all. Just three words and the article link pasted beneath them. She hovered, heart thudding, thumb trembling, and then she hit send.
