She buckled her seat belt but didn’t respond. The tight look on her face convinced him she shouldn’t be alone.
“Fine. You win.” She threw her hands in the air. But he caught the slightest trace of a smile on her lips. “Do you want to put your bike in the bakery while we’re gone?”
“Nah, it’ll be fine under the overhang of the roof. Give me a sec.” He moved the bike, then trotted around to the passenger side. He swung in as she adjusted the heating controls.
“Should be warm in here in no time.”
“I saw the plow truck spreading sand while I was cycling down here. Hopefully it will have worked its magic by now.”
They drove through town in silence. The ice from the storm shimmered everywhere. Out in the harbor, white caps chased each other across the waves.
“Do you need directions? I can navigate.” Sammy wiggled his cell phone in the air.
Robin kept her eyes on the road. “No. I know how to get there. Thanks, though. Maybe I should have asked if you wanted to drive.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You’re not one of those macho guys who always needs to be in control of the car?” She flipped on the windshield wipers. For a moment, theirswish-swishwas the only sound in the van.
He swallowed. Looked out the window. “The truth is, I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car, or anything on four wheels, since the day of my accident.” The words hung between them like fog over a frozen pond.
“Oh.”
Was that all she was going to say? The silence stretched thin. Okay, he probably owed her more than that. “That’s why I ride my bike all the time. I’ve tried to take my mom’s car out sometimes or my truck, but I just freeze up. I can barely turn the car on, let alone put it into drive.” And yeah, it wasn’t the only reason, but it was the main reason.
“So, like, PTSD?”
“Pretty much. Except that my therapist said it’s a little different since I developed it from one traumatic event instead of a long, sustained season of trauma. They call it ASD or Acute Stress Disorder.” An image of the Prius a moment before impact flashed before his eyes. If he’d been one second slower…but no. His therapist said not to dwell on what-ifs. The truth was, he had been just fast enough to keep from crashing his semitrailer into that tin can of a car.
“I guess that makes sense.” She glanced at him, her expression unreadable, before looking back to the road.
“Most of the symptoms are better.” Except the nightmares. “My therapist said that when my need for driving becomes greater than my subconscious desire to avoid it, I will give it a try again. For now, I’m content on my bike.”
“I think you’re brave.”
“I’m not though.” In fact, in the moment before he’d pulled that mother and son from the car, he’d panicked. He still broke into a cold sweat thinking about it. He’d panicked and wasted precious minutes before doing anything to save them. “You’re the brave one. Moving halfway around the world. Pursuing your dream.”
“Some dream that turned out to be.”
“What happened over there?”
“My boss, Victor, asked me to make a cake for a contest.” Robin reached over and turned the heat down. “I spent hours perfecting the design, then even more time building and decorating the cake. But when it was done, Victor basically stole it from me, telling the judges he’d made it.”
“That’s not right.”
“The thing is, it was his bakery, so it was his right to claim the cake, but then he humiliated me in front of the whole staff, and he gave Monique, my coworker, the position he’d promised me.”
“He sounds like a jerk.” Sammy clenched his hands.
“Yeah, he kind of is. I can see that more clearly now. I’m mostly over the injustice of the situation, but I can’t let go of the idea that I never got to show anyone what I can do. There I was, in Paris, and I missed my chance.”
“Well, you’re showing them now, right? Managing a bakery, making amazing cakes.”
“I guess. But sometimes it feels like it was more than a cake that was stolen from me. Like it was my whole life. Now I just feel stuck.” She adjusted her hands on the wheel. “All I want is to get back to finding a place where I fit in. I’d started doing that in Paris, but maybe I’ll never fit anywhere.”
They drove awhile in silence. Robin leaned forward slightly in the driver’s seat. Her words sank in. They had some things in common.
“I get that. Not the cake part, obviously, but I do feel stuck, you know? Like I never got out from under that log. I want more for my life, but I don’t really know what that would be.”
