“Okay.” She straightened, hesitated for half a second. Long enough for me to see the internal war between her usual armor and whatever impulse had just won—then flung her arms wide like she was surrendering to a mugging. “Hug. Right now. Come here. I’m doing the hug. Don’t laugh. Don’t speak. Just—hug.”
I stared. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious. I’m terrible at this. My arms don’t know what to do. They’re panicking already.” She wiggled her fingers impatiently. “But you get a hug because I’m proud of you, and words are failing me, and if I don’t do this, I’m going to explode into a thousand flying breakfast burritos or something equally tragic. Move.”
I laughed—a startled, watery sound—and stepped forward before she could retract the offer. She clamped her arms around me like she was securing a fragile package in shipping tape—too tight, elbows locked, one hand awkwardly patting my back in the world’s most mechanical rhythm—pat-pat-pat—like she was trying to burp a very large, very emotional infant.
“There,” she muttered against my shoulder, voice muffled and slightly strangled. “Hug protocol engaged. Emotional support delivered. We’re both still breathing. But barely.”
It was the most hilariously rigid embrace I’d ever received, and somehow the most tender. Her heartbeat thumped fast against mine, betraying how much this cost her composure. I wrapped my arms around her properly, squeezed back with everything the last few days had stirred up, and felt her freeze for one startled second before she melted—just a fraction—into something real. One more fierce, quick squeeze, then she shoved me away gently, cheeks flaming, clearing her throat as if she’d just run a sprint.
“Don’t ever tell anyone I did that,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “I will deny it. I will say you hallucinated. I have a brand to protect.”
“Your secret dies with me,” I promised, wiping at my eyes and smiling so wide it hurt.
She nodded once, satisfied, and turned back to the register like the whole thing had been a minor transaction. Except my chest felt lighter, warmer, cracked open by her friendship and the way she chose to express it.
The first mid-morning customer wanted lottery tickets and ice and didn’t glance at me twice. Relief.
I went to work.
The shift moved in familiar waves, busy, quiet, busy again. I ran the register, stocked shelves, and smiled at regulars and strangers alike. Elizabeth moved at her usual full-tilt pace, her aunt’s low voice drifting from the kitchen like steady background music.
Around nine-thirty, in a pocket of stillness, my phone buzzed.
Aunt Aggie: Great Uncle Harold would be so proud of you. Tomorrow, at my trailer, I’m holding a meeting. I want to have a plan in place for what may come. And I want us all to be on the same page.
Me: I’ll be there.
The store was empty. I stood behind the register with those words burning on the screen, each one arriving separately because the whole sentence was too big to take in at once.
Great Uncle Harold, who sat on the family court bench for thirty-one years, believed that every person deserved to be heard. Great Uncle Harold, who taught me chess at Aggie’skitchen table and let me win until I was ready to grow up and lose. Uncle Harold, who showed up to every school play, every graduation, every hard day—without fanfare, because showing up was simply what he did.
My parents hadn’t come to my beauty school graduation. Mom said they would have come if it were college, like that made the absence sting less. Dad didn’t even offer an excuse. I told myself it didn’t matter. I got very good at telling myself things didn’t matter. So good that I spent all this time hiding my real voice behind distortion and a microphone instead of risking it on people who might not be ready to hear it.
Uncle Harold and Aunt Aggie always showed up. Uncle Harold always thought I had something worth hearing.
Great Uncle Harold would be so proud.
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, stared at the ceiling tiles, and breathed through my nose as if my job depended on not crying at work. All these years of quietly waiting for someone to be proud of me, never quite admitting that was the ache.
I typed back:I love you.And set thephone face down.
Elizabeth returned, took one look at my face, went to the coffee station, poured a cup, set it in front of me without comment, and went back to work.
I held the cup and tried to get my breathing under control.
The door chimed.
Harper burst in like she’d been driving since the episode dropped, Bella in tow, keys still in hand, already talking before the door closed.
“I cannot believe you.”
“Good morning to you, too,” I said, managing a smile.
She reached the counter, stopped, and looked at me with nothing held back. “You sound like you again. Like the you from before everything got heavy with Dipshit Travis and yourparents and—ahhhh! You sound like my best friend again, and I love you.”
“Don’t make me cry. Please.”
