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“Thank him for what?” she asks.
Fuck. I’m so tired it didn’t even occur to me that she’d ask.
Tell her, says a voice in my head. Brendan will tell her eventually anyway.
I’m not sure where that voice comes from, but I know it’s wrong. Brendan won’t tell her. He won’t tell anyone, and I’m struck once more by the odd discomfort of knowing I’ve been maligning someone for years, perhaps without cause, and a big piece of me wants to keep doing it.
“Just stuff around the house.”
“You know what he’d love? Those coconut almond bars you make. Every time you ever made them for me, he decimated them. The last time he visited us, he took the entire container, the bastard.”
“He must not have known I made them.”
She clucks her tongue. “Of course he did. I know you don’t believe me, Erin, but he doesn’t hate you.”
“Oh yeah? Then why has he gone out of his way to convince Rob to break up with me? He thinks I’m not good enough for him.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe he thinks Rob’s not good enough for you?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe it should.”
I ignore her. Olivia thinks this way because she doesn’t care for Rob. Because she thinks he’s not good enough. What she doesn’t know is that Brendan has irrefutable proof that the opposite is true. And he seems to be getting more proof every day.
I make the bars for Brendan, struggling to remember why I ever stopped baking as I do it. Even as sleep-deprived as I am, baking fills me with a sort of contentment I haven’t felt in a long time. I leave them in a box outside Brendan’s door, feeling oddly satisfied—a sensation that lasts only until I tell Rob about it.
“Why’d you do that?” he asks.
“O-oh,” I stammer. “I made them for Brendan. He’s…been helping out.”
“Sugar, fat, and flour. The white menace,” says Rob. “You’re sure you aren’t just trying to kill him?”
I’ve heard Rob’s spiel about this before. I’d like to say it’s never annoyed me until now, but I think it has. This gnawing irritation with him feels far too familiar. I think it might be why I stopped baking.
“You just dismantled a company and laid off 30 percent of its work force, but I’m the bad guy for making someone dessert?” I snap.
“Jesus, Erin. It was just a joke.”
Except it’s not really a joke if he meant it, and he sort of meant it.
I fall asleep wondering why I gave up what I loved so easily. In order to keep the peace, I think I gave up a lot of things. I’m pretty sure Rob cannot claim to have done the same.
15
Erin
Present
“I’m worried about you,” says Harper, hopping onto my file cabinet. “When’s the last time you got laid?”
I laugh and shake my head. “That’s not as big a deal for everyone as it is for you.”
“Come out with me this weekend,” she says.
She’s suggested this many times in the past, but I’ve almost always said no. I love Harper, but Harper loves lots of people, and she will choose one to love about ten minutes after we’ve paid our cover and bought our first beers.
And I’d say no this time too, except I feel like I’m not capable of staying in to watch any more TV. I can’t stay in, period. I’m pretty sure I’m one step away from dressing Mr. Tibbles up in a miniature North Face pullover and taking him out to dinner with me.
