That description hit way too close to home. My hands trembled as I checked my phone again. There still wasn’t a reply from Gage.
I opened my browser and typed in his name. The top result was a headline that stole my breath in the very worst way.
Langford Tech Announces Merger of a Personal Nature—New CEO Gage Langford Engaged to Carrington Heiress
My vision swam as I tried to convince myself this was a horrible mistake. But then I saw the photo of Gage and Vanessa. She had a diamond ring on her finger that was big enough to be seen from outer space, and his arm was around her waist.
Tears blurred the screen as I closed the article to call Gage. It was only then that I noticed I’d missed a call from him earlier, probably when I was at the fish counter because cell reception was awful there.
My hand shook as I lifted the phone to my ear to listen to his voicemail.
“I'm sorry you had to hear this way, Tessa. It's not what you think. Don't hate me. Please.”
After a year together, that was all he gave me. Nothing more than a five-second message only minutes before he announced his engagement to another woman.
Abandoning my cart, I tried calling back but was sent straight to voicemail. I fired off a quick text asking him to call me, but it still didn’t show that he’d read it by the time I made it to my car. Another call went to voicemail.
I checked his social media, but none of his accounts pulled up.
I hadn’t just been dumped by voicemail…I had been blocked on every conceivable method of communication.
Gage hadn’t just left me. He erased me, and I never saw his betrayal coming.
I bawled my eyes out for a good fifteen minutes before I was able to pull myself together enough to drive home, where the situation only got worse.
The first thing I saw when I stepped inside my apartment was a cardboard box sitting on the kitchen island. My chest tightened as I walked toward it, already knowing what I’d find.
The key I gave Gage months ago sat beside it. There was no note. No explanation beyond the few words he’d left in his voicemail.
After lifting the sweater I used to wear when I stayed at his place from the top of the pile, I found that my things were crammed in the box without care. My toothbrush was tossed on top of a tangled phone charger. A half-open bottle of hand lotion had leaked across the bottom of the box and soaked the edges of a folded photo strip we’d taken last fall. I picked it up with trembling fingers, only to find the ink bleeding across our smiling faces like they were being wiped away. This felt fitting, since Gage had erased me from his life without so much as a goodbye.
As I dug through the ruins of our past, I realized something was missing from the box. And it was the only item I really cared about—my mom’s scarf. It had been hanging on the hook behind the door of his entryway closet for months. I didn’t know if he had thrown it away or just forgotten about it since the weather was too warm for scarves. Either way, I couldn’t imagine showing up at Gage’s door to ask for it when he’d cut off all other forms of contact.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I searched the apartment for any trace of him, but his things were gone too. His toothbrush. The dress shirts and ties hanging in my closet. Boxers and socks in the drawers. Shaving cream and razor. All gone.
Only a faint trace of his cologne lingered in the bathroom, spicy and expensive. I loved his scent but couldn’t stand it any longer. I spritzed my body spray to cover it up, and when I couldn’t smell a trace of him anymore, I started to sob again.
Curling up on the floor, I stayed there all night, only moving to the couch when my muscles finally started to ache the following morning. It took a week before I was ready to face the world beyond my living room, throwing myself into baking after barely eating for days. I drowned my sorrows in cake, and it ended up saving me in an unexpected way.
1
TESSA
Three Years Later
The frosting smoothed under my spatula as I turned the cake stand. I was almost done filming a time-lapse reel for my socials with just enough movement to capture the technique but not so much that it ruined the angle. Tilting my head, I double-checked the frame on my phone and smiled. The buttercream had just the right sheen, and the rosettes were symmetrical.
The cake was one of my simpler designs but still looked like it belonged in a magazine. Or on a celebrity’s table, which was where it would be tonight.
I was still blown away by some of the people who ordered from me.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was the girl crying over a broken mixer and rent bills that came too close together. Now I had a custom kitchen in the back of my own bakery, a waitlist that stretched three months out, and over half a million followers who liked, shared, and drooled over my work every time I posted a video.
The notification banner popped up as if summoned by my thoughts.
serenawattsofficial sent you a message.
“No way,” I breathed, wiping a hand on my apron after saving the recording in drafts.
