by Sarah Sutton
And, out of habit, Lucas’s gaze slid effortlessly to mine. One, two, three seconds ticked by before I came to my senses, turning back to my locker. A curl of pain started to unfold in my chest, a longing I couldn’t easily shove down. Don’t come over here, don’t come over here, don’t come—
“Hey, you two,” a familiar voice said, tone so low that the words caressed my ears, tickled down my spine. I focused on my locker, trying to ignore the internal reaction. “How’s the coffee this morning?”
“Mine’s good,” Donnie replied cheerfully. Traitor. “I ordered extra cinnamon this time, so it’s really—” He glanced over at me and found me giving him a death stare. It made him freeze. “Uh, good. I see you stopped by Crushed Beanz too, huh?”
Lucas shifted in the corner of my vision, his teal cup catching my eye when he lifted it. “All those morning coffee runs left me addicted. I blame you, Blaire.”
The way my name fell so effortlessly from his mouth had every inch of me twitching, as if electrocuted. You were the one who started that coffee tradition, I thought, pretending to carry on the conversation in my head. It made me feel a little better about not speaking to him aloud, like I wasn’t ignoring him.
“Although, I’m not like you,” he went on. “I couldn’t drink that espresso nonsense—I actually like my taste buds.”
I closed my eyes, glad for my curtain of blonde hair to shield my expression from him. I know. You usually get a large hot caramel macchiato, two pumps of toffee nut flavoring, one extra shot of espresso.
The next time Lucas spoke, he lowered his voice, the soft tone a teasing whisper. “You really going to pretend I’m not here, Bee?”
It took everything in me not to shiver from the gravelly tone, to not respond. Especially because he’d used my nickname—the one only he used, a term of endearment more than a name itself. It still made butterflies flutter in my stomach, a muscle memory.
I focused on the back panel of my locker, on the small chip of orange paint near one of the screws, offering nothing but a tense silence.
This was the dance we moved to now—and I played it on repeat. Focusing on everything but Lucas Avery, waiting for him to turn away.
And, after a few moments of waiting hopelessly for my reply, he did. “Well, you two have a good morning,” Lucas said easily, as if I hadn’t full-out pretended he wasn’t there. I could still feel those dark eyes, though, always lingering. “See you around, Donnie,” he added, and headed off to join his buddies.
With him gone, all the oxygen poured back into my lungs.
I thought things would’ve gotten easier. It would’ve been easier to be around him, to see him walking in the hallways, but it wasn’t. Each and every time, it left me breathless. Disoriented. Aching.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you two?” Donnie demanded, watching as I pulled my supplies from my backpack. I didn’t know whether or not he could tell that my hands shook. “I mean, you were together for nearly two years, and two weeks ago you dump him out of the blue? I’m your best friend, Blaire. You can tell me.”
“Irreconcilable differences,” I said blithely, bringing my cup to my lips. The answer came close enough to the truth that I could avoid a longer explanation, but I couldn’t tell Donnie everything about our breakup. I wasn’t sure he’d have understood my decision.
Heck, when I could smell Lucas’s cologne, I wasn’t sure I understood my decision either.
I downed my espresso in a few scalding gulps, slamming my locker door shut while noting the time. Three minutes until the bell. With a pat on Donnie’s shoulder, I said, “Drink up, pumpkin boy, or Mr. Miller will dump your extra-cinnamon nonsense down the drain.”
Gram and I lived in a three-bedroom apartment on Lagos Street, right in the center of all things community. Townhall was four doors down, and right across the street was Hallow Square, the community park that held all the events, the Halloween Boo-Bash included. Even though I hadn’t attended since Mom had died and Dad had left, I still had a front-row seat of that nonsense, my bedroom window overlooking it all.
The shop space directly downstairs was the central hub to Costume Catering, where all the pre-baking and tray-arranging happened.
I clambered through the front door of the apartment, house keys jingling noisily. It had Gram’s spare food truck key on it, though I was never allowed to drive it, as well as the key to the P.O. box. “Gram?” I called to the quiet house. “Are you up here or downstairs?”
