It’s a pause between chapters.
The breath before the story starts again.
seventeen
HOLDEN
McKenna findsme in the bakery the next morning, while I’m surrounded by the hum of whirring mixers and trays finishing in the oven. The air smells like sugar and cinnamon and everything I’ve ever known.
I should feel at peace here. Instead, I feel like I should bedoingsomething—anything—to make the noise in my head stop.
Our story is unusual, but it’s predictable: three days in December, repeat the following year. Then, we switched from once-a-year visits to every six months and weekly video calls—and even that was a recipe I could follow.
Now I don’t know what this month looks like. Or the next.
She’s quiet at first, like she knows she’s walking into a storm that hasn’t broken yet. She pours a mug of coffee, hops up onto the metal counter like she’s done since we were kids, and lets the noise of work fill the spacebetween us.
“You look like a sad little Who that’s missing out on Christmas,” she finally says.
I manage half a smile. “It’s still October, Kenna.”
She chews on the inside of her lip, both hands wrapped around her coffee mug. The gingerbread-print ceramic catches my eye—another gift from Laila that somehow migrated down here.
She’s literallystampedeverywhere on my life.
“So it’s real, then?” McKenna asks quietly. “She’s gone?”
I drag a hand through my hair and sigh. “She said she needed time, and I told her to take it.”
I watch her chew on my words, weighing what she wants to say next.
“That’s very mature of you,” she says gently.
I stare at my hands. “It’s not what I wanted to do.”
Part of me wanted to cover her mouth so I wouldn’t have to hear the words, or jam my fingers in my ears and pretend she never said them. I know she thinks she doesn’t deserve me, but I can’t wrap my head around love being something youearn.
She never had to earn mine. I’ve always given it to her freely.
But it explains why she struggles so much with telling me how she feels. We’ve never viewed love as the same coin, and that only makes my heart ache more.
“I try not to push, but I think you need to be honest here. Say the words out loud.”
I lift my eyes to hers and wait.
“You’ve always been the steady one in this family,” she says. “Dependable, honorable, all that stuff I make fun of you for. But sometimes I think that makes it hard for you to say what you want.”
“I tell her how I feel,” I say automatically, then wince, because we both know that’s not true.
I filter everything I tell Laila through a “don’t scare her away” lens. I’ve taught myself that it’s easier to play it safe than to risk losing.
“That’s what I thought,” McKenna says. “If I were Laila—and you knew it wouldn’t freak me out—what would you tell me?”
I look at the counter, then back up, voice low. “I’d tell her I love her. That she’s not a pawn, or an agenda. She’s aperson, a beautiful one.I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’ve tried to picture moving on if she decided we didn’t work anymore… but I can’t. I could, but I don’t want to.”
McKenna’s eyes shine a little. “There it is,” she says. “That’s what you needed to say.”
I wish I could say that I felt better, but I don’t. Laila isn’there.
