ThatNew Year’s Eve, he went to a party with all our old high school friends andhooked up with Delaney Cooper, former head cheerleader and prom queen. I’dfound out about it via social media and the walls around my heart had grownbarbed wire and electric fence.
Ofall people, her? Of all parties, that one?
Ihad still hoped he’d come after me, move to Durham, prove I was worth thefight. For years after, I clung to the hope that he would wake up from all ofthe hooking up and dating random girls and realize I was better… what we hadwas better than the meaningless, shallow life he lived now. But he never did.Or I wasn’t worth it after all. Face to face with his true colors, I had toacknowledge that he probably never loved me. He merely loved the idea of me.
He’dbroken my heart. And maybe I had broken his. Maybe him. He still texted everyonce in a while, when he’d been drinking too much and the girl he went homewith didn’t do enough to help him forget how much he hated his life. But thatwasn’t my fault.
I’dspent three years having this argument with myself and it always boiled down tothat toxic town. He could leave. He had a degree in high school education andexperience coaching the football team. Nothing was holding him there. He hadfamily, but it wasn’t like he had to move to the moon.
Somenights, I would text him too. When I had been drinking too much. And when guiltand heartache and nostalgia for what we’d had all those years ago threatened toeat me alive. I would reach out to him and ask him to come visit me.
Andhe would counter that I should come home to him.
Therewere also the times I went home to visit my parents for holidays or birthdaysor whatever…
Theproblem was that Nolan was as lethal as the town. He would lure me with hisall-American smile and quarterback muscles and I would get lost in the bliss ofbeing eighteen and invincible all over again.
Thelast time we’d hooked up had been eighteen months ago. I’d been in town for myparents thirtieth wedding anniversary and had had too many white wine spritzersat their country club garden party.
Myparents had the love story Nolan and I had tried to have. High schoolsweethearts, married at twenty-one, kids at twenty-four, retirement on thehorizon. And despite my hang-ups with them, they truly loved each other.
CallingNolan that night had felt inevitable. I’d been drunk and lonely and he had beenhappy to pick me up. That night he’d been as familiar and lackluster as Iremembered him to be. I woke up the next morning surrounded by Hamilton High footballt-shirts and empty PBR cans and felt sick to my stomach.
Nomatter how much I’d tried to convince myself differently over the years, Nolan wasthe same as he’d been when I’d fallen in love with him. That small-town,rudderless life was enough for him. He didn’t want anything more than that. Bythe time I’d put Hamilton in my rearview mirror, I had decided to be happy forhim. And why not? He wasn’t going to change.
Andneither was I. The small town wasn’t for me. Not even if it meant the house andthe husband and the two-point-five kids. Cooking was worth the sacrifice, worththe loss of everything else. It was worth the chaos and the long hours and theexhaustion. Even the critic reviews and the never-ending, suffocating pressureto get better and do better and become the fucking best.
Andif I got Sarita… I couldn’t even think that far ahead. I had to figure out ifthere was someone in-house that Ezra would handpick.
Myheart dropped to my toes at the very thought of it. Grabbing my phone, Iquickly typed out a text to Dillon.
Want to meet for coffee beforework?
Thetext dots started dancing immediately.I’mheaded to Vera and Killian’s restaurant. I have to drop something off for E.Want to meet me there?
Myplan was to grill Dillon for every last detail she’d learned from Ezra aboutSarita, but Killian and Vera would be even better.Yes! Going now?
I’ll be there in ten.
See you soon.
Ihauled ass to the shower and skipped shaving. I mean, I was wearing pants allday, there was no point. Scrunching my hair with enough product to encourageglobal warming to keep up the good work, I let my chin-length, bright pink hairair dry while I threw on minimal makeup. I was ready in record time.
Therewasn’t a whole lot to my uniform other than a clean pair of pants, the rightshoes and a tight cami under my chef’s coat, which I didn’t wear until I got inthe kitchen. I grabbed a gray silk duster for the cool morning air and mymessenger bag and headed out the door with a banana in my hand. It wasn’tnecessarily the breakfast of champions, but it would do for today.
I’dgrab coffee later. Ugh, the thought of not having a cup before I left nearlykilled me. Coffee was essential to life. I wasn’t even very smart without it.Without my morning cup, I turned into this un-caffeinated, bumbling idiot thatcouldn’t remember words or social cues or anything beyond zombie-level hunger.
Undoubtedly,this was the perfect time to feel out my dream job with three other stellar chefswho probably didn’t even need coffee to have coherent conversations before noon.
Irolled my eyes at myself and hurried down the stairs of my apartment building.The sun was warm as I stepped out to the small parking lot attached to mymidtown building. For a single person living in Durham, I made a decent enoughliving. But I was all middle of the road. Medium salary. Medium part of town.Medium apartment. Yes, I was on the nicer end of the spectrum, but it wasn’tenough.
Whatscared me the most about my ambitions was that I would never have enough, beenough, do enough. That I would always want more.
Thosestarving pieces buried inside terrified me. Would I ever be totally happy withwhat I was doing or where I was in life? Would I ever feel joyful contentment?Or even moderately good enough?
Therewas a certain level of striving that I was okay with. I didn’t want to lose mydrive or my standards of excellence. Those qualities required fierce tenacityand ferocious hunger. My long-term goals required me to push, to keep rising andbecome a better chef.
Yes.Those were good traits, but what about the darker side of those same desires—thegaping abyss inside me that wanted to consume everything in my path. Would thatdesire ever be filled? Satisfied? Exhausted?
