“I’ll see you again in a bit, I’m sure, Jade! You and Daniela don’t get up to too much trouble.”
“I assure you we’ll get up to all the trouble,” I said, watching after her as Charlie and Linda led her away through the market. Daniela followed me gaze, watching the three of them, before she spoke quietly.
“She’s a good one, isn’t she?”
“Yeah…”
She leaned against the table. “I guess it’s probably pretty obvious she did that so I could get a second to talk to you.”
My stomach tightened, fight-or-flight reflex tensing my muscles. Alyssa wouldn’t have convinced me to come to this market just to get me cornered in with Daniela telling me to suck up and apologize to everyone again, would she? “I’m listening,” I said, frostier than I needed to be.
“I just wanted to say sorry,” she said, looking down at the stone floor underneath us, dusted with little leaves and twig pieces from the plant vendors who came through earlier. Her voice was small as she continued. “I feel like I’ve been arguing with you every time I see you, and I swear I’m not trying to, I just…”
I stood up from the seat on my side, my hands tense on the table. “You just want me to walk everything back.”
“No. I just suck at talking about these things.” She rubbed her forehead. “I just… miss you, is all. And you know how I am. I see a problem, I try to fix it. I know I shouldn’t. But I see that you’re a million miles away, and I want to make it better in what seems like the simplest way. But I don’t… really… mean it, I guess. Not like that, anyway. I just wish we were hanging out like we used to.”
I stared at her for the longest time, my thoughts struggling to catch up and sort out, and slowly, I sank back into my seat.“I’m not that far away,” I said quietly. “Everyone has my contact. Everyone knows where I live.”
“I know. But, god, you know what I mean, right? Like, I’ve been convinced you hate me.”
“You’ve been—I don’t hate you.”
“I thought you were mad I didn’t take your side in everything and so you wouldn’t want to talk to me.”
“I…” I shook my head. I felt so unsettled, so… ungrounded. In a good way. I couldn’t describe it, just… hoping. That maybe things didn’t have to hurt the way they had been. “Everyone stopped talking to me, stopped reaching out to me, stopped inviting me to anything. Same for Cat. Of course I’m going to assume everyone who’s doing it is on the same page. Why would I have been reaching out to you first?”
She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t see things like that. I’m sorry.”
I looked down, adjusting some things on the table, just… keeping my hands busy. “No, I’m… I’m sorry too. I know I haven’t been making it easy to talk to me.”
“I miss our friendship, though. So, um… can we move past this?”
I sighed, and I rummaged around in my boxes to pull out another candle, this one wrapped in parchment with a little gift tie on top. “Here,” I said. “To seal the deal.”
“Is this—a candle?”
“No, Daniela, it’s a grenade,” I deadpanned. “I’m blowing us both to kingdom come. Yes, it’s a candle. I guess I was thinking the same thing and ended up absentmindedly making you a candle. You know how you always brush me off when I ask what you like best,oh it’s all good?Alyssa outed you that you liked the sea salt ones, so here you go. Sea salt, balsam, and cardamom. Like a cozy beach house. Enjoy.”
She laughed, unwrapping the package. “That’s the most aggressive pitch for a gift I’ve ever gotten,” she said, pulling out the candle, swirled white and blue designs. “Oh, god, it’s so cute though. And it smells perfect. I just wanna take a big bite out of it.”
“I beg of you, no.”
She laughed, turning to me with the sweetest smile. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Thanks. I’m going to have to get you a gift, too, because I owe you something way more than you owe me.”
“I wasn’t doing this to make you buy me something,” I laughed.
“I know, but I’m obstinate. Luckily there’s plenty of gifts here. Talk about last-minute shopping.” She beamed at me. “So… come around for dinner at my place sometime? You and me and Alyssa, and you can bring Cat, too, if she wants to come.”
“I… that’d be nice,” I said, my voice thick. This was what Alyssa had been trying to do… why she’d wanted so badly for me to be at this market, why she’d been talking to me about how things had happened with Daniela, why she’d left Daniela here with me once we were talking. She’d probably done just as much on Daniela’s side to get her to talk to me, too.
Just because she wanted to. Making my day better, making everyone’s days better, in a place she wasn’t even planning on staying, just because she wanted to.
“It’s a plan,” Daniela said. “In that case, I’m off to do some shopping, too. But I’ll keep you in the loop. An evening this week?”
“Yeah, sounds good to me.”
“Awesome. I’ll update you. But let me know if you have any requests. It’s been a minute since you’ve been lucky enough to have Daniela Holman cuisine.”
