“Gracie, I need your help with something,” she says. “I can take over here.” She doesn’t even hesitate, coming up to my side and nudging me out of the way with her hip. I touch her arm—a silent gesture of thanks—and walk away, almost expecting Paisley to call me back. Instead, I hear Bridget say shortly, “Can I help you? Or were you leaving?”
I shut the door before I can hear the response, slumping down onto a pile of plastic crates stacked next to the table where we craft our bouquets and arrangements. The room is colder than the front, and I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself, feeling oddly numb.
Bridget walks in a few minutes later, her eyes concerned. “She’s gone.” She comes to crouch down in front of me, her eyes wide at whatever she sees on my face. “Are you okay?”
I nod, shake my head, and then shrug. To my utter disgust, my eyes fill with water, overflowing before I have a chance to blink them away. “Fuck,” I breathe.
“What did she say?” Bridget asks quietly.
“It’s not her, though,” I say, my voice cracking. “I’ve spent three days convincing myself that I was wrong. That it was all in my head.” A brittle laugh. “No, I’ve spentweeksconvincing myself of that.” I swallow. “I’ve been gaslighting myself into believing a lie, and now the truth has come home to roost.”
“Stupid saying,” Bridget mutters, sinking down until her butt touches her heels. She places her hands on my knees, squeezing. “Talk me through it, girl.”
She already knows the details of my conversation with Braxton about transparency, so I skip straight to the feminine scent lingering on his jacket when I took his crew pizza. “I thought it was Theo,” I mutter. “I figured she borrowed his jacket or hugged him…I don’t know.”
“But now you do,” Bridget surmises. “Because of Paisley’s perfume today?”
I scrunch my face up, desperately trying to choke my emotions back. “No.” My heart picks up, and I press a hand to my chest, feeling it thump erratically under my hand, willing it to calm. Everything in my head feels fuzzy and far away, and I blink, trying to bring Bridget back into focus.
“Gracie?” she murmurs, sounding like she’s coming from underwater.
I suck air into my struggling lungs. “I made this conscious decision to trust him because what if he just saw her in passing and genuinely forgot? Hepromisedme honesty.”
“I get it,” Bridget whispers, reaching up to brush the streaks of tears off my cheeks, but they’re immediately replaced with fresh ones. “Don’t blame yourself, Gracie. Whatever comes next, you had every reason to trust him.”
“Did I?” A choked sob escapes. “After what I heard at Thanksgiving, what I saw? How can I be surprised by where we are now?”
Her own eyes are filling now, but she firms her expression. “Get it out,” she orders gruffly. “Finish it.”
I nod weakly. “A week went by, and it was fine. Notfine, but we were okay, I guess. There was this distance between us, like he’d put up a shield I couldn’t break through. But he told me there was this bad car crash, and the chief had told him to go talk to a counselor. So, I figured it was just that, you know? I tried to be there for him, but”—I shake my head—“he wouldn’t let me.”
I can’t look at her for the rest of it, my eyes pinching shut and my fingers clenching into fists on my lap, my nails digging viciously into my palms, the pain grounding me in a way nothing else can.
“He went to his appointment last Wednesday,” I whisper, eyelids flickering, but I stubbornly keep them shut. “I asked if he wanted me to meet him there, but he said no. He told me he would be back in time for dinner at my place.”
“But he wasn’t,” Bridget guesses, and I shake my head.
“I called all afternoon, but every single one went straight to voicemail. I sent messages, each one undelivered. I tried not to worry, because therapy…” I lift a shoulder, not wanting to talk about my own experiences with therapy and how hard that shit is. It doesn’t fix anything, not unless you work at it, and I knew one session wasn’t a cure-all for whatever is hurting Braxton. “I figured I’d give him space. That we could talk when he got back.”
“I’m not going to like this…” Bridget mutters.
“He crawled into my bed after midnight,” I say roughly, finally looking at her. “He crawled into my bed and wrapped his arms around me, and hesmelled like her.” I point a shaking hand to the front of the store. “The same perfume that was on the jacket, and the same one she’s wearing today. Bridget—” My face crumples, and the rest of my body follows, folding in on itself. She surges up, wrapping her arms around me tightly enough that I can’t breathe and tightly enough that it feels like she’s somehow holding all my pieces together, refusing to let me fall apart.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs into my hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
But we both know it’s not.
Two hours later,I still feel like I’m holding on by a mere thread, every second a conscious effort of keeping my feelings locked down and buried. Bridget and I are closing the shop, my movements disjointed as I work on autopilot, grateful that Maryann decided to shut early for Christmas Eve.
Just as we finish up, Bridget looks over at me, her expression concerned. “You’re coming back to mine,” she decides firmly. “We’re going to watch Christmas movies and turn in early.”
“I just want to be alone,” I protest weakly.
Bridget shakes her head. “The last thing you need is to be alone.” She refuses to take no for an answer, and a few minutes later, we’re hustling out to her car, leaving mine in the parking lot.
I watch as she fiddles with the heater, turning it on full blast before sitting back and breathing on her hands, waiting for the engine to warm up.
She side-eyes me. “How’re you doing?” I open my mouth to tell her I’m fine, but she adds, “And no bullshit.”
