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“Get some bread,” Wanda calls after me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I toss over my shoulder as I shut the door behind me.
—
I haven’t been outside other than to my lab last weekend, and even then, I had done my very best to avoid conversation with actual people as much as possible, especially Camila. The trip to the store is a short one—just a few blocks from Wanda’s house—but it’s the furthest noneducational journey I’ve taken in weeks, so I’m going to chalk it up to a win.
I don’t actually need anything from the store. Truth be told, I just wanted to show Wanda that Iamcapable of doing things without crying—but I throw a candy bar (two, actually) onto the conveyor belt at the last second along with a hastily snatched peach tea before the cashier rings up Wanda’s bread. Maybe the snacks will help me remember what endorphins feel like.
I sound like a less cool Wednesday Addams lately.
It’s still light out when I leave, not quite enough time for Wanda to have finished dinner, and as I start to walk back, I consider finding a bench to squat on for another twenty minutes or so to give the illusion of me getting out and about. Maybe that will get Wanda off my back. Although I doubt it. I open my drink as I walk, turning the lid over out of habit to read whatever is written on the other side.
Cherophobia is the fear of happiness.
I pause on the street, frowning with disdain at the offensive little circle. I really can’t make this shit up. If Aiden were here, he’d probably accuse me of lying. Thinking about him only makesmy heart hurt more. I put the lid back on aggressively, tossing the bottle in my plastic sack as I continue on toward Wanda’s, planning to toss the drink in the first available trash can.
There’s a café I like on the way back to the apartment, the familiar smell of freshly baked pastries assaulting my nostrils when I pass and giving me the first real hit of endorphins I’ve had since I left Aiden’s. I linger outside the door as I weigh my options. A cheese Danish sounds a hell of a lot better than a random bench, now that I think about it.
I have to push the fact that I look like I’ve been living in a cave for the last few weeks far out of my mind to find the courage to go inside, telling myself that these people have surely seen weirder things than a hot-mess grad student who looks like she might burst into tears at any minute. That’s probably par for the course for us, anyway. It’s not very busy inside, at least, and I say a quiet thanks for small blessings.
I pull my phone out of my pocket as I fall in line to order, staring at the empty notifications with an increasingly familiar feeling of melancholy. Aiden hasn’t reached out since I left, and why would he? I practically told him I didn’t want him. Something that is so far from the truth it might as well be in theNational Enquirer. Right next to the bit about some pop singer keeping an alien in her basement.
I don’t even know how many times I’ve wondered whether or not I’ll ever stop loving him at this point.
The line moves, and I shuffle along, peeking around the café to see how many people I’m subjecting to my rough appearance. Most of the tables are bare save for a few along the back wall; there’s an older man sipping something from a mug while he reads a paper, a young couple chatting across the table from each other animatedly, and in the very back corner, typing furiously at a laptop and looking less than enthused about her lot in life is—
I can’t help but stare.
I know exactly how large this city is, and therefore I am fairly aware of the odds of seeing someone at random you don’t want to see. I can’t rattle off a percentage or anything since I don’t care about population study and I don’t work for the Census, but I can still conjecture that it is averysmall number.
But there sits Iris, tucked in the corner of a café I’ve visited a hundred times like a regular.
She doesn’t notice me as she glares down at her laptop screen, and I catch myself wondering what she’s focusing on so intently. Despite my desperate attempts to mentally detach myself from Aiden and Sophie, seeing Iris is a harsh reminder that I have made absolutely no progress. Seeing her irritates the hole they left behind, making it feel as raw and as fresh as the day I carved it into my own chest when I walked out on them.
It’s not a conscious decision, going to her; I don’t think I even realize I’m walking over to her until I’m nearly at her table, my feet moving on their own as they carry me one after the other to where she’s sitting. She doesn’t even notice me until I plop down into the seat opposite her in the little booth, dropping the sack with Wanda’s bread beside me as Iris’s eyes widen with surprise, like she’s trying to process the fact that I’m here.
“Hi,” I say.
She still looks out of sorts to see me. “Cassie? What are you doing here?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I’m not entirely sure myself.
“I... I saw you sitting here, and I just...” I notice for the first time the dark circles under her eyes, looking hardly any different from mine. I notice how much she looks like Sophie—same cheekbones, same nose—and I realize I barely know anything about this woman, and now she’s uprooted my entire life. I realize at this very moment how much I need to know why it had tocome to this. “Do you hate Aiden? Do you really want to take Sophie away?”
She rears back, looking incensed. “Excuse me?”
“I need to know,” I urge. “I need to know that I didn’t have any other choice.”
“You’re not making any sense,” she snorts, slamming her laptop closed. “And I don’t owe you or Aiden a damned thing. So you can tell him—”
“I can’t tell him anything,” I inform her softly, feeling that familiar sting in my eyes. I silently beg them to stay dry. “I left. The day we saw you at the hospital.”
Iris snorts. “What, did it stop being fun when you realized how inappropriate it was?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I left because Aiden is a good dad.”
“Because that’s a real reason.”
