“Are you okay?”
Steven’s voice comes from behind me, soft but steady, and it nearly makes me crumble. I whip around too quickly, plastering on the brightest smile I can manage. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t look convinced. His eyes scan my face, catching the redness around my eyes, the uneven breath I try so hard to hide. Slowly, he lowers himself onto the bench beside me.
His hand finds my thigh over my jeans, warm and solid, his thumb brushing in a quiet, grounding circle. He doesn’t push, doesn’t interrogate—he just anchors me. And right now, with my heart in splinters, it feels like the only thing holding me together.
“I have something for you,” he says after a beat, his tone deliberately lighter. “It’ll cheer you up.”
I swallow hard. “What is it?”
He digs into his backpack, rummaging like he’s searching for courage, until he pulls out a small packet. When he opens his palm, two pins glint in the light—one pink, one green, both shaped like delicate butterflies.
“I saw them in a shop and thought you’d like them.”
My chest cracks open. Just like that. He didn’t have to, but he did. He noticed something small, thought of me, brought it here. My smile this time is real, trembling but true. I take the pins and fling my arms around him, burying my face into his shoulder.
“They’re beautiful, Steve. Thank you.”
He hugs me back, strong and steady, holding me together when I feel like I’m coming apart. When he finally leans back, his hand lingers, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
“Of course.” The lie slips out easily, practiced. Because if I told him the truth, if I poured out the mess inside me, I’m not sure I’d survive saying it aloud.
So instead, I force my gaze forward, to the bakery class, pretending that’s where my focus is.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Nova Marshall
PAST (2019)
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“I don't think anyone can give you
advice when you've got a broken heart.”
Britney Spears
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I refuse to believe he left without even saying goodbye. I refuse to believe I’m the only person he’s stopped talking to. I refuse to think he cut me out of his life in this way.
It’s been six months. Six whole months since he left.
And today is his birthday. He’s turning eighteen.
For hours, I’ve been calling him over and over. Each time the line rings, hope flares in my chest—hope that he’ll pick up, that I’ll hear his voice, even if it’s only for a second. But every time it goes unanswered, that hope crashes down harder, cutting deeper. If he thinks it’s that easy to ignore me, then he never really knew me at all.
I can’t let his birthday pass without speaking to him, without wishing him well. I don’t care how furious I am, or how exhausted I’ve become from crying myself to sleep every night with a stomach full of hazelnut ice cream.
I need to hear him. Just once.
“Answer. Please.” The words fall out of me in a broken whisper.
Around me, the laundromat hums with its usual sounds—the steady churn of machines, the hiss of dryers, the clinking of coins dropped into slots. People pass by with baskets piled high, the scent of detergent and fabric softener thick in the air. Life goes on for everyone else, mundane and steady. And here I am, clutching my phone like it’s the only lifeline I have left.
