"I think I already established in the elevator that I'm Zander, but I could be wrong. You sound really pissed, so how about you just tell me who I am," he says me with a grin.
"I don't care what your stupid name is. I care about why you keep leaving me these annoying notes." Ignoring that stupid dimple, I smack the handful of stupid napkins with the stupid messages on them on top of the stupid table in front of him. His coffee cup rattles against the table with the force of my hand, and he glances back and forth from the pile of napkins to my face.
"You kept all of my notes?" he asks softly, his eyebrows rising in shock.
Seriously? That's the only thing he has to say?
"Stop leaving me notes. Stop staring at me. And stop smiling," I growl before turning on my heels and walking away.
"Is it okay if I still breathe? What about blink? Is blinking allowed, Bakery Girl?" he calls to my back.
"Stop calling me Bakery Girl. My name is ADDISON!" I shout in irritation over my shoulder as I round the corner of the counter and walk past a smiling Meg resting her elbows on the counter with her chin in her hands. She opens her mouth to speak, and I hold up my hand in front of her face.
"Don't. Not one word," I warn her before I keep going, slamming both of my hands into the swinging door that leads to the back room.
I start dragging mixing bowls and pots and pans down from the cupboards, banging them onto the counter and cursing at myself as I go.
What in the hell possessed me to talk to him? He's going to be like a stray cat that you feel sorry for and feed out on your front porch. I'm never going to be able to get rid of him now.
I grow increasingly angrier at myself when I realize that I'm not exactly sure if I'm happy or pissed that he might keep coming back, and I wonder if Dr. Thompson will be pleased that I showed him who I was AND told him my name. It's probably not exactly what she had in mind when she told me to share part of myself with someone, but I don't really care. Now he knows I'm a bitch, and if he's smart, he'll change his mind and won't want anything more to do with me.
"When was the last time you did something just for you? Something that made you happy and had nothing to do with anyone else?" Dr. Thompson asks as I curl up in my usual position on her pristine white couch. She stares at me and then twitches her nose like Samantha on the old television show Bewitched. My mother had the same facial tick. We used to joke with her that it wasn't something she did unconsciously, but that she was secretly casting spells on all of us.
Dr. Thompson's question should be an easy question to answer, right? I mean everyone does something for themselves every now and then, whether it's getting a manicure, taking a nap, or sitting outside on a nice day and reading a book. It shouldn't be that hard for me to think of something, ANYTHING, that I've done for myself recently. Unfortunately, I'm coming up blank.
"Addison?"
Dr. Thompson sits with her hands folded in her lap, waiting for me to answer her. But I can't. I don't have an answer. I haven't done anything for myself in longer than I can remember. I run the bakery every day and sure, it pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head, but I do it for my mom, not for me. I do it because it's what she would have wanted. I go to support meetings every week, and supposedly they're to help me, but they aren't really for me. They're for my dad and because of my dad, and it makes HIM happy that I go to these meetings week after week.
"I want you to do one thing this week. One thing that is just for YOU. One thing that doesn't benefit anyone else but yourself. One thing that doesn't make anyone else happy but you. Do you think you can do that?"
Sitting on the bench in front of the bakery, I stare down at the top sheet of the yellow legal pad that's been sitting in my lap for five minutes. As much as Dr. Thompson's advice usually annoys me, I decided to try out one of her suggestions this week. I just put a batch of banana nut muffins in the oven, and I have twenty-five minutes to myself before I need to go in, take them out, and pack them up for an order. Twenty-five minutes all to myself; one thousand five hundred seconds of uninterrupted time that I can spend on Addison. I knew as soon as Dr. Thompson suggested it what I'd choose to do if I had the time. I would write. I would write until my fingers were sore from holding the pen, and I would write until I had no more words left in me. I would write enough material to fill a hundred yellow legal pads and still have thoughts left for a few more. But here I sit, on a bench in the spring sunshine, unable to write one word. The only thoughts that fill my mind are ones about the bakery and all of my responsibilities—the type of thoughts that remind me I shouldn't be sitting here doing nothing when I have so much other work to do. Obviously I'm not grasping the purpose of this exercise: to do something that makes me happy and that will help pull me out of the black hole I've been in for far too long.
I close my eyes and try to think of something cheerful that has nothing to do with the building behind me, but it's impossible. I put a wall up between my heart and my mind a long time ago and nothing can break through it. I try to feel something other than numb, but I can't do it. If I let just one little feeling in, the rest will follow and my wall will come crashing down, and then I'll feel everything. I can't afford to feel everything. I can't afford to have the weight of all of those emotions crushing me. I have a business to run and bills to pay. At nineteen years old, when all of my former friends are enjoying college and having fun, I have responsibilities that can't be put on the back burner because if I take time for myself, everything will collapse around me.
Frustrated with myself and my failure at "me" time, I open my eyes and see a napkin resting on top of the legal pad in my lap with familiar handwriting on it. The handwriting doesn't affect me as much as the picture drawn underneath the words does. There's a stick figure with its arms open wide and the words "I like it when you smile thiiiiiiiiiiis much" underneath it.
