Because wanting things was how you got destroyed. You reached for something, let yourself believe you could have it, and then it got ripped away and you were left with nothing but the shape of what you'd almost had.
I'd been destroyed enough for one lifetime. I didn't have it in me to survive another loss.
But watching Cal work, watching his hands move with that quiet competence, watching him fix something just because he'd noticed it was broken?—
I wasn’t sure I knew how to stop myself.
I picked up extra shifts at the café.
I convinced myself it was practical because I needed the money. I’d been relying on Cal’shospitality for over a week, eating his food, sleeping in his apartment, and I needed to start pulling my own weight. Building back toward independence. That was all.
But the truth was simpler and uglier: I was running.
Not far. Not out of town, not out of his life. Just far enough to breathe. Far enough to stop noticing the way his shirt stretched across his shoulders. Far enough to remember who I was before I started imagining who I could be with him.
Morning shifts. Evening shifts. Doubles when Joanna would let me. I filled my days with coffee orders and small talk and the mindless rhythm of work, and I came home exhausted enough that I didn't have to think about anything except sleep.
Seven years of teaching had built a decent savings account—my mother had raised me to prepare for the worst. That money had carried me through Denver, through the unemployment after I quit, through six months of café wages that barely covered rent. But the cushion was thinning. Another year of this, and I'd be starting from nothing.
Cal noticed that something had changed, and he didn’t know why.
"You're working a lot," he casually commented one evening, as he watched me grab my bag for another closing shift.
"Everything okay?"
"Fine." The word came out too quick. "Just picking up extra hours. Saving money."
He studied my face the way he did sometimes, like he could see through every wall I’d tried to build. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure of anything anymore. But I smiled and said goodbye and walked out the door before he could ask any more questions I didn't know how to answer.
The café closed at ten. Joanna offered to stay while I locked up, but I sent her home.
"You've been here since six," I said. "Go. I've got this."
She hesitated, that worried look she'd been wearing more often lately. "You sure? I don't like you closing alone."
"I've got the car now. I'll be fine."
Cal had insisted I stop walking to work alone. Owen had a Honda he'd been fixing up—said it was just sitting in his garage, might as well get some use. I knew Cal was behind it.
I'd had a license since I was sixteen, but hadn't thought to get a car when I moved back. Walking had felt like enough when I was trying to be invisible. Now invisibility wasn't working, and Cal wasn't taking no for an answer.
I told myself I'd find a way to repay all of this eventually. The list of what I owed these people grew longer every day I stayed in Cal's apartment.
The café was quiet after Joanna left. Just me and the empty tables and the hum of the refrigerator case, the espresso machine ticking as it cooled down.
I wiped down tables that were already clean. Restocked the napkin dispensers. Swept the floor even though I'd swept it an hour ago. Ran through the closing checklist on autopilot, my hands moving through the familiar motions while my mind stayed carefully blank.
This was what I was good at. The routine. The rhythm. Mindless work that didn't require me to feel anything, didn't ask me to think about Cal or Evan or the way my life had become something I barely recognized. Just tables to wipe and chairs to stack and a floor that needed sweeping. Simple. Manageable. Safe.
I did a final walk-through. Checked the back door, the bathroom, the storage room. Made sure everything was off, everything was locked, everything was the way it should be. Joanna trusted me to close up right. I wasn't going to let her down.
I grabbed my keys from under the counter. Turned off the lights, one switch at a time, watching the café go dark section by section. The front windows glowed faintly from the streetlight outside, casting long shadows across the floor.
I stepped out into the parking lot and locked the door behind me.
