Page 11 of Crack the Ice

Customers, real customers that aren’t people I know. I can’t tell you the last time I felt this light, free. A booming laugh falls from me. I’m doing this.

“Do those papers happen to hold the orders? I’ll pack them up now. I don’t want to touch the display case until we open. It took me forever to get it to look like that, and if I touch it, I’ll change it five more times before I’m happy with it again.”

Lana snorts, and papers come into my field of view. “Of course you would, you little perfectionist you.”

I am, but that’s a topic to work through in therapy another day. “I’ll take those!” I sing, plucking the orders from her hand and moving to the opposite side of the table, willing my mind to focus on the task at hand and not his confused, what the hell does that mean?

Lana disappears back to the front, leaving me to do what I do best. Her voice mixed with the raspy edge of Mav’s used to be the most comforting sound in the world. Now it makes me anxious. He makes me anxious because if he keeps begging, I’ll give in.

I press a hand to my chest, taking a breath and holding it, hoping it’ll help my heart calm down. Today is my day. It’s for me, and I’m going to own it.

I’m mindlessly putting each item in the correct box, checking them off the order as I go when the kitchen door creeps open. Lana’s head of blonde hair pokes around the corner, the smile she walked in here with a few minutes ago still in place.

“You forgot your coffee. Are you okay? Are the nerves getting to you?” she asks, setting my drink down and pressing her hands flat against the countertop.

No, your brother is getting to me.

“No, I’m okay, but I’d prefer it if these were ready when they showed up. Get ahead of the potential rush. If I have time now, why make them wait later, you know?”

She rhythmically taps her thumbs against the cold metal table, her signature nervous tell.

“Spit it out, Lan.”

“What happened between you and Mav? You guys used to be as close as you and I are.”

I take a deep inhale as I close the lid to the order I’m working on. “We grew apart. I started driving, he started traveling, I left the dance studio, and we hung out at my house more than yours.” I shrug. “Life, I guess.” That lie came out too easily, and it tastes bitter on my tongue.

“I dunno, Cecy. You guys were two peas in a pod one day, and sworn enemies the next.”

I snort. We’re not sworn enemies. There came a point when I got tired of being left behind. Sure, I was the one who actually ran, but that was after months of being invisible to a man who swore I was “everything.”

At least that’s the story I tell myself. I could only pick up the broken pieces so many times before I bled out. So I told myself I was doing both of us a favor, walking away before he knew how bad it got.

I think she’s going to pick up on the fact that I don’t want to answer that, but then, in typical aloof, I-can’t-read-the-room fashion, she adds, “I always hoped you two would get together. Then you’d be my sister for real.”

Dagger, meet heart. Stomach, meet asshole. Tears, meet eyeballs.

Mierda. ⁠*

I turn before she can see how hard her words hit me. “Sorry, sis. I don’t see that happening.” That doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could have been.

She looks deep in thought, as her gaze darts around the kitchen. “Can I set you up with one of Lake’s brothers then?”

Only Lana. My shoulders shake in silent laughter, unable to crush her dreams anymore than I already have. “You’re insane.”

“That a yes?” She smirks.

“If it’ll get you to leave me alone, knock yourself out.”

I regret that answer the second she runs from the room, rambling a mile a minute.

The walk down the long hallway makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. This has been a long time coming, but the once familiar light blue walls feel foreign. The signature vanilla and lavender scent of the office does little to calm my nerves today.

I haven’t been here in months, and I thought I was good, okay even. I was, maybe, until Maverick and the kids strong-armed their way back into the life I’ve done my hardest to keep him out of.

I knock on the door, pushing it open after a few seconds, only to relax the second I see the giant beanbag chair in the corner. The chair I’ve curled up in time and time again, baring parts of me that I never dared share with anyone else. Though she still doesn’t know the extent of it.

“Hi Cecilia, long time no see,” Megan, my therapist, says as I pick the chair across from her desk instead of my comfort one.