But now, the silence wrapping around us provoked my insecurity. When I was younger, I assumed silence meant the other person found me uninteresting or weird. That they would rather be anywhere but in my presence. That I waslacking. Therapy helped me realize I created the narrative, and it likely didn’t exist. All part of feeling more deeply than people who weren’t HSPs. I now recognized my thought patterns and could combat them… most of the time.
Not today.
“Do you remember how this street was so empty, we’d play catch on our breaks?”
Nathan and I both worked at the café in high school because it accommodated our baseball schedule. It forced me out of my comfort zone. I’d hated it at the time, but it helped me become more comfortable making conversation with people I didn’t know. Nathan liked working there far less than me. He agreed to work only when I was there.
“No. I don’t.” He opened the café door.
Our new business was already unlocked, and Gordon’s girlfriend stood inside, arms crossed, foot tapping, as if we were late. Her sharp-angled face, piercing blue eyes, and thin impatient lips added to an intimidating sight. Surreptitiously, I glanced at Nathan, but I couldn’t read his expression.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son,” she crooned in lieu of hello.
So this is how it’s going to be.
Nathan matched her stance, squaring for battle. Quickly, I stepped to her and stuck out my hand, desperate to cool the rising tension.
“I’m Brenna Quinn,” I said, my hand still lingering in the air.
The woman clucked her tongue. “I know who you are. Who yourmotheris.”
I dropped my hand, a wave of shame rolling over me. I shuffled to the side, wishing I could blend in with the walls, away from her appraising gaze.
Lacking,my brain chanted.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Nathan said.
My eyes snapped to his, but his focus remained entirely on the woman.
“How did you get in here?”
“How do you think?” The woman, who still hadn’t told us her name, shook a ring of keys, jangling them loudly in the surprisingly quiet space. The lack of noise from the street had to say something about the sturdiness of the building. “I usedmykey. I’ve been running this place for the past year.”
Gordon had never mentioned this woman, but her protective feelings toward him and this place were unmistakable. Maybe she resented that he hadn’t left the business to her, opting instead to pass it to his less-than-present son and a random girl who used to live next door. Anyone would struggle to adjust to the loss of their significant other and livelihood in one fell swoop.
I tried again. “It looks great,” I said, my gaze wandering over the space.
The sportcentric inside of the café hadn’t changed. A basketball hoop hung in one corner of the room. A baseball dangling from the ceiling in the center of the café looked as if it had been hit by a baseball player painted on a wall. A quarterback painted in another corner had a football cocked behind his shoulder, ready to throw. And the Palmer City Wolves had a wall of pictures with a replica hockey goal for people to pose in front of for photos.
“Not all of us need the newest, latest thing.” The woman waved a hand, her gesture a knock against the bustling neighborhood. “Some things should be kept the same for posterity.”
Nathan scoffed, motioning around the room. “I’m surprised my dad never sold this place to pay his gambling debts.”
“He wasn’t gambling this past year,” she retorted. “He was too busy dying.”
“I’m well aware.” Nathan remained stoic, unfazed by this interaction. Meanwhile, my gut tangled itself in knots. “You weren’t the only one here, Allison.”
“You came home?” The words shot out of my mouth before I could stop them.
It had broken Nathan, watching his father’s affair with my mom tear his family apart. But the worst part was the deep stab of betrayal from the man he’d revered, who had been his biggest supporter. The man who took Nathan to pitching lessons and tossed baseballs in the batting cage. The agony of not being able to understand whyhewasn’t enough for his father to stay away from my mom.
I knew the feeling all too well, having wondered time and again how my mom could prioritize subpar men over me.
“Not to his home,” the woman—Allison—jumped in. “Myhome.I opened my home to Gordon.”
Nathan ignored her and responded to me. “He’s my dad.”
“But you said yesterday…”
