“I was only trying to help,” I argued weakly. “You think I don’t realize how fucking strong you
are? And you’re the one who insisted on me living over the garage. If you remember, I suggested you
give it to Jayden so he could have a bit of freedom without paying for campus housing, but you swore
this would be better. I thought you wanted me around to help out.”
“Yes, tohelpout,” she reiterated. “That doesn’t mean I want to look out my front windows when
it’s barely light out and see you digging up the ground. It doesn’t mean I want to come home from
work to see that you’ve torn apart my back deck.”
“It needed to be done!” I argued. Good lord, all I’d wanted to do was take some shit off her plate
since I knew she was busting her ass to get a promotion at the marketing firm where she worked.
“And it would have been,” she countered. I’d never before seen someone angrily serve up
cinnamon rolls, but there was no other way to describe her syncopated motions. “It could have waited
until spring, just like everything else, and then we could have done it together. But no, you had to play
the hero and do it for me. I’m not a damsel, and I sure as hell don’t need a white knight riding in to
save me.”
“And this required baked goods for you to tell me?” I quipped. I leaned back, bracing my hands
on her shoulders. “If it was bugging you that much, you should have said something instead of letting it
build up.”
“What? And listen to you beat yourself up about how you weren’t here when I was struggling to
raise a kid, put myself through school, and work?” She shook her head before letting out a huff of
laughter. “No thank you. I figured you’d work it out of your system, realize how bored you are sitting
around here, and finally decide what you want to do with your life. But you’ve been home for almost
two years, Jayden’s moved out, and I’m fine. It’s time for you to get on with your own life.”
“Maybe this is what I want to do,” I argued before taking a huge bite of the roll. No doubt there
was frosting smeared all over my face, but I gave zero fucks. On top of everything else Vivvie had
accomplished, she was one hell of a baker. I focused on eating every bite, along with dragging a
finger through the gooey icing on the plate rather than leave a single crumb behind. It gave me
something to do other than lay everything on the line.
I wasn’t lying to my sister when I told her I was exactly where I wanted to be in life. After being
tied down by structure and going wherever my command told me to for more than half my life, I was
happy as a pig in shit to have nothing tethering me. If I wanted to garden at six in the morning, I could.
