CHAPTER 1
I grabbed the door handle to Butterfly Junction and paused. How many hours of my life had I spent here? I could check my pay stubs, but my heart didn’t have to. It had already done the math, and the numbers added up to more than it could withstand. Working so closely with the man I’d been in love with since I was a little girl was slowly killing me. I didn’t swipe my card and enter the building like I did every other day. Instead, I stared at the door, thinking about how spending another day with Mathias was too much to bear. It was Monday and time to start a new week, but I didn’t pull the door open.
Do something, Honey, I told myself.
I couldn’t. I was frozen in place by an unseen force until slowly my hand slipped from the door handle. I turned on my heel and walked back toward my apartment. I was done. I couldn’t do this any longer. I had to make a life for myself without Mathias. It was going to kill me to lose my best friend, but I couldn’t take it any longer. Cutting him out of my life would be almost impossible after twenty years, but I had to try. I had to do something. I couldn’t keep torturing my soul day after day by being head over heels in love with someone who couldn’t love me back.
I hurried up the street, struggling as my new shoes slipped around on my feet. They were a bit too big, but they’d been on sale and I couldn’t pass them up when I found them. That scenario summed up my life. My life had always been about nothing more than keeping my head above water. First as a child, until Mathias and the entire Jørgensen family helped hold me up. They took care of me while my parents bought and sold drugs from our mobile home. Why didn’t they report my parents to social services? I can’t say for sure, but I suppose back then, things were different. Neighbors took care of each other. If you could help someone else, you did. If it hadn’t been for Mathias’s mom, Birgitte, I wouldn’t have been fed, dressed, or even gone to school. Now that I’m twenty-eight, Mathias is still the one holding my head above water. After twenty years of a co-dependent relationship that was going nowhere, it was time to find a new way forward. Walking away from Mathias was going to leave nothing but a dusty shell of my hopes and dreams, but I never tried to deny that to anyone, most especially myself.
My shoulders drooped when my head started pounding. Great, a migraine to make this day even better. I trudged up the stairs to my apartment above Havens Diner, unable to face the world today. Correction, I couldn’t face Mathias. Maybe tomorrow I’d decide I was just being a drama queen and go back to work, but that was a decision for an older, more mature Honey.
I unlocked the door and slipped inside, praying no one had seen me come back. I just wanted to draw the shades down to bathe the apartment in the cool darkness and go to bed. I set my purse on the table and threw my keys next to it, stripped off my blazer, and kicked the too-big shoes off my feet. I walked toward the bathroom with purpose, ready to put my lounging clothes on and forget about the world. Maybe I’d watch talk shows all day, or maybe I’d sleep, but either way, I wasn’t adulting. I wasn’t even calling Butterfly Junction to tell them I wasn’t coming in. Mathias would either figure it out or he wouldn’t. That would depend on how much he cared.
I grabbed my tank top off the hook in the bathroom and slipped my arms into it, letting it settle over my head before trading my skirt for pajama shorts. I’d been Mathias’s assistant for the past nine months since they patented the eco-friendly pesticide he and his business partner, Gulliver Winsome, had been working on. While Mathias and I continued to work closely together, there was always an underlying current of uncomfortable awkwardness between us. We both knew why.
The letter.
It had been almost a year, and he still didn’t want to talk about it, so we pretended I hadn’t confessed my undying love to him when I thought I was going to die. We also pretended I hadn’t been responsible for the debacle at Butterfly Junction. Gulliver and Mathias almost lost their research, and their lives, to a group of thieves because I’d been too afraid to speak up. In the end, we pretended a lot of things in order to make our arrangement work. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t keep pretending we were still best friends but nothing else. The pain in my chest was too much to bear.
After the information came to light and the blackmailers were caught, Mathias and I didn’t miss a beat. We went right back to our usual activities like movie nights at his condo, dinners out with his friend Milas, cookouts, and late dinners while we worked. We’d spent the last weekend together crunching numbers for a new project, and when we couldn’t make them work, he insisted on eating steaks and drinking pinot in front of the television. We’d had aDie Hardmarathon, laughing the way we used to when my love for him was still a secret. That was rare now. It was rare for me to truly relax around the one person who used to be my resting place.
