Chapter 8: Closing Time

I stood outside the bakery, taking deep breaths as I tried to steady my heartbeat. My hands shook no matter how hard I squeezed them into fists, and my heart felt like it was going a million miles a second. I glanced into the bakery window and saw Caleb putting chairs upside down on the tables with his headphones in.

The sight made me feel suddenly more relaxed.

I’d sat in my car by Finn’s apartment building for twenty minutes, trying to find the energy to drive home, when I got a text from Caleb: “Sorry to bother you, but I’m having trouble remembering everything for closing duties, and I’m left alone tonight. Any way you could send me a list?”

Not long after, I’d started my car and headed toward the bakery. Caleb hadn’t asked me to come in person to help, but I couldn’t imagine heading home and having my family interrogate me on what happened. It would be yet another lie that I’d have to tell.

I took one last deep breath, composed myself, and put my key in the door.

Caleb didn’t see me, because he was still facing away when I walked in. I stood there, debating on whether I should wait for him to see me or go up and tap his shoulder. Before I could make up my mind, he turned around.

He yelped when he saw me. “Sh*t, Evie! You scared the hell out of me.” He pulled out his headphones and stuffed them in his pocket.

I almost smiled. Maybe I should’ve told him I was coming. But then I would’ve missed him being scared, so I didn’t regret it too much.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

I shrugged, hoping I could play it off. “You asked for help, and I wasn’t doing anything tonight, so I figured in-person help would be better.”

If Caleb questioned my reasoning, his face didn’t show it. “Ah, I was starting to think you were just not going to answer me. So, this is a pleasant surprise.” He shot me a small smile.

We cleaned the counters and mopped the floors, then headed behind the counter so I could show him how to clean all of the baking and coffee equipment. He seemed to catch on quickly, carefully listening to every word I said.

As we put away the coffee add-ins, Caleb kept glancing over at me from the corner of his eye. I tried to act like I didn’t notice, heavily focused on wrapping up the peppermint chunks, but I could still feel his gaze on me.

“Are you okay?” He finally asked me.

I thought my red and puffy eyes would’ve subsided by then, but apparently not.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’m fine.”

Caleb stopped what he was doing. “You wanna try that again? A little more convincing this time, maybe?”

While I’d been teaching him the ropes of closing, I’d been distracted from thinking about what happened with Finn. But now that we were just working on the last few small tasks that didn’t need explaining, we’d been sitting in silence. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander back to the fight.

I thought I’d run out of tears a while ago, so I was surprised when I felt that familiar itch as they built back up.

“Hey,” Caleb said, his voice soft and comforting. He’d gotten much closer to me. He was standing right beside me, and there went my heart pounding again. He placed his hand on my arm, just the lightest touch, but it sent a wave of warmth through my body. I reacted instantly, my shoulders relaxing and my mind calming.

“You can talk to me,” he said. “I know we barely know each other, but sometimes talking to a stranger can be even better to get all those feelings out. There’s less pressure to fit into someone’s perception of you.”

I finally turned to look at him. We were so close our chests were almost touching. He didn’t seem uncomfortable at all; he just looked down at me with those hazel eyes that seemed to be able to peer right into my soul and read my every thought and emotion. I forced myself to take a step back to put more space between us.

“Have you ever lied to someone you care about?” I asked him after taking some time to think of how much I wanted to say. Finn’s voice echoed in the back of my head: ‘nobody would understand’.

Caleb nodded, absentmindedly rubbing his right side. “Yeah, actually, I have.”

What was it about Caleb that just always made me want to tell him everything? Maybe his comforting presence, and how he always held on to every word I said. Or maybe it was just the fact that Finn used to be that person I would tell all my problems to, so now that Finn was a part of the problem, I had nobody.

“How did you do it?” I asked Caleb. “Did it not eat you up inside?”

“Oh, it did,” he said. I

It was my turn to try and read him. I couldn’t place if he was the type of person to wear his heart on his sleeve or have impenetrable walls up.

“Why do you ask?” he asked, leaning against the counter.

I sighed. “I’ve been lying to Heather about something for a while, and the longer it’s gone on, the worse I feel. And I don’t know if telling the truth would ruin our friendship, or if it would blow over after a while.”

