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seventeen
JOSELYN
When Joselyn had left the shop Saturday morning after breaking up with Marcus, nothing was right. There had been so many fears and doubts and worries piling on top of her since they started dating that she thought for sure ending things with him would blow all of those things clean away from her. That she’d be back to feeling normal and things with her and Marcus and With a Cherry on Top would go back to being fun and easy.
She had been so very wrong.
Intense sadness and longing and loneliness had moved into its place and had stayed with her all weekend. She didn’t tell Macie that she and Marcus broke up. Her sister would want to grieve with her and then spout wisdom, and Joselyn didn’t want either. She had spent the rest of the day Saturday and all day Sunday holed up in her room, furiously attacking her spreadsheets, trying to get things all figured out to the point that relief would come. That everything would fall into place.
But they hadn’t. She glanced at her phone— it was 8:13 a.m. On a Monday. If she hadn’t had her last day on Friday, she would be pulling into a parking spot at LLE Financial right now, ready to start a new week at work. The fact that she wasn’t made so many emotions swirl around inside her that she wasn’t even sure whether positive ones or negative ones were winning.
She had to believe that after some time apart, she and Marcus would figure things out. Maybe when things calmed down. All she knew was that she couldn’t continue through life without him. But for right now, she had a lot of work to do. Their grand opening was a week from Saturday, and if Marcus wasn’t going to be helping her right now, she had even more to do.
She just wished he was here doing it with her. Until they started dating, they had worked together so well! He would come around soon and they would get this business going together. He had to. They both had put too much into it for him to just walk away. They had both grown and changed a lot since high school— he wouldn’t just disappear like he did last time. She hadn’t been allowing herself to think about him.
But when she slipped and did anyway, she thought about how much she missed dating him, too. And how much she missed everything about him. Seeing that smile on his face, his booming laugh, his presence in a room. The way he made everyone feel valued. The way he made her feel cherished.
“No,” she told herself, slapping her hands down on her desk and pushing herself to stand. This was a time for working and planning, not for mourning or wallowing.
She’d been stuck at her computer for hours. Macie was gone running some errands for her own business, and when Joselyn heard the mail carrier’s truck outside, she figured it was a good time to take a break, stretch her legs, and grab a few seconds of sunshine. Maybe it would help to get her mind off Marcus, too.
As she stepped out onto the porch of her and Macie’s apartment, she forced herself to take a slow, deep breath of the fresh mountain air, feel the sun on her face, and notice the green blades of grass poking their way up through the brown, smile at the tulips that she hadn’t even known they had that were pushing through the dirt by her mailbox. Then she told herself things would be okay.
She opened the flap to the mailbox and pulled out a few envelopes and a small box just as Hannah turned the corner two houses up, jogging behind her double stroller, Drew and Jason strapped in side-by-side and each holding a stuffed animal. The sight of her— someone who was living in the same home as Marcus— made the pang of longing strike deep in her heart. Joselyn waved at her sister-in-law, and as Hannah neared, she slowed her stroller to a stop.
Joselyn might not have told Macie that she and Marcus broke up, but based on the look of sorrow that Hannah was giving her, Marcus had definitely told her and Everett.
“How are you?” Hannah asked like she was talking to an injured animal.
Joselyn shrugged. “How is Marcus?”
“Not well.” Hannah turned to glance in the direction of their home, as if she could see it from there, or see how Marcus was at that moment. “We haven’t seen him outside of the basement too much, but he’s gotten most of his things packed up and ready to be shipped.”
Panic hit Joselyn like a force and amplified her longing for him. “He’s really moving?”
Hannah cocked her head to the side. “To Hawaii. Didn’t he tell you?”
“I just didn’t think he would. Or that it would be a while from now. That we’d have time...” She stared down at the mail in her hands, even though so many thoughts and feelings were rushing at her that she couldn’t take any of it in. Then she looked back at Hannah. “Did he say why?”
Hannah gave her a sad smile and studied her for a long moment before she said, “There’s no way he could run a business with you while he was so desperately in love with you. Not if you weren’t interested.”
Emotion worked its way up to Joselyn’s throat and tears started streaming down her cheeks. He thought she wasn’t interested? A crushing weight settled on her just guessing how much pain she had caused him.
“Oh, sweetie,” Hannah said. “Come here.”
She pulled Joselyn into a hug, and Joselyn asked, words muffled by Hannah’s jacket, “When?”
Hannah pulled back, and with her hands on Joselyn’s shoulders said, “It’ll probably be soon. I’m not sure when, but he has an app on his phone for last-minute flights. It’ll alert him when one opens up.”
She thanked Hannah and headed back into her apartment in a daze, collapsing at their kitchen table, the mail spilling across its surface.
What had she done?
She let her head fall into her hands and stared at the box for a full minute before she noticed its existence enough to be curious about it. After grabbing a pair of scissors from the drawer, she cut the tape and opened the flap. Inside, all stacked so neatly next to each other were the business cards that she and Marcus had ordered.
She pulled one out and looked at the logo they’d had made with what was now their signature colors, the company name they had come up with that late night in the kitchen at Kleinman Terrace when they were making ice cream, and the picture of the two of them. They had been sitting across the desk from Sandra during their first meeting with her and she had said they were so adorable that she had to grab a picture. She sent it to Joselyn and Marcus, and they loved it so much that when they became partners, they decided to use it for their official business picture.
Joselyn reached out a finger to their picture. Their faces were so full of excitement at the possibilities in front of them, at knowing they were creating a business from scratch that hadn’t existed before.
