by Katie Cross
“Janine is in her office.” Margery glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “But—”
I stormed toward the door amid the thunk thunk thunk of my crutches and threw it open.
“I’ve been wrong!” I cried.
Janine’s head shot up. Sitting across from her was a man with jet-black hair and a pointy nose, his hands gripping the cushions. I stumbled back a step. Whoops. Janine rose to her feet, her expression hard with a blend of concern and annoyance.
“Rachelle?”
The whole drive over I’d pictured the way this would go down. I’d calmly walk in, request to speak with Janine, wait in the waiting room if necessary, and then tell her I needed help unraveling something.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t … I’ve been wrong. I-I’ve been wrong, and … and I have to talk to you because Sophia gave me a compliment and now everything has changed and I don’t know what to do.”
Janine’s lips tightened. In a firm voice, she said, “I’m with another client right now, as you can see. Step back. Take a deep breath.”
Like an obedient child, I shuffled out of sight of the other client, pressed my lips together, and sucked in a deep breath through my nose. Janine nodded, seeming more composed herself.
“Once more.”
I followed again. The wild edge of hysteria faded slightly.
“Step back into the waiting room and wait for me there,” she said. “This is not acceptable behavior.”
Without a sound, I retreated. A wave of embarrassment tore through me, but I didn’t care anymore. Didn’t care that that had been an overreaction. Didn’t care that I’d probably broken some privacy law. In retrospect, it just didn’t matter.
Because I was wrong about myself.
“Sorry,” I whispered to Margery, who glared at me.
My mind whirled while I sat in the chair next to Mira. My left leg bounced up and down. Mira eyed me but said nothing. My every attempt to pay attention to the television screen—which Margery must have turned back on—met with failure. Ages passed before the man slinked past us with a scowl aimed at me. Janine stood at her office door.
“Rachelle, you may come in. Margery, you may go. I can handle this from here, thank you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said once I settled on the couch across from her. She regarded me with steep concern. Who could blame her? “I’m sorry. Really. Really sorry. Are you even open anymore?”
Her eyes flickered to the clock. “I’m not supposed to be, but I can make an exception. This sounds quite important.”
“Thanks. I-I didn’t mean to barge in or lose my head. I just … something happened, and I don’t know how to process it, and it all just … happened.”
“Tell me.”
“My boss gave me a compliment.”
She lifted one eyebrow. “Must have been some compliment.”
“That’s the thing. It was. And it was right.”
Tears bubbled into my eyes from deep in my chest, blurring Janine’s worried face. This time, I didn’t try to blink them away. They dropped onto the backs of my hands as I recounted the whole week—all my struggles, my concerns, my fear of lying to myself. By the time I finished, Janine’s shoulders had softened. She looked at me with compassion.
“I see.”
“Sophia was right!” I cried, wiping the tears off with the back of my hand. “I am wicked smart. And I really do have a steel core.”
“Did that scare you?”
“No. Maybe? I don’t know.” I wrestled with my own thoughts for a moment. “It’s just … if she’s right about that, and I know she is, that means I’ve been wrong about myself all along.”
“Like what?”
“I never believed I was smart. I tried eight different majors in college for five years before dropping out. I dated arrogant guys I hated. But … maybe I was just telling myself I wasn’t smart or worthy of better.” The tears welled up again. “Maybe, all that time, I really was smart and worth it. If that’s true, then…”
I wasn’t sure I had the strength to finish my thought.
“Then?”
“Then maybe everything I believe about myself is false. Maybe I do … maybe there is value in … in me after all.”
Janine tilted her head to the side, as if in deep thought. A silence followed, allowing me to gather my emotions.
“Let me ask you a question,” she said quietly. “What are little babies worth when they’re born?”
I blinked and wiped the hot tear trails off my cheeks. “Babies?”
“Do you know any?”
“Lexie’s niece.”
“How much is she worth?”
Being an only child with a mother who never left the house had kept me separated from babies pretty definitively. But Lexie’s little niece was a darling girl with chubby fists and a squeaky cry. My brow furrowed.
“She’s worth … everything.”
“Why?”
“I mean … she’s just this little ball of instinct. She’s lovely and sweet, and I can’t imagine she didn’t have worth.”
“At what point will she lose that value?”
“Never.”
“Never?”
A careful question lay in her words, locking me into some sort of trap. No, Lexie’s niece would never be less-than. She wouldn’t be perfect, of course. Maybe she’d one day even make bad decisions the way I did. But I wouldn’t think less of her.
“Never,” I said, more firmly this time. A smile twitched at the edges of Janine’s lips.
“Then why have you?”
A long moment passed while I absorbed that, at a loss for words. Tears trickled down my face. “Because I’ve made mistakes,” I whispered, voice hoarse.
“So will her niece.”
“I-I was really obnoxious and selfish.”
Janine gave me a soft smile. “So are babies. But that doesn’t devalue them, does it?”
“No.”
