Bella´s Crappy Week

Bella had been ghosted.

It was simultaneously the thing she wanted most, and the thing she didn´t want. She could finally stop this whole facade. She had helped Alice enough and she would never see Edward again. It was exactly as she wanted it because dating him would be cruel. Both for her and for him, as she could imagine herself starting to fall in love with him eventually.

But he would never fall in love with her, because she obviously wasn´t Alice.

And it didn´t matter. Edward had ghosted her, and that´s that. End of their story.

Still, it stung.

Bella kept repeating their conversation over and over and she couldn´t find what had upset Edward. Maybe he just didn´t fancy her that much. And that was obviously the plan all along. At the same time, it didn´t matter.

But it did.

¨Excuse me, I asked for low-fat whipped cream, not full-fat,¨ Jessica said, interrupting Bella´s spiralling thoughts.

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Bella took Jessica´s coffee cup and replaced the order. She smiled meekly at her customer when she noticed that the bottle of full-fat whipped cream was still completely full. She took the other bottle from the shelf and explicitly showed the label to Jessica.

After Jessica finally left the counter, Bella was left to wallow in her sabotaging self-pity again.

¨I´ll be in the back,¨ she said to Eric. It was time for her break anyway.

Eric nodded absently as he refilled the cake cabinet with more fresh apple and blueberry cakes. Bella snatched a cake from him, took a bite, silently moaned and went to their shared staff room.

Tired from baking that much, Angela sat down on the couch and mindlessly stitched TV channels. Bella sat down next to her, fighting the urge to look at her phone for the millionth time that day.

¨What´s wrong?¨ Angela asked, switching channels so that a true crime show was playing. Truly the best background noise.

Bella glanced her way. ¨Why would there be something wrong?¨

¨You sighed. Rather loudly.¨ Angela turned to look at her. ¨And that frown hasn´t left your face since you clocked in this morning.¨

¨You´re observant.¨

¨You´re easy to read.¨

Bella took another bite of her cake. ¨These are delicious, by the way. Did you add some extra vanilla?¨

A scream on the television startled them both. A reconstruction was played, portraying a bloodied body on the floor. The actor who played the murderer hit the body with the handle of his knife.

¨Jesus, since when are these shows that graphic?¨ Angela murmured, silencing the TV. ¨And yes, Mike let me order a bunch of spices, so I had to strike the iron while it´s hot and order the extra large batch of vanilla extract.¨

¨Smart.¨ Bella brushed the crumps from her work uniform. ¨And I´m just having some boy troubles.¨

¨Do you want to talk about it?¨

Bella thought about that for a second and muffled a laugh as she imagined how that conversation would go. ´Oh well Angela, sometimes I fake that I´m my lesbian roommate while I go on her dates. Her father leaves her alone, and I´m helping her out, so obviously I´m not that bad, right? I mean, I´m the biggest catfish there it, but I do it with the right intentions, right? And oh well, the last time I imposed as Alice, I thought the date went really well but now I´m getting ghosted by him so obviously he didn´t think it went well. Oh, and I forgot to mention; the man I had a date with? It´s our boss. Not Mike, but our upper boss.´

¨You´re laughing,¨ Angela´s voice interrupted Bella´s daydream.

¨Sorry, sorry,¨ she turned to her colleague. ¨There isn´t much to talk about honestly and that´s the whole problem. I´m getting ghosted for a couple of days and it´s eating at me.¨ At least, that was half the truth. ¨And now I try my best not to look at my phone to see if he´s texting me, but it´s hard.¨

¨Give me your phone.¨

¨Why?¨

Angela extended her hand. ¨I´ll keep your phone with me if you want.¨

¨But I don´t want that.¨

¨I know,¨ Angela laughed. ¨But if he isn´t calling or texting you, he will not suddenly start right now. Give me your phone.¨

¨Bossy lady,¨ Bella smiled, hand already in her pants pocket. She took her phone out and gave it to Angela, missing the notification that just popped up.