Instead, I opened the apartment door and found my boyfriend in bed with our neighbor from across the hall.
Lucas was still tangled in the sheets, sweatpants crumpled somewhere near the foot of the bed. His coyote instincts clearly hadn’t prepared him for the possibility that I might come home to my own apartment. He didn’t look guilty. He looked startled. Like I was the one being rude for interrupting.
The neighbor stared at me like I was a stranger.
Our neighbor. I hadn’t even known her name. Nobody in New York City knows their neighbor’s name. You share a wall, maybe a fire alarm chirp, and that’s the full relationship.
Apparently, Lucas was the exception. He not only knew her name. He knew her far better than zoning laws or common decency would suggest.
The betrayal didn’t scream. It whispered. It curled into my ribs and made itself at home. Everything I had counted on was gone in an instant. New York shrank around me. The buildings pressed in. The subway screeched louder. The air thickened. I no longer belonged in a city that once made me feel powerful.
Now, back in my old bedroom, I slipped my résumé into a folder and tried to breathe like a functioning adult. I had not planned to run home to Chrysanthemum Cove. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I had moved out at eighteen with fire inmy veins and a plan. Now I slept under a bedspread that didn’t fit and argued with a printer that might be possessed.
I needed work. I needed something to do besides stew in my own humiliation. I needed money. Preferably from a job that didn’t involve soul-sucking interns or sex-with-the-neighbor surprises.
That was why the Lighthouse Diner listing caught my eye. Marketing for a small-town diner? Not exactly glamorous. But it was real. It had meat on its bones. And okay, fine, it wasn’t just the job.
That diner used to be the center of the universe. After school, we all piled into those booths because we had nowhere else to be. Backpacks on the floor, fries in the middle of the table, milkshakes sweating in tall glasses. The air always smelled like bacon and possibility. My boyfriend Jason worked the counter, grinning like the world hadn’t hit him yet. His aunt owned the place and let us stay way past the point of being paying customers.
It was the last place that felt like forever. Then I moved. Jason and I didn’t fight. We just… stopped. Unanswered texts. New schedules. Bigger dreams. Or maybe just different ones. Every now and then, I thought about him. Wondered if he still flipped burgers or if he became one of those people who owned a boat.
I wasn’t giving up and settling in Chrysanthemum Cove for the rest of my life. That was never the goal. This job? Temporary. A stopgap. I didn’t spend years building marketing skills in New York just to throw it all away and fade into some small-town background. That would’ve felt like admitting defeat.
The plan was simple: take the job, make some money, pay down the loans, and stop living off my dad and microwaved guilt. While I did that, I’d flood every marketing agency in NewYork with my résumé. Big firms, boutique firms, even the ones with terrible fonts and no careers page. I’d hit them all.
Land something in six months. Pack a suitcase. Leave Chrysanthemum Cove in the rearview. Return to Manhattan smarter, sharper, and better dressed. With a salary that screamed watch me now.
The next time my cheating ex saw me, he’d choke on his regret. And I’d be too busy to notice.
But first, I had an interview.
I grabbed my folder, shoved on my shoes, and gave the room one last look.
I wasn’t the girl who left this room. I wasn’t the woman I wanted to be. Not yet.
But I was done stalling.
I squared my shoulders, opened the door, and stepped out.
Time to work.
JASON
The Lighthouse Diner buzzed like a beehive on free pie day.
I slid between tables, coffee pot in one hand, order slips in the other, avoiding toddlers and grumpy retirees with the grace of a man who knew the exact angle to dodge flying toast. Mrs. Forrester waved me over from booth three.
“Jason, honey, my eggs are whispering to me.”
“Tell them to mind their business,” I said, topping off her coffee. “You want hot sauce or counseling?”
She cackled and pinched my arm. “Both.”
At the counter, Levi, our fry cook, shouted, “Order up! Pancakes, no judgment, extra whipped cream!” That meant Carla Torres was here. Carla was going through a breakup. Again.
The scent of bacon clung to the air. The floor tiles squeaked in the exact spot I never got around to fixing. A kid screamed about syrup. Someone else ordered French toast without actually making eye contact, which I respected.
This place wasn’t just my job. It was the only thing that made sense. I could track ten conversations, three empty coffee cups, and the exact moment someone decided to leave a cheap tip.My senses itched when something went wrong and settled when everything clicked. The rhythm of it—the noise, the heat, the smell of burnt toast—it kept me sane.