After just a few weeks, I'm used to seeing his familiar scribble on napkins, and I almost expect it and anticipate it so it isn't much of a shock anymore. When he gets up from his corner table and walks out the front door with a wave, I hold my breath and scream at the butterflies in my stomach to pipe down as I head over to the table to clear it and grab the note I know will be waiting for me. What I don't expect to see in my lap is something so reminiscent of my mother that it takes my breath away.
"Mom, I'm seventeen years old. You don't have to pack my lunch for school," I tell her with a roll of my eyes as she pulls a napkin out of the holder on the table and grabs a pen from the junk drawer.
"Nonsense. If I don't pack your lunch, you won't eat. You're skinny enough as it is. Plus, if I didn't pack it, I wouldn't be able to leave you notes," she says with a smile as she draws her usual stick figure on the napkin with its arms open wide and the words "I love you thiiiiiiiiiiis much" written underneath.
"There. Perfect." She folds the napkin in half and sticks it in the brown paper bag. "Now you can go off into the big bad world of high school and tell all of your friends that your mother still writes you love notes and puts them in your lunch."
I shake my head at her, and with a sigh, grab the bag out of her hands and walk toward the door.
"It's a good thing my friends know you, otherwise this would be really embarrassing," I shout to her over my shoulder as I head out to the driveway.
I used to always pretend like it embarrassed me when she did things like that, but honestly, it never did. It made me smile and it made me feel loved. For as long as I could remember, she left those notes in my lunch, around the house, or in my car. For Valentine's Day every year she would buy me a stuffed animal that either held a heart in its arms with the words "I love you thiiiiiiiiis much" on it, or it would speak those words out loud when you pulled its arms apart.
My heart beats erratically in my chest and the words on the napkin in my lap grow blurry as I feel my eyes fill with tears. I will NOT cry. I refuse to cry. If I start, I'll never stop. If I think about her, I'll never stop. It will be a never-ending influx of memo
ries and conversations that will just NEVER STOP.
"Stop, stop, stop, please stop," I whisper to myself over and over as I squeeze my eyes closed and mentally calculate how many dozen cupcakes I need to make to fill next week's order for the Father Daughter dance at the elementary school and how many pounds of sugar, flour, and butter I need to remember to order when the delivery company shows up this week.
I should never have thought about that memory. As soon as I saw those words and the stick figure, I should have crumpled up the napkin and thrown it into the street before my mind opened itself up. I've taught myself to shut everything off in the last year and a half. No memories, no emotions, just keep moving forward and pretend like she never existed. If I pretend like she never existed, I can breathe. If I pretend like she was never real, I can wake up each morning and not feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.
"Hey, are you okay? Addison, open your eyes."
I hear his voice right next to me, but I can't open my eyes to look at him. I'm afraid to open them. If I open them, it will all be real. I'll feel the heat of the sun on my skin and the brush of the wind across my face, and I'll know I'm not sleeping. I'll know that I'm awake and alone. I'll know that I haven't been dreaming all this time; that she's really gone and never coming back.
"Addison, come on, open your eyes. Whatever it is, it's okay. It's okay."
I feel his arms around my shoulders, pulling my body up against his on the bench, and I want to relax into him and take the comfort he is offering, but I can't let go of the stiffness in my body. I'm not used to leaning on someone, figuratively OR literally. I smell his cologne and it reminds me of our interaction in the elevator. It reminds me of just how adept he is at making me forget about my problems, and I instantly feel like I can breathe again. I can breathe as long as I can breathe him in. I can function because he makes me forget. I just want to forget. I slowly open my eyes, and I'm staring straight into his pale blue ones focusing on me with such concern and worry.
"How did you know I was out here?" I whisper.
He chuckles and then lets out a deep sigh, tightening his arm around my shoulder.
"I went inside for my coffee, and when I didn't see you there, I asked the girl at the counter. Meg, I think she said her name was? Is she a tad bit crazy? I thought she was going to climb over the counter and jump on my back or something when I asked where you were. I saw you sitting out here with your eyes closed so I snuck the napkin on your lap."
His face falls as I suddenly shrug out from under his arm and move a few inches away from him on the bench. Not because I want to, but because I have to. I don't understand why a stranger would want to do something like this for me, and my distrust of people makes me question his motives, but at the same time, his confidence and the familiarity with which he interacts with me makes me want to let my guard down. My brain and my heart are at war with one another, and I can already tell it's going to be a vicious battle. One look into his eyes, and I want to unburden myself of everything. No one has looked at me like that in a long time—like they're concerned for me and just want to make things easier on me. No one wants to help me or cares if I'm okay. They just assume I'm strong and independent because I don't wear my emotions on my sleeve, but they have no idea. Zander barely knows me and he instantly knows I need comfort, even if he doesn't know why. I want to tell him to run as fast as he can because I'm broken. Funny thing though, I don't want him to go. I don't want to do anything that will make him leave because I don't want to be strong anymore. I'm so tired of being strong.
