COLD
Summary:
Pies and Prejudice gets busy when the temperature outside drops in synch with the snowflakes. So does Becca's mind.
Becca's trembling breath materalized into grey-white clouds in the frosty air wrapping around her. It was late fall in New England, one no less bitter than the ones that had plagued Concord every year. Their first snowstorm had hit a few days ago, and any icey fluff that hadn't been depleted by salt had collected into murky drifts on the side of the road. The sun hid behind a dreay blanket of cumulonimbus condensation. She inhaled, letting the cold settle in her lungs and spread to her extremities. Becca liked this weather. She liked the way it put everything in slow motion.
Luke-warm slush devoured her booted feet as she arrived at the entrance to Pies and Prejudce. She winced slightly as the bell on the handle ran cheerily when she hauled open the door. Wordlessly, she wove between tables of eldery women enjoying a coffee and packs of teenagers downing pastries and hot chocolates to the counter.
"Good morning, Becca." Gigi greeted her employee as she passed swiftly with a tray of turnovers.
Becca hummed lazily in response, reluctantly donning her P&P apron. The waitress leaned on the smooth granite and rested her head in her palm. It was a slow morning.
Must have been the cold.
She watched the passers-by as they sailed by the storefront window, trying to escape the biting temperatures, wrapped up in coats and hats and gloves and scarves. Women with strollers and men with briefcases hastily stepped in and out of her view, probably since they all had somewhere to be.
Becca knew the briefcase people must have been businessmen and store their important documents in there. She knew because her father told her one day when she was small enough to sit on his knee. Mr. Chadwick used to think she would make a good entrepeuner. Becca knew better.
She knew the strollers must be holding infants or children under "walking age." She knew because her mother told her one day when she was still small enough to want to know. Mrs. Chadwick used to think she would make a good mom. And Becca knew better.
She didn't want to be someone's charge. She didn't want to be someone's wife. She didn't want to give anyone enough of her strings that they could cut a single one and watch her fall limp like a vacant marionette.
Snow was beginning to fall again. Becca smiled at the memory of an old story her grandmother used to tell her, about swans lived in the clouds and every flake was a feather. It was one of those stories that the mere recollection of could make you feel like a little kid again. Like, maybe, if she could convince herself to believe it, she would forget she ever thought any differently.
The bell rang again.
Zach Norton poked his head in the door and briefly nodded at Becca. His cheeks were red and his blond hair was touseled carelessly. He was stopping in before going to Cassidy's hockey team's game, which he helped out with. Becca knew because he told her when she was still whole enough to be able to listen. She used to think it was because he just really liked hockey.
Cassidy trailed behind him, saying something to him about a game that had been played the night before. Zach smiled fondly at her and gave her his jacket. Becca used to think he was just really nice and gave anyone his jacket if the weather was brisk. Now she knows better.
"Hi, Becca." He says in a painfully indifferent tone when he arrived at the counter. He didn't grin back at her when she flashed him a heart-winning, queen-bee, room-lighting, radiant Becca smile. It must have been the cold, she thought.
But she knew it probably wasn't.
"Hey, Bec." Cassidy stares at her sneakers.
They order one of the really good extra-flakey croissant with chocolate drizzle on the top, on the double, Becca. They were on a schedule.
She pivoted and retrieved a fresh croissant from the kitchen with as much chocolate as she could manage and gave it to the couple because it was one of those days when she didn't want anyone to feel like she did. She wanted her sadness to be her own little invincible bubble that was perfectly easy to see right into but impossible to step into. But Becca still smiled.
Zach Norton still didn't return it. He did not comment on how nicely drizzled the chocolate was, he did not crack a joke about something that had happened at school a few days ago, and he did not laugh along with Becca and then ask her what she was doing that weekend. She was pretending she didn't notice.
Most of the time, she was done with Zach. She didn't think about him very often, not when he wasn't right in front of her. Her feeble heart no longer ached every time she heard a love song on the radio. She was beginning to imagine herself with other people and it didn't hurt. Not at all.
Most of the time.
But when he was right there, looking at her with those eyes of his, he could stretch and pull her like taffy. It was frustrating. Very much so.
All of her friends had gotten over their middle school crushes, well, in middle school. To their knowledge, Becca had, too. She had neglected to divuldge to them the parts of her heart that still knew how to love belonged to the untouchable Zach Norton. Becuase, no matter how many times she tried to erase the "fab-five" sides of herself with book club meetings and days hard at work at a quaint little tea shop, it just wasn't that simple. Nothing ever was. Not for Rebecca Chadwick.
She watched him fall over himself to catch the oblivious redhead's eye. He did. She gave him every little bit of attention she had and something in Becca's empty gut twisted into a knot at the sight of it.
Hey eyes warmed with tears, blurring the scene in front of her. She blinked them back. It must have been the cold.
But Becca knew better.