I swiped away a tear that had fallen, reminding me of how torturous and pathetic my life had become. I sat on the couch, bent over my knees, and wept. The pain in my chest and head overwhelmed me, so I hugged my legs and rocked as my tears dripped onto the floor by my feet.
“God, why?” I moaned aloud, so I didn’t feel alone. “Why did I have to fall in love with someone I can never, ever have? If we’re all supposed to have a soul mate, where the hell is he? Why am I this connected to Mathias if he’s not mine? Why do I see my future in his eyes every time we’re together if I can’t have him?”
The tears slowly subsided and I wiped my face. There was only one thing that would make me feel better right now, I thought as I stood and pulled open the desk drawer. A green rectangle constructed from padded fabric was nestled inside, and I pulled it out. I brushed my hand across the embossed phoenix on the front, and a smile touched my lips. How appropriate that the diploma that had changed my life bore a rising phoenix as the symbol. My hands shook when I flipped the book open and stared at the piece of paper held inside by ribbons at the corners. The breath I’d been holding whooshed out. This was real. I had done it. I held the book out at arm’s length, picturing it sitting on my desk, proudly displayed for everyone to see.
There was a knock on the door, and I waited without taking a breath. I didn’t want to answer just in case it was Mathias.
“Honey? It’s Kevin. I brought you some breakfast when I noticed you were home,” he called out.
I lowered the diploma to the top of the desk and stumbled toward the door on a sigh, wiping my eyes. I couldn’t be mean to my landlord. Kevin owned Havens Diner with his wife, Lucy, and he was the sweetest man alive. I guessed his hands held to-go boxes stuffed with eggs, bacon, and pancakes. It was a perk of living above the only diner in town, even if the downside was never being able to hide.
I swung the door open, and sure enough, he stood there with three boxes of steaming-hot food. “Hi, Kevin. You didn’t have to bring me breakfast.” I accepted the boxes and set them on the table. “But thank you.”
“I noticed your shoulders were slumped over and you were holding your head. We were worried that you were sick,” he answered.
I spun back to the door to assure him I was fine, but the words died on my lips.
“I was worried too. I suspected you wouldn’t open the door to me, though.” Mathias walked in as if he owned the place.
Kevin did the palms up and mouthed,I’m sorry.
I grabbed the edge of the door and leaned into his ear. “Don’t worry about it. I know how he is,” I promised, winking.
Kevin waved and jogged down the stairs as I closed the door and rested my forehead on it, begging for inner strength for the discussion to come. Mathias was the last person I wanted to deal with today, but that wasn’t anything new lately. It was going to be impossible to hide my red eyes and nasally voice, but I decided I didn’t care. I would fake it until I made it the way I’d been doing my entire life.
The apartment was deathly silent, as though the whole space was holding its breath. I spun toward Mathias slowly, and he was standing by the table, one leg crossed over the other, his toe touching the ground in a relaxed manner. Mathias wore his Danish heritage like a fine-cut suit. His blond hair was always perfectly styled, the locks combed back off his forehead and smooth on the sides. Every woman who passed him wanted to bury their hands in his hair and plant a kiss directly on his dusty-rose lips. His ice-blue eyes were piercing when they wanted to be but remarkably soft when the lights dimmed and his mind relaxed. He could wear a suit equally as well as a leather jacket, and his signature canvas shoes rounded out whatever he chose to wear. Today’s outfit was jeans, a dress shirt, a red bow tie, and said leather jacket. On his feet were a pair of red boat shoes to match the tie. I’d seen his shoe closet. I promise you, there isn’t a woman alive who has anything over him in the shoe department.
When he got up this morning, he was going for relaxed, but he wasn’t relaxed now. I could see through his fake persona. He was wired, and I suspected I was to blame for it. Before he could speak, I motioned at the food. “Help yourself. I’m not hungry.” I found a Diet Coke in the fridge and snapped it open. Maybe the caffeine would help my raging headache.
“I’m not hungry either,” he said, setting the boxes in the fridge.
“The food was a ploy.” I sat on the couch.
“The food was a reason. A reason I shouldn’t need,” he answered, stalking back into the room.
“A reason for what?” I asked with my arms crossed over my chest in a pointed sign of defiance.
