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Arriving at the bakery, I opened for the day. I began working on the daily baked goods, starting with the bread. As I was working on the dough, I heard the door open. Looking at the time, I had an idea of who it was, and when I turned around, I was correct.
“Hi, Chloe!”
I sighed as Tyler walked towards me. He was dressed like he just stepped out of a men’s catalog. I knew it was all to impress me, but I just wasn’t impressed. I knew it was meant to entice me, but I couldn’t even muster a crumb of attraction towards him.
“Hi, Tyler.”
“How’s it going?”
“Just baking some bread. Did you want to order something?”
“Maybe in a bit. I actually came to ask you something.”
I fully expected this. My guess was that he would ask me on some kind of date, but I didn’t want to date him. I hadn’t explicitly said that just yet because I wanted to treat Tyler with kid gloves, but maybe I would need to be more direct. Especially now that I was kind of seeing Sean. I couldn’t let there be any confusion.
“What is it?”
“You know how the reunion is coming up, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
They had actually put an order in from the bakery – a bunch of cupcakes. I had an assistant for the bigger orders – a local high schooler – who would come in to help me finish the order later today. I knew Tyler knew about this because he was a part of the planning committee for the reunion, which meant he was a part of the decision to hire me.
But I didn’t say all of that.
“I’m on the planning committee. Not sure if you knew that.”
“Most people do, Tyler. It’s a small town.”
“Right, well.”
I could see him getting a little impatient. I didn’t know what he expected. Well, I did, but I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just take my disinterest and move on. Why was he trying to force it?
“Are you going? To the reunion tonight?”
“Yep,” I nodded.
That perked him right up. “Why don’t we go together?”
I felt myself cringing a little. “No thanks, I’m already meeting someone there.”
Even though Tyler made me squirm, I was still trying to cater to his feelings. Maybe it was because we used to date, or it was because I was a nice person. I didn’t know.
“Who?” Tyler frowned. He looked furious. I didn’t immediately say anything because I didn’t want him to know anything about my life. But he kept asking, and I just couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
“Sean. I’m meeting Sean,” I blurted out. We hadn’t agreed to go to the reunion together, but it made sense.
I looked at Tyler’s face. He was shocked for a second before breaking out into laughter.
“What?” I hated the way he was laughing. I could tell it was a cruel laugh.
“Sean? Sean Falls? He’s just a dork who had a huge crush on you. Why would you go anywhere with him? Why would you want to date a dork?”
“Will you shut up?”
Tyler looked surprised at my retort. I never really talked back to him, but I was so tired of his bullshit. “Why are you acting like a stupid kid? A dork? That’s so childish.”
Tyler turned his nose up at me. “If you’d rather spend your time with men like Sean, then there really is no help for you.”
I rolled my eyes because what a stupid thing to say. No help for me? What did that even mean? I didn’t even have the energy for Tyler and his idiocy anymore.
“Whatever. I’ll see you there, hm?”
Tyler looked like he wanted to say more, but all he could do was make angry faces. He stomped out of the shop, but I didn’t care. If I wasn’t so over him, I might have even laughed at how ridiculous he was being.
It astounded me when Tyler had moved back to town and started pursuing me again. I entertained it a little bit at first, but then I remembered how he left me after my dad died. He found it all so embarrassing. It was the lowest point of my life, and he couldn’t even muster an ounce of sympathy.
I was old enough and wise enough to realize that our whole relationship had been based on looks. It was the fact that he was a gorgeous football player and I was a cheerleader. It was beyond superficial. While I wasn’t going to stew in the past upset about the mistakes of my younger years, what I was definitely not about to do was make them again. Plus, Tyler always had a bit of a temper, and it seemed like things had only gotten worse. After hearing what he did to his ex… there was no way I’d ever get back together with him.