“We think our worth is tied into what we do or the roles we play. That’s not true. We have worth simply by being. Just think about the wonder of your body. When you tell your leg to move, it does. When you want to recall a memory, your mind will do so. Humans do impossible things every day just because they’re alive. Isn’t that worth something?”
To peel back the layers of life and look at it with such deep intensity caused me to pause. Of course my body responded to my commands—that’s what it was supposed to do. My gaze drifted to my right ankle and the heavy boot that held it prisoner. Now, of all times, I could better appreciate the value of a body that worked unimpeded. The miracle of breath, thought, emotion.
Everything.
“I guess that is pretty cool,” I murmured.
“Your body doesn’t have to be perfect or work perfectly for you to have value. You have it because you are. Close your eyes and ask, Could I be wrong about my own worth?”
A ball bubbled up in my throat, nearly cutting my breath off. I barely managed to whisper the question.
“What’s the answer?” Janine asked.
My eyes opened again. I leaned forward and covered my face with my hands as a sob burst from my chest.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ve been wrong my whole life. Because of that, horrible things happened. If I had just … why didn’t I know? Now I feel like I’ve been living a lie.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Can you forgive yourself for making the mistakes that have haunted you? Can you have compassion for yourself?”
Something felt like it slid into place in my mind. Forgiveness wasn’t excusing my behavior. It was removing it as an obstacle. It was compassion.
Love.
“Yes,” I whispered, my lip quivering. “I can. I think I finally can.”
Janine’s warm hand rested on the middle of my back a few moments later. Heavy sobs unleashed themselves in a torrent of tears, emotion, and ugly, ugly memories that I’d been holding back. Ages seemed to pass. When the sobs
turned to sniffles, Janine passed me a tissue and met my watery gaze with firm compassion.
“You may have believed the lies others—probably unknowingly—told you about yourself. You may have believed you were less-than when you absolutely were not. That is something to grieve. But you face a choice that many don’t know they can make. There’s a fork in the road for you, Rachelle. You can continue as you have been, or you can fight for more.”
Her hand dropped away from my back.
“What are you going to believe about yourself now?”
That night, I sat at my desk.
Crickets sang outside in a sweet summer serenade as I gathered my notebook and a pen. A listless breeze whisked into my room, carrying the quiet shuffle of leaves with it. My lamp cast a warm light, countering the flicker of the television under the door. I stared at a blank piece of paper and tapped my pen against the desk.
I had to do it.
I had to.
For an hour I’d sat there, staring at the paper, still feeling drained from my emotional meeting with Janine. Now, I needed to act. With a pained breath, I put the pen on the paper and began to write.
Dear Rachelle,
This letter isn’t going to be perfect. And for the first time, I think that’s okay.
I paused, read back, and sighed.
First, I want you to know that you are beautiful. You don’t see it yet. It’s like it’s hidden. There’s a tapestry in your mind that’s keeping you from the truth. But the truth is there, and this is it: you are worth something. One day the tapestry will shift, and you’ll see it.
You’ll see that you’re wicked smart and have an eye for business and all things pastry. Don’t be afraid of that so much. You’re stronger than you think. You have laugh lines around your eyes because of your great sense of humor. Really strong shoulders—in more ways than one. These are some of my favorite things, but they aren’t everything.
Strong shoulders. That was something positive. I glanced down. Thanks to Megan and lots of overhead squats, I did have strong shoulders. The pen stopped, hovering just over the page. Did drawing attention to my body count as loving myself? Then again, hadn’t Janine and I just spent an entire session doing that?
But you are more than those things. You are more than the “roles” you play. (Which, right now, you think your roles are college dropout, runner, daughter, best friend, and girl-that-doesn’t-know-what-she-wants.) But it’s not who you are, even if you don’t know who that is yet.
You are powerful. Maybe you don’t see yourself as powerful in the same way that you see Bitsy as powerful, but you are. Didn’t you lose over a hundred pounds? Didn’t you make a hard life change?
Didn’t you seek help?
The words spilled out faster now, as if they came from a different place in my mind. From someone that wasn’t me. Someone that directed the pen and the pain, pushing them both along. I let them flow, feeling a catharsis in the release.
It’s not easy to face the darkness, but it’s worth it. You are confident. You are brave. You are a warrior princess—the exact one you dressed up as no less than fifty-four times in your teenage years. You wanted to be her so badly that you didn’t even recognize you already are her.
You’re strong, Rachelle. You’ll never know how strong until you let yourself. It’s time to be that girl.
Love,
A Wiser Rachelle
Before I could go back and read a single word or comprehend what I’d said, I closed the notebook and stuffed it back under my bed. Then I lay on my mattress, stared at the ceiling, and drew in a long, shuddering breath. Janine’s challenge ran through my mind.
What are you going to believe about yourself now?
Chapter 11
Rearranging
A flash of a long-sleeved bright green shirt slipped past the prep room the next day. William gave me a quick smile and wave before disappearing down the hall. I watched him go, startled. He came and went pretty often—deliveries or not—but today seemed particularly unexpected.
