She watched his back as he walked away, a small part of her tempted to reach out, just to see what it would feel like to run her fingers through his silky hair. When he was far enough away, Charlotte sighed and picked the script up off the floor. She flipped through it a few more times and then gathered her things.
On her way home, Charlotte slowed to see the pileup of cars.
A few of them had smoke coming out of the hoods, but with an ambulance nearby and a group of uniformed police officers racing toward them, she knew they were in good hands. Still, the grisly sight left an uneasy feeling in the pit of Charlotte’s stomach.
It reminded her of how quickly everything could change and how, in the blink of an eye, a person’s entire life could be turned upside down.
She grimaced and pulled onto Gifford Street and past the Holiday Inn. On her drive home, she turned up the music and tapped her fingers to the beat. Slowly, she pulled up outside her apartment building on Kathy Ann Lynn Street, across from a Western Union that always had a row of people lined up and a Stop & Shop that housed a smell Charlotte still couldn’t identify. In the distance, dogs barked, and children on bikes called out to each other.
On the third floor, Charlotte shoved her key into the lock and grunted. On the third push, the door burst open, and her roommates’ cats came running over.
“Hi, Jewel. Hello, Mr. Crunchball. How was your day today?”
The two cats, one an orange and white tabby and the other a midnight-black rescue, rubbed their tails against her leg as they wove between them. Charlotte flicked on the lights, walked into the kitchen, and retrieved a bottle of water. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, and silence surrounded her.
She hated coming home to an empty apartment.
Charlotte didn’t like the deafening silence that surrounded her or being able to hear the sound of her own even breathing. She didn’t even like being left alone with her thoughts and suddenly wished her loud and nosy roommates were there, if only to distract her from the ache in her chest.
With a sigh, she trudged into her room and threw herself onto the bed.
This is the life you chose for yourself, Char. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to be the one to change it.
Chapter One
She turned down the music and pulled up into an empty parking spot across the street from her mom’s bakery on Dillingham Avenue. After checking her watch, she snatched her purse off the passenger seat. Then, she paused and leaned forward to peer through the dashboard. Through the glass window, she scanned the steady stream of customers coming in and out of her mom’s bakery.
At seven thirty on the dot, Jack came around the corner in his usual button-down shirt, half-tucked into a pair of jeans, and hair looking like he’d rolled out of bed. He had one hand shoved into his pocket, and the other had a paper tucked under it. Charlotte raised an eyebrow as she saw him walk in and make a beeline for the counter. With a slight shake of her head, Charlotte pushed the car door open with her foot and stumbled onto the pavement.
Heat shimmered and rose from the asphalt.
The early morning July sun was warm on the back of her neck as she glanced down both sides of the street and then hurried across. People jostled past her in either direction, and when she ducked into the bakery, there was a crowd of people already lining up. Charlotte waited for her eyes to adjust as sheslid into the nearest booth and pretended to scan the menu. When she looked up, her mom was standing behind the counter, hair in a messy bun on top of her head and a clean, pressed apron wrapped around her waist. She had flour smudges on her nose but didn’t seem to care. Probably because she and Jack were giggling like a bunch of teenagers.
Jack leaned forward to say something, and her mom swatted him away, color creeping up her cheeks. Charlotte felt a strange stirring in her stomach and a heaviness in her chest; jealousy and sadness rose within her, so she made herself glance away. While a part of her was relieved her mom was able to find happiness again, she couldn’t deny how strange it felt to see her with someone else. Despite her best attempts to shield her daughters from the pain, Charlotte had seen how hard her mom had struggled.
For months after her dad died, Charlotte had held her breath, half-expecting to lose her remaining parent. For weeks, she’d stop by the house just to give her mom an excuse to get out of bed and clean herself up. Charlotte had seen the grief take its toll, like a heavy second skin, and she’d never felt more helpless in her entire life.
In those early days, Charlotte cried herself to sleep too.
Her dad was the one who had kept the family laughing and looking on the bright side of things. Whenever her mom got too serious, or Charlotte and Savannah were at odds, it was her dad who used to figure out ways to draw them all out of their shells and into the light. Without him there, the three of them had struggled to make sense of things.
And Charlotte still missed him with a fierceness that surprised her.
It no longer made her double over in pain or curl up into a ball when she sobbed, but the dull ache remained in her heart, and she carried it around wherever she went. No matter howmuch time passed, Charlotte doubted she’d stop missing him or stop glancing over her shoulders, as if she was waiting for him to come back. Like he could pick up where he left off.
The door to the bakery made a low ringing sound, and Charlotte’s head snapped up. She saw Savannah take a step in, glance around, and hurry back out. Through the glass window, she saw her sister rake her fingers through her hair and then over her face. Then, Savannah leaned against the nearest wall and began to mutter to herself, her clothes looking wrinkled and slept in.
Charlotte was halfway out of her seat when Emily hurried over with two large mugs of steaming hot coffee. “You weren’t going to leave so soon, were you?”
Charlotte nodded in Savannah’s direction. “I was going to go check on her.”
Emily blew out a breath and motioned to the booth. “Your sister is having another one of her meltdowns.”
Charlotte’s stomach clenched. “What about?”
“You know your sister. Everything is the end of the world.” Emily sat down and curled her fingers around the mug. “Give her a minute. I’m sure she’ll come in on her own. You know what she’s like when you push her.”
Except Charlotte had never been one to brush things under the rug like her mother. Savannah took after their mother, in that they both ignored things until they were staring them in the face, demanding to be acknowledged. Charlotte, on the other hand, was more like her dad, the kind of straight shooter who didn’t like beating about the bush.