“In the costume room,” she returned, voice close.
Gram kept all the costumes and wigs and accessories in the extra bedroom in the apartment, giving us access to princess dresses and pirate hats 24/7. More often than not, I’d find her tucked between the clothing racks, doing some alteration or another. The crafty side of her couldn’t help it—when she got in her head that she wanted to add lace or alter a neckline, it had to be done. And having the costume room upstairs was much easier than running back and forth every time inspiration struck.
When I walked into the narrow room, I found Gram sitting at her work desk, quickly flattening the princess costume I’d worn on Saturday over her knees. She kicked a wad of black fabric tucked behind her chair, nudging it out of sight.
“I found a little grass stain near the hemline,” she explained quickly, fluffing the blue dress. “Nothing major. I’ve been working it out.”
Must’ve happened when I’d kneeled in front of that little scarecrow.
“I booked an order for Wednesday. Mrs. Martin needs twenty cookies for her daughter’s first grade class in the shape of ghosts. You can make them cute. Give them big smiles and edible glitter. Kids love glitter.”
I knocked my hip against the side of the doorjamb, watching as she dabbed at the blue fabric. “I can start working on the cookies after my homework tonight. I only have one worksheet.”
And I already started planning on how I could speed that up. I loved decorating cookies. It was relaxing and creative and fun. Gram always got on my case because I tended to put too much effort into a single cookie, but I couldn’t help it.
Gram looked up. Her work glasses made her eyes appear three times larger, bug-eyed by the magnification lenses. I couldn’t help but smile a little, even though she looked at me seriously. “I was putting away your laundry today and found something in your sock drawer.”
That smile on my face instantly vanished. “Gram—”
“You never told me your father sent you a letter,” she said, holding my gaze as if to freeze me in place. “I also didn’t miss that it was unopened.”
The letter. Thinking about it left me wincing, a mixture of red-hot anger and cool sadness barreling through me. “I don’t want to read it.” Even I could tell that my voice almost sounded petulant, like a child.
Those bug-eyes widened with sympathy. “Honey, you can’t ignore it. He’s your father. What if there’s something important inside? Like photos, money—”
“I don’t need his photos.” The vise around my throat made my voice harsher than I’d intended. “I don’t need his money. I don’t need his letter. Just throw it away.”
“You don’t have to answer him, Blaire.” Gram switched tactics, reaching up to pluck off her glasses. “You can read it, see what he has to say. Maybe he wants to apologize.”
Maybe he did. Maybe Dad had written an eloquent apology that’d win some kind of award. After two years of complete radio silence, disappearing in the night with a pathetic scribble of an excuse, the apology had better be epic.
His letter had come in the mail two weeks ago now, and I remembered that day with perfect clarity. One look at the orange envelope’s return address and my whole world had dropped out from underneath me, reminding me how easily people could walk away.
“I don’t care why he’s writing,” I told Gram finally, pushing off the jamb. The choking pressure traveled down my throat, expanding into my chest. I turned on my heel, that icy heat steaming in my veins. I won’
t care ever again.
Though I hated Halloween and all it encompassed, I loved decorating the cupcakes and cookies ordered for the month. There was something cathartic about piping out the holiday-themed frosting, creating an image, watching the icing mattify. All of our different parties offered so many different colors and designs—a black witch hat with a bright orange buckle, a pumpkin on a blended background, a mermaid’s tail in a glittering sea.
For Mrs. Martin’s order, I shaped cookies to look like ghosts, decorated them as Gram had asked—big, goofy smiles, glitter—and even mustaches to a few, bowties on others, just to make them fun. Cute.
Costume Catering didn’t get many walk-in customers, so Gram decided to take a quick trip to the grocery store, leaving me on decorating and counter duty. Since it left me in blissful silence, I didn’t mind.
On the extra cookies I’d baked, I designed something different. Instead of one ghost on the cookie, I squeezed together two, their ghostly trails weaving together, eyes angled at each other. I hadn’t meant to make the one ghost’s eyes blue, the exact shade of Lucas’s, but it was too late.
