She didn't say anything. Just grabbed another crate, flipped it, and sat down next to me. Our shoulders touched. The cooler rattled behind us.
"They're selling," I said.
"I heard."
"Three weeks."
"I heard that too."
Quiet. The good kind—the kind where a person sits with you in the rubble and doesn't try to clean it up.
"I've been here three years, Mika. I painted the walls. I designed the menu board. I trained every barista who's walked through that door." I stared at my hands. Coffee-stained fingers. A callus on my right thumb from the portafilter. "And I can't afford to save it."
"Not today," Mika said. "But today isn't the deadline."
"Today feels pretty close."
She bumped my shoulder. "Then we deal with it. Not right now. Not on this milk crate. But we deal with it."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to be the version of myself who heard bad news and sprang into action, who made plans and rallied and found a way. That Willow existed—she'd gotten me through Devon, through dropping out of school, through every moment I'd wanted to quit and didn't.
But right now, on this crate, in this back room, I was just a girl whose dream had an expiration date.
My phone buzzed at four-fifteen. Mr. Henley.
Repairs finished. Unit 3B ready for move-in. Keys at the front desk whenever you want them.
I stared at the screen. Read it twice.
A month ago, this text would've been the best newsof my week. My apartment. My space. My shag carpet and avocado tiles and popcorn ceilings that drove Callum insane. The place where I answered to nobody and could eat cereal at midnight without judgment.
Now it felt... complicated.
Mika read the text over my shoulder. She had zero concept of personal phone boundaries, which was one of my favorite things about her.
"You going back?" she asked.
I locked the screen. Shoved the phone in my pocket.
"I don't have an answer for that yet."
"Mm-hm." She gave me a look that communicated roughly fourteen follow-up questions she was choosing not to ask. "Okay."
"Stop making that face."
"I'm not making a face."
"You're making the face you make when you think I'm avoiding a thing."
"Are you avoiding a thing?"
"Goodnight, Mika."
"It's four-thirty."
"Goodnight, Mika."
I drove to Callum's on autopilot that scared me a little. Red lights, green lights, turns I didn't remember making. My brain was full—Elena, Pete and Linda, Mr. Henley, the ticking clock on the shop, the apartment sitting empty and waiting—and none of it had organized itself into a thought I could act on.
