Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,85

the Explorer and come rescue me in my hour of need, the night Gabe left me deserted at the Carlyle.

My thumbs fly over the keypad on my phone, finishing up the three-thousandth text I’ve sent to Gabe these past few weeks: u hate me u have evry rite im so sorry.

“You going to be all right here by yourself, Chelse?” Mom asks, knocking on the front counter to get my attention.

“She’s not alone,” Dad corrects her. “I’m here.”

“You’ll disappear back into the office,” Mom pouts.

“Not necessarily,” Dad says, winking at me.

Mom tilts her head at us, a smile of relief washing over her face.

“Aw, don’t shove me into the middle of your schmaltz-fest,” Brandon moans.

“Hey, mister,” Mom snaps at him. “You’re responsible for getting two of these layers into the Explorer. You drop one, no car.”

“The way you keep adding on to our agreement makes me think I should have gotten you to put it in writing,” he mutters.

I think she’s nuts for trusting Brandon with one of her precious cakes. But I guess she figures he wants a car so badly that he’d rather lose a foot than dent a single icing rose.

“You’d do just fine without a car,” Mom reminds him. “After all, our house is walking distance from school.”

“I’m on the up-and-up, Mom. I gotta have wheels, period.”

“Then stick to my rules, buster,” Mom says. “Or else you’ll be toting your Marshall amp around on your old Schwinn.”

“Man,” Brandon moans. After kicking at the tiles a few times, he takes a deep breath and eases one of the boxed layers off the counter. “Comin’ through!” he screams. “Watch out! Coconut cake walkin’!”

I shove the phone in the pocket of my White Sugar apron, lean my elbows on the counter. Let my eyes go bleary as my mind drifts into a daydream like the Explorer drifts into a stream of summer traffic—or, at least, what qualifies as traffic in Fair Grove.

“Chelsea, I’ll take over the front counter,” Dad tells me.

“I’m fine,” I try to insist, but Dad nods toward the front window, telling me to look.

Gabe.

I clench my jaw, gritting my teeth as I watch him approach the post office with a handful of letters. I’m frozen as he disappears through the post office door. But when he reappears, heading straight for his ’Stang, I finally dislodge myself and rush out into the early August heat.

“Gabe,” I shout. “Gabe, talk to me.”

He shakes his head. “Just mailing Mom’s bills.”

“I tried to text you,” I tell him.

“I wish you’d quit that,” he says, through a mouth drawn tight.

“Please,” I say, lurching in front of him, blocking him from opening the driver side door. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I just—I wanted to tell you that I believe what you said that night we graduated. Remember? About the heart being like a compass. And it leads you either closer to a person, or it shows you another way. And if we were meant to be, our hearts would have led each other straight back here, to us. Not in different directions.”

“That’s what you’ve been thinking?” Gabe says. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t go anywhere, Chelsea. You did. You don’t get to feel good about it. You’re not forgiven. Move.”

He pushes me aside, leaves me standing stupidly in his old parking space. Watching him drive away.

As I turn toward the front walk, my prickling eyes hit a vine of purple flowers curling up an old trellis in the corner of the White Sugar building. The same flowers that grow in the field around the Fair Grove mill. The same flowers that filled the field behind cabin number four back in Minnesota. As tears threaten to roll, I close my eyes; I can still feel the itch of grass beneath my legs, Clint’s breath on my cheek. Even now, I’m thinking of Clint.

My eyes are tingling as I step back inside. I hope Dad really will disappear into the office. At least then I won’t have to be a blubbering idiot in front of an audience.

“Haven’t seen Gabe around in a long time,” Dad says.

Great. This is exactly the heart-to-heart I want to have right now.

“Not since the night of the MSU game,” he goes on.

I nod.

“From the looks of what just went on out there,” he says, nodding once toward the window, “it doesn’t seem like he’s coming back.”

I clench my jaw and shake my head.

Dad pours an iced latte and puts an