The front door of the shop chimed as someone came through it, the noise startling me so much that my piping bag dug into the surface of my cookie, effectively smearing the baby-blue gaze. Probably for the best.
“One second!” I called, grabbing the hand towel at my elbow and getting to my feet. From where I’d pulled my barstool up, I couldn’t see the front door. An opaque partition shielded the front of the shop and the kitchen area so only a shadowy outline peeked through.
When I rounded the screen, I immediately froze.
A part of me actually thought I was imagining Lucas standing in the middle of the front office. Like my insane brain conjured the image of him. Those two blue eyes, identical to the ones on my cookie, looked back at me, causing my heart to kick into an erratic pace.
For a long moment, there was only the hum of the heater and the roar of blood in my ears.
“I know I’m probably the last person you want to see,” Lucas said quickly with a strange expression on his face, much different than the teasing glint to his eyes from school this morning. He almost looked nervous. “I’m here on business, actually. My mom sent me. I was hoping it’d be Gram in the shop.”
“She’s not your gram.” My response came automatically, devoid of emotion even though my palms started sweating. I slowly wiped at my hands, the sugar and frosting sticking to my fingertips. “And your mom already booked her order a few weeks ago. Cookies and lemonade for this Saturday. She’s planning a royal tea party, right?”
“She tried your gram’s mini caramel cheesecakes at the last church potluck and loved them.”
A small smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it. “Of course she did.” Those things were absolute heaven.
“She wanted to add some of those to her order. One-hundred-fifty of them.”
My eyes widened. “One-hundred-fifty mini cheesecakes by Saturday? That’s short notice.”
“I would’ve asked you yesterday…” Lucas came close enough to lean his jean-clad hip against the edge of the desk, peering at the stack of business cards lined along the surface. Gram didn’t keep much up in the front of the office. It was more of a formality space than anything. “But someone’s pesky cold shoulder prevented any conversation.”
He slid his fingers across the countertop, tracing the designs in the marble, trying to look nonchalant. But there was no missing the stiffness in his shoulders, no missing the tension behind his words. I knew him, and he knew me.
I cleared my throat, effectively cutting off the pressure building there. “I can ask Gram, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to swing it.” It was a mean thing for me to say; Gram would’ve been able to add those cheesecakes to the order with ease. I only didn’t trust myself to give him an inch.
“How was the Wilsons’ party Saturday?” Lucas asked. “Did you miss your extra set of hands?”
Ah, yes. The honorary member, Lucas Avery. He knew about the Wilson party because this had been planned in advance, before we broke up. “We managed perfectly fine.”
Only a moment of hesitation passed as Lucas tried to find a new angle to attack from. “My mom’s been asking about you, you know. She misses you. Delia too.”
I gripped the hand towel tighter, holding it to my chest as if it would suffuse the pain. “Lucas.” Mentioning them is a low blow.
“Hey, Delia’s only nine. You were in her life for almost two years. She’s allowed to miss you.”
Thinking about his little sister’s round face and wide eyes made my guilt even stronger. “It’s done. It’s over. Let’s let things be.”
He gave me the look that used to make my knees weak. Thank God I had the desk to hide behind, so the quivering went unnoticed. His voice softened. “Come on, Bee, I miss talking to you. Having you around.” He leaned even further forward, trying as hard as possible to get closer. “Hearing you yell at me.”
“Oh, you want me to yell at you more? Because I can do that.”
Though Lucas still had a shadow of a smile, his voice sounded sad, the low timbre a haunting sound. “You’re not going to say you miss me too?”
My grip on the towel tightened until my knuckles went numb.
I loved him. I loved him so much that I almost felt crazy, like trying to contain such a strong emotion rendered me near insane. The idea of living my life separate from his was a blow to my stomach, knocking the breath out of me.
And that was the problem.
