A little more me.
The second I’m settled in the driver’s seat of my car, I pull down the visor and fix the smudges of mascara under my eyes. I tousle my hair and reapply my lip gloss, wiping my lip line to clean up the peachy-pink that gathered along the edge.
With my phone tilted at the most flattering angle, I beam a smile directly into the camera, snap a selfie, and send it off to Alex.
ME:
the face of a girl who just quit
her awful job…
I pause for a second, thumbs hovering over the screen before immediately typing another message. We’re way past a double text being a cardinal sin, right?
ME:
and if you don’t look too close, you
can’t tell how terrifying that was
Opening Spotify, I put on the playlist I playfully namedBake It ‘Til You Make It. God, I love a good pun!
Lavender Hazeby Taylor Swift floods the car. I put the windows down, letting the warm breeze dance alongside me while my shoulders shimmy to the beat.
GRUMP BUCKET:
That’s my girl!
Scared or not, all I see is how
fucking beautiful you are.
Even though I know he can’t see me, I cover my cheeks with my hands as the blush creeps in at the compliment.
I start to type, but backspace the message away only to start again. There’s so much I want to say, and yet, the right words just won’t come.
Get it together, it’s just Alex.
I laugh, imagining him with a scowl on his face, sitting there with our message thread open, watching three little dots appear and disappear over and over again.
How embarrassing.
Before I can decide what to send, his next one comes in. He doesn’t know it, but he puts me out of my misery with three simple words.
GRUMP BUCKET:
I miss you.
Pressure builds behind my eyes again, blurring the screen for a second. And I type out a quick reply. It’s simple, but it says it all.
ME:
I miss you too ??
?????????
I spend my time baking every chance I get, texting Alex whenever we’re both free, and trying to figure out what to do next.
On my way home after quitting my job, I opened Instagram for the first time in months to find my account had exploded during my social media sabbatical.
