Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“I wish I hadn’t been browsing different types of potatoes at the grocery store at the time,” I said. “I’m glad Mom is okay. Chase, we’ll manage this somehow. Even if I have to max out a credit card again. You should be enjoying your newlywed status right now, not worrying about this.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chase said. “I love you, J. Call me later, okay?”
“Love you, too. I will.”
I hung up the phone and glanced at the clock, already late for my second shift at the restaurant. I’d been working my usual long brunch shifts and then picking up many late afternoon ones, as well. I glanced around at the kitchen, tension knotting in my chest. The sink was overflowing with dishes that my roommates hadn’t touched. The trash was a mountain of garbage spilling out onto the floor. Splatters of tomato sauce and coffee dotted the whole counter, and empty old pizza boxes cluttered the small table.
It was a fucking mess. A mess that I almost always took care of, either by nagging my roommates or just getting fed up and doing it on my own.
But I didn’t have time. And I sure as hell didn’t have the money to hire a cleaning service.
I drove into work in my old car, the gas tank hovering dangerously close to empty. When I walked into work, I discovered that one of our line cooks had spilled an entire vat of old frying oil onto the floor while changing it out.
The floor was covered in slippery old grease, and we wouldn’t be able to start our shift—and start earning tips that I desperately needed, until we cleaned it up.
The threat of tears prickled at the corners of my eyes and my throat was tight as a vise. I helped the other workers, all hands on deck, cleaning up the spill as fast as we could. My shoulders ached. My feet throbbed like hell. And even after we’d cleaned everything meticulously, we opened up shop for the afternoon and found that it was a painfully slow day.
The slowest we’d been in weeks and weeks.
I’d be lucky if I could even collect half of my usual tips on a night like this.
I held myself back from breaking down for almost the whole shift.
It was only when I headed outside to toss a bunch of cardboard in the recycling bin that I got a quick moment to check my phone.
Landry’s name had popped up on my screen.
And that’s when a couple of tears finally broke off from the corners of my eyes, drying in the night air.
It was a simple text, just him asking how I was doing, and probably wondering why the hell I had been silent for the last many days. The truth was that I’d thought of Landry almost every day, in any spare minute that I had the chance to think at all.
In my head, I’d drafted a million different versions of things I could say on a phone call to him, or texts I could write. Flirty things, hopeful things. Memories and jokes from when we were in Colorado.
But the reality was that from the second I’d landed back at home again, Colorado had felt like another lifetime. Another version of me, entirely—a version that had free time, that had no cares in the world, that could do things like spend afternoons walking with Landry in buttery sunlight, followed by snowglobe evenings with him in bed by the moonlight.
It didn’t feel real anymore.
And now I choked up imagining any sort of world where Landry would drive down here, expecting the Jamie he’d known back there in the snowy wonderland, and instead finding the real me, and my total mess of a life. He’d find out how totally unprepared I was for adulthood, even when I’d been a working, independent adult for well over a decade.
My hands trembled as I wrote back a text to Landry, telling him as politely as I could that I didn’t think we were going to work out.
I wrote the last sentences, tears streaming down my face.
Thank you for being in a snowglobe with me. It meant everything.
I let out a rough breath of air, using the heels of my hands to push away my tears. There was no time to dwell. My only mission in life was to claw my way out of the monetary hell I’d been in for years, and finally start living a life I could be proud of.
So that I could finally let myself share my world with someone, without shame.
I successfully blotted out my feelings for the rest of the night, collecting my meager tips in my calloused hands at the end of the night. I drove to the gas station and put every dollar into my tank, watching the needle barely make it to half full. When I got back to the house, I made it part of the way up our front walkway before I saw the silhouette of one of my roommates making out with a girl on our couch and loud country music blaring from the living room speakers.