“Sophia,” he called. “I think I found a new distributor that could get you supplies for ten percent cheaper.”
I pulled my thoughts out of the baking magazines I’d been perusing all morning, hoping for inspiration to create exciting new recipes but finding none. Grateful for a distraction, I grabbed my crutch and worked my way toward the hall.
When I peered around the corner, William had thrown his lean body into a chair across from Sophia’s desk. She sat with a cup of coffee and a harried expression, her eyes half on him, half on the computer screen. She’d been wandering around all morning, expecting a call from someone at a bank, alternating mumbling to herself and staring at the wall. I’d let her go, not certain I wanted to know why.
“Oh?” she asked absently.
“They’re the same brands that you order now, I checked. But I was able to talk them down a bit in order to get them some business.”
“Mmm-hmm…”
A giant calculator sat next to her computer. A negative number appeared on the screen when I shuffled closer to her door. William glanced at me and managed a small smile but couldn’t hide the stress in his eyes.
Sophia’s office reminded me of a wedding cake. Light peach walls. A couch with silver and white ruffled pillows—I suspected she slept there some nights. Gauzy white linens hung from either side of two tall, thin windows. They fluttered whenever the air conditioning flipped on. Her deep mahogany desk was adorned with pictures of young kids—I presumed her nieces and nephews as she’d never mentioned having any of her own—in gilded white frames. The only thing that didn’t fit was the collection of decorative knitting needles that lined the wall behind her chair. The rest of it was elegant, simple, and understated, like Sophia herself.
“Oh, and I finished mowing your lawn and walking Braveheart,” William added, rubbing his hands down his pant legs, as if to get rid of grass stains. “He didn’t eat breakfast again.”
“Braveheart?” I asked.
Sophia glanced at me, then back down with a frown. “My dog.”
“He’s a total chicken,” William whispered. His gaze returned to Sophia, who muttered under her breath as she studied a spreadsheet on her computer. A bridal consultation was coming in in twenty minutes, and she was still haphazardly put together with a skewed bun, glasses half on her face, and no makeup.
“Fifteen-minute warning,” I said. “You need to get ready for your next consultation.”
Sophia growled deep in her throat and shoved away from the computer. “Right. Consultation. Oh, thanks William on the tip. Can you bring me the details tomorrow? I’ll be able to look into it more then. I have a few things on my mind today and won’t really be able to give you the consideration you deserve. That okay?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” Sophia walked around the desk, bent down, and pressed a kiss to his cheek before leaving the room. The bathroom door down the hall closed, followed by a rush of water.
William met my gaze. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.”
He reached around me and closed the door behind us. I opened my mouth to protest, but he instantly stepped back, putting six feet of space between us. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good. He swallowed hard, nostrils flaring, like a kid on too much sugar.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Is there anything I can do to help Sophia?”
“With the store?”
He nodded, so eager I thought of a puppy. My mouth opened, then closed.
“I-I don’t know. She’s never told me numbers.”
“She’s drowning. I can tell. I haven’t seen her like this since…” He sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head. “It’s been a long time. I have to be able to do something to save her.”
“I’m going to create some new recipes.”
“Okay.”
“We’re hoping they’ll appeal to a new client base. Bring some people in, at least. I think if
we can get the store selling better, it’ll take the pressure off.”
“Great.” He nodded. “What can I do?”
I blinked, taken aback by his sudden ferocity and curious again about his relationship with Sophia. Just like every time he slipped in, which was more and more often these days, it seemed like too much to ask him.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’m supposed to propose some new recipes in two days. I guess we’ll need help selling them?”
“I can do that. People?”
“Yeah. Sure. We’ll need people.”
“I have people.”
“Good.”
An awkward silence stretched between us. It wouldn’t be enough to bring people the day we launched the new recipes. We needed a steady stream. But the exposure would help. He let out a long breath, appearing less cagey. I peered at him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You seem—”
“Sophia means a lot to me. The Frosting Cottage has been her dream for years. She started it after the accident, and I don’t want it to fail. It can’t fail.” He stepped forward and grabbed me by the shoulders. My breath nearly stopped. “If there is anything I can do to stop this from caving, please let me know. I will do whatever it takes to make it happen, so don’t be afraid to think big.”
“O-okay.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it and shook his head instead.
“Thanks.”
When his hands fell away, something seemed to go with them. The air in the room felt a little stuffier, close. He stepped back again, looking sheepish.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get too intense,” he said. “I’m just worried.”
I managed a half smile. “I think it’s sweet. I’ll think about it, all right? I promise.”
He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Will you give me your number? Then you can text me any idea you have.”
“Sure.”
He unlocked the screen, pulled up a new contact page, and passed it to me. I filled it out, sent a text to myself, and gave it back. The text came through, vibrating against my back pocket.
“Thanks,” he said again.
“Sure.”