I stared at the offending sentence, considering scrapping the whole thing. The idea of starting over sounded dreadful. Nevertheless, I turned to a blank and unoffending page and made another attempt.
Hi Sasha,
Thanks for the reply. I hope you’re doing okay. Community service is fine. I’m staying out of trouble. The story about Greg is pretty long, you’d probably get bored.
—Addy
I stared at the words, unblinking. Ugh, this was even worse than my word vomit. It sounded like someone whodidn’t slip in coffee or burned ovens to 800 degrees or lied on dating apps to help lonely men find love.
I didn’t sound likeme.
And the little voice in the back of my mind whispered,You ruin things by talking.
The worst thing was, the voice wasn’t wrong. My inability to shut the fuck up was precisely what caused me problems when I was dealing with the bakery and the health inspector, with the fraud incident and to be honest, my entire fucking life.
Huffing, I flipped back to the original version.
Really, did I even care what Sasha thought of me?
No, I didn’t. Or at least … I shouldn’t. He likely wouldn’t read my word vomit anyway. Most people didn’t bother with me and my ramblings, at least not recently.
My dad was the only person who never got frustrated with me. I have never felt more alone than I have since he died five years ago. Hetrulyunderstood me. My mom and sister tried, but we were just too different.
I always ended up feeling like too much, especially around them.
After Dad died, I tried to keep his bakery running exactly the way he had.Triedbeing the keyword here. I really did want to do a good job and keep his legacy going.
I worked so hard trying to save the business, I forgot to save myself. But don’t worry, I still made payroll. Mostly. Eventually. Kind of. Never mind.
Anyway, the only reason I was dealing with Greg in the first place is because I used to run a bakery. Emphasis on ‘used to.’ My family had owned it for generations — I swear there’s still flour in my baby pictures. My dad was a baker. My mom did the bookkeeping. My sister and I mostly got in the way and licked the spoons.
It was always warm and cozy in our bakery, and everything smelled like sugar and vanilla. Then my dad died, my mom retired, and I decided I could keep the place going with enthusiasm and Google.
Turns out you can’t pay rent with optimism. Or at least my landlord was super close-minded about it.
I tried to keep it going and … failed spectacularly. I’m talking like, forgot to order flour, argued with a health inspector about whether dust counts as ‘atmosphere’, and once, accidentally, seasoned a whole batch of muffins with salt.
Live and learn, huh?
I mean, nobodydied. One guy might’ve thrown up politely behind a plant when I mixed up salt and sugar that one time.
So the bakery went under. I didn’t burn it down, but I did once set the oven to 800 degrees and call my mother crying, so honestly that may have been foreshadowing.
But the truth is, I really tried. I loved our bakery. It was a place where I belonged. And then it didn’t exist anymore and somehow, I still did.
It feels like everything I touch gets a little ruined. Or maybe everything was already cracked and I just talked enough for people not to notice.
So now, I take whatever work I can get. Really, if you think about it … My bakery closed, my dad died, capitalism yeeted me into chaos, and I met Greg — meaning you and I only know each other because I confused salt and sugar once. Kind of wild if you think about it.
I was staring at the page, unseeingly, my pen poised to write, but no more words were appearing on the page.
The unwelcome sensation I had shoved to the back of my mind earlier was fighting to break free. Blinking rapidly, I focussed on the paper again, on the words I’d already written and added more.
It’s like life keeps shrinking the room and I keep forgetting to lower my voice. I’m not trying to be too much. I just don’t know how to be smaller than I am.
Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I stared at the letter. I shouldn’t be considering sending it to him; Ishouldn’t even bewritinga letter like this. What I should do is rip the page out and throw it in the trash.
But I didn’t. For some insane reason, I decided to keep going.