Make You Miss Me by B. Celeste
CHAPTER ONE
AFTER
The door clicking closed allows the smallest exhale of a shuttered breath to release from my tight lungs. It’s been six months since my last anxiety attack, prompted by empty promises that resurfaced at the worst time possible.
Ever since I accepted my best friend’s offer to go to mediative yoga classes with her, the episodes come and go far less than they used to. I’ve barely even needed my medication, which is a nice break from the hazy numbness I usually feel after swallowing one of the pills.
But every now and again, it takes the slightest thing to trigger the tremble of my hands, and palpitations in my chest. It’s better than waking up in the dead of night sweating like I ran a marathon with tears running down my face for no real reason, though.
My doctor told me it’d get better with time, but I’m 32 and still fighting periods of near hyperventilation in the middle of my workday, which would undoubtedly traumatize my classroom full of fifth graders.
Before I can even dig into my lunch, there are two swift knocks at the door before it opens and a head full of tight black curls pops inside. “Is this why you told everyone not to do anything in the staff lounge?” Sonia asks, walking in and closing the door behind her. “You okay, birthday girl?”
Lips twitching, I force them upward and give a single nod in false confirmation, hoping she doesn’t see the red rimming my otherwise hazel green eyes. “I figured I’d get some work done while I had the free time. You know how the kids are once they get back in from recess.”
I know Sonia well enough by now to understand that the gleam in her brown eyes is a mixture of sympathy and pity. Not a great combo to get from anyone, least of all the other fifth grade teacher that I work with more than anyone else in the school. “Is it because of…?”
She lets her voice fade as her plucked brows arch, guessing exactly what the problem is without saying the words. I’m more grateful than she can know for that.
Clearing my throat, I set down my plastic fork and give the woman blessed with mixed Mediterranean and Cuban genetics a wavering smile. “It’s always harder on my birthday. I know it’s been long enough by now, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I made the right decision.”
My parents both told me they were worried I was rushing into marriage with Hunter. I thought I knew better at nineteen. Hunter Cross was everything to me. My first boyfriend, my first kiss, and my first everything else. He’d told me he loved me, and I felt it with every fiber of my being. I don’t think he lied about his feelings—I just think that love slowly unraveled the longer his deployment kept us separated until there was nothing left but a loose, shredded string that stopped holding us together.
“I thought I’d be settled down by now,” I admit, hearing the crack in my tone. At 32, I just moved into my very first house—a small, two-story Cape Cod with an open floorplan, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a fenced-in backyard for a dog or kids that I don’t even have. The neighbors are far closer than I would have liked in the small residential neighborhood, but I’d been looking for months with no luck finding anything on the market that worked for my budget, so I’d settled for the cute blue, recently renovated home in Stanton Springs, New York.
It’s a reasonable fifteen-minute commute to work, leaving plenty of time to listen to music or one of the many audiobooks I always have downloaded on my phone to decompress. Even if I have to flick them off sometimes when the romance leaves a bigger hole in my chest than the one already there.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” Sonia guesses, her lips curling up partially.
I flush. “Sorry. It’s been a long morning.”
She waves me off. “I was just saying that Anton makes delicious cakes for everyone’s birthdays, so you really missed out. He usually asks what people’s favorites are and then whips it up like he’s a Master Chef or something.”
It sounds more like she’s upset she missed out on cake than anything, but I can’t be upset with her. We’re not exactly friends, but we’re a step above coworkers. Friendly acquaintances? Two people who can vent to each other when life becomes too much? Sonia knows about my past. Not all the details, but enough.
“I’ve been watching what I’m eating anyway,” I lie, thinking about the lonesome cupcake I bought for myself at a bakery I spend a little too much of my paycheck at every week.
It was red velvet with a cheesecake filling and buttercream frosting—my favorite. And I’m sure Mom and Dad will show up at my place later with more baked goods, so I’m not celebrating alone.
My coworker reaches into the bag I only now just see resting in her lap and pulls something out. She passes me a card-shaped envelope and smiles when I accept it with hesitation. “We all signed it. It’s nothing much, but we know you just bought a house so…”
Throat bobbing as I open the white envelope and read the front of the card, I have to fight off the tears that form when I peel it open and see the gift card inside along with well over twenty signatures of other teachers and faculty in the building.
“I don’t…” I shake my head, touching the $200 gift card to a home goods store that I’d once admitted to Sonia I loved shopping at. “I don’t know what to say.”
She stands, draping her burnt orange bag over her shoulder. It’s an expensive one—Coach, based on the little emblems covering the strap. My coworkers’ love for brand-name bags is the same as mine for baked, sugary goods. I know she’s always looking at sales online whenever I pass by her in the teacher’s lounge and even offered to get me one when there was a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale a week or two ago. “Just say thank you and promise me that you’ll buy pretty things for your new place with that. You’re a hard worker, Stevie. If anyone deserves this, it’s you.”
I hide the lone tear that escapes the duct and bat my lashes to stop others from following suit. In a watery tone, I say, “Thank you. When my place is all set, I’ll invite you over to see it if you’d like.”
Nobody besides family and my best friend, Vickie, has been over to my place yet, so the offer surprises even me, but it’s genuine.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, but not another word is spoken between us.
When she opens the door, I blurt, “He sent me a card too.”
It’s what triggered the attack she walked in on, the one I’d forced down after opening my purse and going through the mail I’d snatched from my P.O. box on the way to work because I’d forgotten to check it for a few days.
In the mixture of bills and junk mail was a blue envelope with my name and box number in handwriting I recognized instantly, even before my eyes traveled to the sender’s information.
“Your ex-husband?” she asks quietly.
I nod, feeling the sting of tears threaten to leak down my face.
“Oh, Stevie…”
I wave my hand in the air. “It’s been years,” I say aloud, but I’m not sure if that’s a reminder for her or me. Not knowing what else to say, I sit there and stare at the untouched salad while my coworker shifts where she stands until she decides that being left alone is what’s best for me right now. She’d told me during one of our many teacher conferences toward the end of summer that she didn’t do well with crying, which is fair.
I don’t do well with people seeing me cry.
My eyes go to the card sticking out from under a pile of papers on my desk, the first name the only thing visible, taunting me. Reminding me of what was and what’s no more.
Two and a half years without Hunter shouldn’t hurt so much, but the simple words he’d written in the card brought back every single good memory we’d shared for the better part of the last decade and broke my heart all over again.
Happy birthday, smalls.
Love always, H.