It rang.
And went to voicemail.
“You’ve reached the voicemail of Catherine Breckenridge…”
I pulled it away from my ear and stared. Had my mom just bitch-buttoned me? I hung up. What the fuck?
I called back, and it rang once before immediately going to voicemail again. Okay, definitely bitch-buttoning me.
My blood started to boil. Excuses piled up, and none of them were comforting. Maybe she was in a meeting. Maybe she was driving. Maybe she’d meant it when she’d told me I was no longer a part of the family. I thought about sending a text to my sister telling her I was right, but this was one thing I didn’t want to be right about. There was no winning in this situation.
I wiped away the moisture collecting in the corner of my eye and put my phone down. Maybe it was time to throw on some hiking boots. The outdoors never did me dirty, though I was afraid of it being too quiet and allowing me too much time to think. Dammit, why were my cheeks wet?
Two knocks sounded. Then another. I opened my door and found Jack standing on my front porch, hand clenched in a fist to knock again.
So it was going to be one ofthosedays.
“What do you want?” I sniffed. He probably thought it was something a stuck-upBreckenridgewould do.
His throat constricted as he swallowed down his shittiness. Probably.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he spoke, softer than I’d ever heard him. This wasn’t going how I thought it would. “I came to apologize.”
Okay, really not going how I thought it would.
“Apologize?” It came out sounding more truculent than I’d meant.
“I was out of line last night. You were pushing me, and I…” He took a half-step back as I glared, hopefully searing a hole through his undersized heart. “No. I never should have said what I said.”
I nodded, and he waited for a response, leaving dead air between us. Breaking the silence was a small mercy he didn’t deserve, but I did it anyway. “You’re right, you shouldn’t have. I’m glad you recognize you did something wrong.”
He gave me a small nod. An acceptance of his wrongness. It caught me off guard, but not enough for me to want this interaction to go any longer than it had to.
“Is that all?”
“Yeah, Nat. That’s all.”
“Cool.” I shut the door in his face and walked to the bed again, already overthinking my interaction, as any anxiety-ridden person would do.
It may have been salty, a little impulsive, and maybe immature, but I wasn’t ready to accept his apology. This was a major sore spot, and he didn’t have a goddamn clue what he was talking about.
The urge to explain myself to him started to pick at me, but I fought it. I didn’t need to reveal that I’d worked my ass off notto be like my family. That choosing myself for once meant losing my home. That made me feel like I was all alone.
I wanted to go see Hazel, but she’d notified me just hours ago that she and Leo were going back to California to deal with a problem at Camp Sunlight. She was vague about it, but if she had to leave the state, there must have been a major issue.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I’d been keeping the animosity between Jack and me under wraps with my friend, mostly because it felt tattletale-y to go to her. Maybe even petty. I didn’t want our issues to reflect poorly on him, because I wasn’t a monster. This had been his job for years. If I were pushed out for being unprofessional, at least I would still have my primary source of income.
But money was the only thing I had. And I would have traded all of it for one person to hug me right now.
It had been days,and everything he’d said that night on the dock still stung. I needed a distraction, which was perfect because today was our day off and we were about to take part in another competition: the bake-off. We’d moved it up to Thursday, after campers had left, with the express purpose of keeping them out of this contest. I couldn’t say I wasn’t nervous, because I barely cooked these days. I was too busy traveling, and when I did have a kitchen, I tried. But there was no baking, per se. I could read directions. That was all I’d need, right?
It took all of five minutes for me to be reminded that Jack Hawthorne was a douche. Especially since he made everyone like him, making me look vindictive for no reason.
Mouth gaping, I watched him goof off with Emerson. And Autumn. And Lamar. Even Kristy from Wildwood’s bakery, the Cozy Crumb, had a rapport with him.
What the hell had I done to make him hate me so much?
I realized I was glaring at him as he told the stupid punchline to his stupid joke.
