The Mix-Up by Holly McCulloch

CHAPTER 34

My eyes are officially broken and I have cried so much that I have given myself a migraine.

I am also grateful that my cake orders this year have been a bit patchy. It’s meant that I have been able to completely devote myself to wallowing. I haven’t quite hit the lows of Wednesday morning, but I’m not far off. My duvet is safe, but my sleeves are not.

The best (and worst) part is that Noah appears to have taken me at my word.

He hasn’t called or messaged once, and I haven’t once been worried about a surprise visit. At night I turn my lights on without fear. I know he won’t come.

When I try to fall asleep, I am plagued by visions of his face. Like a terrible flip book, I can see him full of devastation, and then worry, and then confusion, and then hurt. The hurt I caused.

Used to a ringing in my ear from the migraine, it took me a while to realize that it wasn’t my head, but my phone that was ringing.

‘Hello?’ My voice is croaky from lack of use.

‘Paige? You OK?’

It’s Mika. I swallow and try to clear my throat so I sound like a human being the next time I speak.

‘Oh Mika. Yes.’ I sit up. ‘Sorry, I was just … distracted.’ It’s a painful choice of words.

I hear her typing down the end of the phone. ‘Well, I hope you’re sitting down because I have some great news.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I try to flip to professional cake baker Paige. The Paige that would be excited about this. The Mad Batter, keen for work. It’s hard. I don’t quite manage it.

‘The wedding, last Saturday’s wedding, well, I sent out the initial blog posts on Wednesday, and it’s already had a fantastic response.’

‘Oh great!’ My choice of words and tone don’t quite match.

The typing stops.

‘Well, The Wedding Trend has picked it up, and they want to do a special feature on the cake.’ She sounds so excited. And she should be, and so should I. The Wedding Trend is probably the most influential wedding blog in the industry.

‘Oh my god, that’s amazing.’ I’m hoping she attributes the lack of excitement in my voice to shock, as opposed to what it actually is. Relative apathy. I’ve felt so many emotions over the last few weeks I don’t know if I have any left.

‘Now, this is where I need your help. It’s a crazy short turnaround, but they want to get the digital version out this weekend. Something to do with their peak traffic. The more in-depth piece will come out next month, but they want more from you so they can publish the blog on Sunday.’ She squeals.

I can’t quite bring myself to squeal, but I do push myself to say, ‘Oh.’

‘If I email you over the questions, could you send me your response first thing tomorrow morning?’

‘Sure, of course.’ My voice sounds a little bit enthusiastic, but in reality I already feel tired at the prospect. I also know that this will stop me from being able to binge the rest of my current series. I look down at myself and sniff. I’m going to need to shower too. Hopefully that will put me in a better mindset.

A lot of the questions are easy to answer. One of them is not. I am meandering around my flat, my computer open on the kitchen table, waiting for words that won’t come. ‘Where did you get your inspiration from?’

Eventually, I stop pacing and sit down, exhaling as I do.

I get out the original drawings of the cake. Usually after I email them to the couple, I don’t typically look at them again. I don’t need to. By then, the cake is already etched in my mind.

As I sit here and write nothing, the minutes tick by and the day loses more and more of its light. I look around searching for something to help me get started.

The only thing that sparks any kind of interest is the piano.

I stand up and make my way over.

I wipe a line in the dust and open her up.

Nan did try to teach me how to play, so although I can’t play well, I can normally manage to feel my way through some pieces. I open the piano stool to look at the music sheets and choose her favourite, ‘All I Ask Of You’. It’s still on top. The last person to touch it was Noah. I resist the urge to inhale, just in case there is anything left of him to soak up.

‘OK, Nan, let’s see if this does anything.’

I close the stool and sit down, trying to get my fingers to remember how to move on the keys.

I start to play.

I am very, very slow and stilted. At first, I don’t even play the keys confidently enough for them to make a noise. I am going painfully slowly, but I still manage to mess up a lot of the notes. I’m embarrassed even though I am the only one listening. My fingers trip up over each other. The song doesn’t sound like it’s meant to, but if I try hard enough, I can almost pretend to hear how it should sound.

As the song plays in my head, if not from my hands, I think that if the cake were to be a song, this would be it.

You can tell it’s beautiful as soon as it starts, but somehow, the more you look, just like the more the song plays, the more beautiful it becomes. You can see the detail in what initially could have been mistaken as being understated. It’s a beauty that takes you a bit by surprise and is all the more powerful for it.

I sigh and stop playing.

Of course, this cake was one I designed at Noah’s flat, that time I helped him suffer through man flu, when he repaid my kindness by making me sick and then poisoning me.

The cake design was inspired by his duvet. At least that’s what I thought.

But that’s not really the truth. The duvet didn’t inspire the cake. It was the person wrapped up in the duvet, and how I felt when I was with him. How content I was, even though all I was doing was looking after a horizontal human being wrapped up in a cotton cloud.

With Noah, I had a taste of something that I didn’t know I wanted. He once said that I was like a robin – I could guess what food he needed. But really, he was my robin. He always knew exactly what I was craving, even when I didn’t. Before Noah, walking away was easy. But this. This I am finding hard.

I look at the music.

And for the first time I pay attention to the lyrics.

No more talk of darkness.