Lucas must’ve seen something change, because his carefully crafted mask cracked entirely, revealing his raw, pleading expression. “Can we just talk, Blaire? About what happened, about why. If I pushed you too far—”
I quickly cut him off, not allowing my brain to process his words. “You didn’t.” If I went down that road, down memory lane, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself back. “It wasn’t that.”
“If it wasn’t that, then why?”
Why, why, why. Why had I broken up with the boy I loved to pieces? Why had I thrown both of our lives into a blender and pressed the button?
I couldn’t tell him.
So I pulled back, curling my fingers into fists, tucking them in my apron pocket. “Things changed,” I told him evenly, pretending to be unaffected. Never before would I have called myself a great actress, but Lucas bought it. Every. Time. I wanted to shake him for it. He didn’t respond; only watched me. “I’ll have Gram give your mom a call when she gets back in.”
I turned away before he could see my face fall, see the pain clear in my gaze.
“Blaire,” Lucas called after me, but I didn’t stop until I was safely back with my cookies and cupcakes, my ghosts leering at me with their grins. I almost half expected Lucas to follow me, to come into the kitchen and keep the conversation going, but he didn’t.
I gripped the edge of the table with shaking fingers, holding my breath, my lungs straining and burning.
Only when the door chimed and Lucas was gone could I breathe.
When Gram got back to the store, I let her know that Mrs. Avery wanted to add the caramel cheesecakes to her order, only for her to give me a strange look. “I know,” she said. “Mrs. Avery asked me at the Sunday potluck, and I told her it wasn’t a problem. But how did you know about it?”
I drew in a slow breath through my nose, shaking my head ever so slightly. Nice try, Lucas. “No reason.”
One of the perks of living in a small town was there was only one building for the elementary, middle, and high schools. Mrs. Martin didn’t mind the idea of me dropping the cookies off to her daughter’s class—one less thing she had to do.
I dropped off the Halloween cookies as soon as I got to school the next day, and I would’ve given my life for them. It had taken me a while to perfect them—even longer for my hands to stop shaking after Lucas had left.
I easily would’ve shoved a kid out of the way to protect these cookies.
Well, gently shoved. Nudged, maybe.
Maybe.
But walking out of the elementary hallway and moving back to the high school wing had me a little weighed down. I dodged kid after wayward kid as they scrambled to unpack their backpacks and get ready for the school day. Halloween-themed decorations lined the tops of the lockers and classroom doors—the mossy kind of spiderwebs and paper witches flying above the doorways. Kids’ crafts also hung on the walls in the hall, decorated with handprint pumpkins and pictures of jack-o-lanterns. A few hung crooked, as if the children themselves had put them up.
See, down in the elementary hallway, Halloween felt fun and exciting. I could see why kids loved it so much.
With all the love for Halloween in the community, I just wished a little could rub off on me.
I’d showed up to school early to drop off the cookies, so I had about ten minutes to kill before I had to make my way to Mr. Miller’s room. Not a lot of high schoolers showed this early in the morning, everyone trying to sleep in as much as possible. Donnie would show up soon with our coffees; I had to wait.
I reached behind me for my backpack, grabbing my cell phone to send Gram a quick text. I wanted to let her know that the cookies had been delivered without injury. Knowing Gram, she wouldn’t get it until Mrs. Martin called her raving about the treats—Gram hadn’t mastered the art of texting yet—but I thought I might as well let her know.
But instead of my fingers touching the smooth surface of my cell, I felt something papery and wide. Frowning, I latched on to it, pulling it out. Immediately, everything in me soured.
My dad always wrote his words in capitals, so Blaire was emblazoned like a scream across the front of the orange envelope, a festive pumpkin stamp in the top corner. I froze in the middle of the hallway, unable to tear my gaze away from the stupid letter, shaking in my grip.
Gram. She must’ve put it in my backpack. The longer I looked at the letter, the more a bubbling sensation began to rise in my chest.
Gram thought that as soon as I saw this stupid thing again, it’d be game over. I’d fold. I’d read Dad’s letter. I’d write a response. Just by seeing it again, touching it, my resistance would crumble. She was banking on that.