Zander reaches over and pulls the napkin off of my lap, just as quickly as I forgot it was there. That one little piece of paper that had the power to do so much damage and I forgot all about it because he was so focused on me and how he could help me instead of the other way around like everyone else in my life.
I look away from his eyes and focus on his hands while he begins ripping the napkin to shreds in his own lap.
"Why are you doing that?" I ask him softly, watching the stick figure get beheaded and then lose all of his limbs as the torn pieces land in piles on top of his thighs.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done this," he tells me quietly.
I start to feel uncomfortable that he somehow knows why it upset me. He knows that I'm messed up and almost had a panic attack over a stupid napkin drawing. He knows that I have entirely too many issues, and he should just get up and walk away right now.
"Obviously I need to work on my artistic skills. This stick figure was atrocious. If someone handed that to me I would have gotten upset too. His head was too big and he had googly eyes."
He says it so seriously that it strikes me as the funniest thing I've ever heard, and I want to laugh out loud, but that feeling is foreign to me. I haven't laughed out loud in a long time. I bite my lip to hold back my smile as he scoops up the pile of ripped apart napkin and crumples the pieces in his fist, holding it up in the air.
"As God is my witness, I shall never draw stick figures again!" he shouts loudly.
The fierce look on his face and the handful of strangers walking by, who jump and take off walking in the opposite direction as fast as they can, push me over the edge. The laughter bubbles out of my throat before I can stop it. The sound is so strange to me that I immediately clamp my hand over my mouth to contain it, but it's no use.
"Don't run from your fears! Bad stick figure drawing is serious, people!" he yells.
"Oh my God, stop!" I laugh at him.
He lowers his hand and studies my face with a smile, cocking his head to the side.
"Only if you promise to never hold that laugh in again," he tells me softly.
I swallow roughly at the sweetness of his words, trying to ignore the pull I feel toward him by attempting to keep things light and not so intense.
"Are you going to say something cheesy again like 'you're beautiful when you laugh?'" I ask him with a smile, unable to believe that this guy can make me go from completely panicked one minute to laughing hysterically the next. The power he has over me should scare me, but for some reason it doesn't. He reminds me what it's like to forget about my problems and just laugh like no one is watching. He makes me feel alive again.
"I might. I've been known to throw out a little cheese now and again."
I shake my head at him and glance down at my watch, realizing I have thirty seconds to get inside and remove the muffins from the oven.
"I have to go. Thanks for…well, just…thanks," I tell him sheepishly as I get up from the bench and hurry to the door of the bakery before I make a fool of myself.
"YOU'RE STUNNING WHEN YOU SMILE AND LAUGH, ADDISON!" he yells to me. I let out an embarrassed laugh as I open the door and walk inside. I catch my reflection in the mirror right inside the store, but all I see is an average girl. I'm 5'4 with boring, brown, wavy hair that hangs past my shoulders, unless it's in my usual messy ponytail. I have a dusting of freckles on my nose and my mother's gray eyes, which I've always thought were my only redeeming quality. But Zander thinks I'm stunning. He sees something that I've never seen.
I may not have figured out how to shut off my mind to take some time for myself and do some writing, but right now, it doesn't seem to bother me very much.
"I can't tell you whether or not what your feeling is right or wrong, Addison. I can only give you the tools you need to make that decision for yourself."
Dr. Thompson's cryptic response to my question about the strange connection I feel towards Zander so soon doesn't help me in the least. I want her to tell me that it's crazy how comfortable I feel with him and it's pointless to waste time I don't even have thinking about him.
"Do you feel like he's someone you could eventually trust and confide in?" she asks.
"I have no idea. I don't even know anything about him."
Dr. Thompson laughs lightly at my frustrated response.
"Then ask him. Get to know him. Open yourself up to someone. Maybe the reason why you feel
so comfortable with him so soon is because you know he doesn't know anything about you. You don't have to be worried about the fact that he might judge you or he might pity you," she explains.
"You make it sound like he wouldn't do those things if he knew everything about me."
Dr. Thompson shrugs. "I don't know if he would or wouldn't, but neither do you. And you never will if you don't give him a chance. He could very well prove you wrong."
She makes it sound so easy. She doesn't understand that both of those ideas scare me more than I care to admit. What if he turns out to be someone I could trust? What then? I would only end up hurting him when he realizes the type of person I've become.
"Dude, are you feeling okay? I haven't seen you smile this much since…um, ever. Did your doctor change your meds or something?" Meg asks curiously as I wipe the smile from my face, not even realizing that I'm doing it. I can't help it. It's been two weeks since I sat outside in the sun with Zander and laughed harder than I had in a long time.
No matter how hard I tried not to think about it, I was excited to get up this morning and come to the bakery, knowing I would get to see him. He's been in every single day for the past two weeks, and instead of just sitting at his usual table, he stood next to the counter and watched me work each time.
"So, what are you making now?" Zander asked as he drained his coffee cup and pitched it behind the counter into the trashcan.
"White chocolate macadamia nut cookies," I told him as I crossed it off my list. The peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies I'd just finished with were now cooling on the counter next to him.