Caleb stared at the countertop, deep in thought for a while. At first, the silence made me think he wasn’t going to answer. I felt stupid for even bringing anything up. He’d probably only said I could talk to him about anything because that was the nice thing to say to someone who was going through a difficult situation. But nobody ever meant that. Hell, that’s what Finn had said at the beginning of our friendship, and that wasn’t really working out in my favor.

But finally, Caleb spoke.

“For me, it was my mom,” he said. “I did something…stupid when I was younger and hung out with the wrong kinds of people. After I went through with it, I hid it from my mom. I knew she’d be furious, and I really wasn’t in a place where I could handle her being disappointed in me.”

Caleb paused. I found myself deeply intrigued by this vague story. I wanted to press him on it, to learn what happened to him. But I realized that I was doing that exact same thing to him: opening up in a way that only left the other person wanting to know more.

When Caleb still hadn’t gone on, I decided to press just a little bit. “Did you end up telling her eventually?”

Caleb blinked, as if he’d gotten lost in thought again and forgotten I was there. “Oh, yeah. Actually only a few months ago.”

“And?” I pressed even more, “How did she react?”

Caleb’s expression darkened. “Not well. She yelled at me, told me I never think of the consequences to my actions, and basically didn’t speak to me for a while. We only just got back to some sense of normalcy a few weeks ago, when I was already planning on moving out.”

“Oh.” That was all I could manage. I’d been hoping for a more uplifting ending, something that would give me some sort of clarity on what to do about both Heather and Finn. But I was left even more confused than before.

Caleb must’ve noticed my expression because he shook his head. “Look,” he said, “I wasn’t bringing that up just to talk about me. The point of that was that even though things between my mom and I were rocky for a while, I don’t regret telling her the truth.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Even though it put strain on your relationship?”

“Yeah,” Caleb said, “because I finally felt free. I didn’t have to worry about being two people anymore. The guy I was and the guy my mom saw. I finally got to just be me, and that feeling of getting that kind of weight off my chest, that’s a feeling I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

I tried to imagine what feeling that free would look like for me. Being able to talk about Finn with Addie, with my parents, who have all known him for years. To be able to hold hands with him around other people, to be able to go on an actual date outside of Finn’s apartment or my living room. The feeling seemed almost too good to be true.

“Look, Evie,” Caleb continued, “I’m not going to sit here and condone lying by any means. Sometimes the intentions are good, you don’t want to hurt people. But at some point, you must stop and think about what’s hurting you. If something like that is preventing you from living your life, you have to be the one to do something about it. And if the person really cares about you like you do for them, they’ll understand, even if it takes time.”

I sniffled and realized in that exact moment that there were tears on my cheeks. I’d been so concentrated on taking Caleb’s words to heart that I’d started crying without either of us realizing.

Caleb seemed to notice at the same time I did. “Sh*t, Evie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” His eyes were full of remorse and concern as he stepped closer to me.

I laughed, hastily wiping my cheeks with my arm. I was flooded with embarrassment, and hoped my cheeks weren’t red, because they were burning up. “Oh, no you didn’t upset me. I just—”

I froze as Caleb’s palm grazed my cheek, wiping away a stray tear that I’d missed. My heart pounded. He was so close to me now that I could inch my face up and kiss him.

He stared at my lips. I could hear his breathing quicken as he placed his palm under my chin, tilting my head up. His eyes traveled up my face until they met mine. There was an earnest-ness in his eyes, in the way they shone even in the dim lights overhead.

I wondered what he saw in my eyes. Maybe that I’d felt heard for the first time in over a year just from our short conversation. Maybe that I had been wholly myself as we talked, combining the broken pieces of the two lives that were fighting inside me. Maybe he just saw curiosity, or felt the same familiarity that I’d felt with him since we first saw each other.

“Evie,” he whispered softly. My name had never sounded so beautiful. I wanted to close my eyes, to get lost in his comforting presence for as long as I could…

I pulled away from him. What was I doing? What was I thinking? I cleared my throat and took a few steps back, trying to escape the heat that was between us.

“Sorry,” he stammered, suddenly looking anxious. He took another step back, as if to give me even more space. “I was just trying –”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted, “um, it’s actually getting late, so I’m going to head out. Just make sure to turn off the lights and lock up when you leave, okay? The spare key is in the office, and you can just bring it back whenever you work next. Okay, bye.”

I snatched my keys from the counter before he could even say anything and ran out.

I tried to ignore the fact that my cheek still tingled where Caleb had touched it.