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But even more than that, my heart hurts.
I’ve always claimed that I never understood all those sappy, brokenhearted love songs, but now I do. This feeling is debilitating and makes it hard to breathe. Why do people intentionally do this to themselves? Falling in love is awful.
After Briggs left, I made my way upstairs to my room and shut the door. With the windows open and a candle burning, the smell wasn’t too noticeable, and after a while, I forgot it was even there. I carefully took a bath, climbed into my bed, and cried.
I feel so stupid.
I know better than to use water on a grease fire, but when I saw the flames, I panicked, and the sink was right there. So many flames and it was so hot. Hotter than anything I’ve ever felt before.
And then there’s my poor arm.
The hospital told me I had second-degree burns. They also told me the burn may worsen over the next couple of days. They peeled the skin off the top of the blisters, and I have to go back daily to have it reassessed and the dressings changed. They already warned me it would scar. Just what I need, a daily reminder about my mistakes and failures.
Of course I didn’t tell Briggs any of this. He doesn’t need to know. The whole night was embarrassing enough.
And I did want to go home with him and climb into his bed, but what would be the point? The type of friend he wants me to be, I stand firm, is the type who isn’t going to be sleeping in his bed.
I can’t.
All of this is just terrible.
And my arm hurts.
Sometime around ten, I finally make my way downstairs. I’ve been dreading what my house will look like in the light of day, and I’m afraid of the project that will come my way. I called for restoration cleanup, so someone will be here at lunchtime, but after that, it’s insurance adjusters, contractors, permits—all of it feels daunting and not like anything I want to deal with. Maybe I’ll go back to New York now and let someone else deal with this.
I’m staring at the coffee maker, trying to decide whether I want to wade through the mess left behind from the extinguisher foam and the people in my house, when Jane comes bustling through the door with two coffees and a large bag. Her eyes instantly find the charred kitchen, and her jaw drops.
“Oh, your poor kitchen,” she says, blinking at the damage.
“It’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but it could have been worse. I can replace the kitchen,” I tell her as I head to the dining room to open the windows. It seems most of them were opened at some point last night, but I still need them all opened to ventilate the house. The air is cold this morning, but I don’t mind. After the heat last night and how bad my poor arm feels, I welcome it.
“That’s right, you can replace the kitchen, but we can’t replace you,” she says as she drops her stuff and turns to me. Tears fill her eyes, and the next thing I know, she’s rushing my way and hugging me.
And because I’m such a hot mess myself, I start crying too. Affection is not something I’m generally familiar with, so to receive it when I desperately need it, she’ll never know what this means to me.
Jane is the first to pull back. Her eyes are filled with worry as they scan my face, and her fingers tuck some loose hair behind my ear. “I’m just beside myself today. Cole called this morning and told me what happened, and then between Briggs this week and thinking I could have lost you, my old body can’t handle it.”
“What do you mean, Briggs? What happened to him this week?” I ask. He seemed fine last night.
“I . . .” She thinks about how to answer the question and moves back to her bag. She pulls out a smaller bag I recognize and places it next to the coffees on the coffee table. She’s brought me cider donuts. “Well, when you get to be my age, it’s easy to see things that maybe people don’t want you to see.”
“What did you see?” I ask, following her to the kitchen table.
“He’s not been himself,” she says as she dumps out a whole bunch of cleaning supplies.
“How so?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she takes a bucket, pours in some vinegar, and then water from a gallon jug she brought.
“You’re gonna push this subject, aren’t you?” she asks as she eyes me and my bandage-wrapped arm.
My response is to stare at her, hoping she’ll go on and tell me.
“Cora, Briggs has a broken heart.”
Instantly, I’m furious. Despite what is going on between the two of us, Briggs is a great guy. I can’t imagine someone hurting him. If it was someone in his family, I might have to tuck my tail between my legs and call Winston to take care of it. “Who broke it?”
She reaches in the bag for a hand towel and looks at me. “Well, you did, sweetie.”
