Savored: A Small-Town Contemporary Romance

by Sophie Stern

  “You and your friends,” I said. “You were always starting rumors about me.”

  “No, I never did.”

  “What?”

  It seemed as though he didn’t remember...

  But I remembered.

  I remembered the stories about me that circulated at my school: stories that I was a weirdo. I remember stories about my parents being poor. People made up stories about my dad’s death and sometimes people spread rumors that he’d been a drug dealer – not that he’d died when I’d been little. Cooper had started those rumors.

  Hadn’t he?

  “Cordelia, I never laughed at you or started rumors about you. Is that why you were so hot and cold with me? You thought I was starting rumors?” Pain crossed his face, and I realized suddenly that I had made a mistake. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

  “Yes,” I whispered. I felt my face go pale.

  He stilled, and it was his turn to ask a question. It was one I’d been hoping no one would ask because I knew that I wasn’t going to like what the answer was going to be.

  “Who told you I started rumors about you, Cor?”

  We both knew the answer before I said a damn word. It had been my best friend. She’d whispered in my ear every time we saw Cooper and his group of friends laughing or joking. No matter what I did, she had always been there. At the time, I thought she was just being a good friend. Now I wondered if there was another reason she had been whispering to me.

  They started a story last night about your dad, Cordelia. I’m so sorry...

  They’ve been telling everyone what a weirdo you are. I’m sorry, Cordelia...

  Hey, Cordelia...I just wanted to let you know that Cooper is total scum. He told everyone you kissed Brendan Marks. Can you believe it?

  She’d been the one who had told me that they were making fun of me, and other people seemed to know the rumors, so I had believed her. For years, I’d believed her. After all, why wouldn’t I believe my very best friend?

  “Larissa told me,” I whispered.

  “She was never your friend, Cordelia. I tried to tell you.”

  I remember hating Cooper. I remember fighting with him about Larissa. At the time, I’d thought...well, I didn’t know what I’d thought. He’d been my buddy, and we’d always had a rivalry of sorts. We’d fought on the playground and we’d competed against each other. In middle school, we’d grown apart, and that was when I’d found Larissa.

  Had she really been the wedge that had driven us apart?

  “Why would she lie to me about that?” I asked.

  “Larissa was always jealous of you, Cordelia. You were the most beautiful girl in school, and she knew it. The only way she could even think of competing with you is by tearing you down.”

  The words hit me in the belly. My soul seemed to shriek as realization washed over me. It had been her. It hadn’t been Cooper betraying our friendship or crushing my dreams. It had been Larissa. She was the reason I had been in so much pain.

  Suddenly, I knew I actually was going to throw up. I ran, racing down the little hallway of the bakery and to the bathroom. I flung open the door and dropped to my knees beside the toilet. Then I started heaving. Up came my lunch. Up came the cookies I’d taste tested.

  Up came everything.

  The entire past had been a lie.

  Everything I’d known had been fake: a narrative designed to...what?

  Keep me away from Cooper?

  Keep me submissive?

  Keep me isolated?

  I’d never really considered Larissa to be abusive to me: cruel, yes. That had been it, though. I’d always felt like she betrayed me, but that was all I’d thought. She’d made a mistake. He’d asked her out, and she’d accepted.

  But if what he was saying was true, then why had Larissa urged me to ask him?

  I puked, and I started to cry as I threw up. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like anything was as black and white as I’d always thought that it was. Suddenly, it felt like everything I knew was crashing and burning all around me.

  I felt a hand on my back. Cooper. Cooper was with me, kneeling beside me. He pulled my hair back from my face and rubbed my back as I continued to vomit into the toilet. I was in too much pain to care or be embarrassed. I was hurting too much to feel too upset about the fact that he was witnessing me being vulnerable.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he whispered.

  I didn’t know if that was true anymore.

  4.

  Cooper

  WHAT EXACTLY HAD HAPPENED all of those years ago?

  Cordelia’s reaction to my comment about Larissa hadn’t been what I expected. In fact, I had never understood why she’d continued to hang out with Larissa despite the girl’s obvious mean streak. Larissa had been a total bitch in high school. She’d been mean to everyone, including me, and I’d only asked her to the prom as a favor to her brother. It had been obvious that Cordelia wasn’t going to say yes if I asked her out, and I had mistakenly assumed that Larissa and I could double date with Cordelia and whoever she had chosen to go with.

  I had been 17, and I’d been an idiot. I’d figured that going to the prom with Larissa would be a one-time event that would give me a chance to hang out with her best friend. It had been stupid, and it hadn’t exactly gone as planned. When Larissa blurted out that Cordelia had been planning to ask me to the prom, I should have immediately ditched Larissa. I should have said, “See-ya-later-bye.” I tried to talk to Cordelia in the days that followed, and she wouldn’t even look at me.

  Not that I blamed her.

  I had seen the expression on her face when she heard that Larissa and I were going to the prom together. It was the look of someone realizing that everything they’d ever believed was a lie. She had been crushed, and it had shown in her eyes. For the very first time, I’d caused deep, unbearable pain to another human, and there had been nothing I could do about it.

  Over the years, I’d moved on. I’d dated other people. I’d grown as a person. I’d gone to college, returned to my hometown, and gotten my position at the school. I’d never forgotten Cordelia. I’d missed her so much, but I’d also never felt like I was good enough to keep trying to talk to her. In my mind, she would do better if I just left her alone.

  Now, looking at her, rubbing her back as she vomited, I wondered what hell she’d gone through. She must have felt so alone, and I was partially to blame for that. What would have happened if I’d fought harder for her? Would things be different now?

  Finally, she seemed to be finished puking, and she sat up. I offered her a paper towel and she wiped her face with it before wadding it up and tossing it in the trash can. Then she closed the toilet lid, flushed, and looked over at me.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “That was gross.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “How?”

  “You’d be surprised what high schoolers get up to these days,” I told her. “I’ve seen puke in the hallways, puke in the bathrooms, and puke in the parking lots. They don’t exactly have good aim.”

  “Tell me we were better than that when we were young,” she said.

  “Oh, absolutely,” I winked. “We were a million times better. Smarter, too. Not to mention, we were better-looking and had better style.”

  She laughed, then, and it was such a wonderful sound. I never wanted it to stop. I wanted to make her laugh over and over again. Cordelia was...

  Well, she made me smile.

  I wanted to make her smile, too.

  “Tell me what this was all about,” I gestured to the toilet.

  “Apparently, I ate a bad sandwich at lunch,” she said.

  “Liar.”

  She shrugged.

  I pulled her to her feet and she looked at me with her tear-stained face. I stepped aside and she washed her hands and splashed some water on her face. Then the two of us went back to the front of the bakery. She didn’t
offer to let me sit down, but I did, anyway. I took a seat and gestured for her to do the same.

  Reluctantly, she sat down.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I just looked at her.

  “Really, Coop. I don’t.”

  “You know why I’m such a good principal?” I asked her.

  The change of subject seemed to jolt her because she just shook her head for a moment. That was all that I needed to keep talking.

  “I’m a good listener,” I told her. “And I’m patient. You remember my little brother?”

  “James? I remember.”

  “You know how he’s in a wheelchair?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was hard taking care of him. My parents did their best, but I had to help out a lot. I did everything I could to keep up with his care so they could focus on other things, like work. My dad lost his job when we were in 7th grade. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  It had been horrible. He’d done his best to find something new, but he hadn’t been able to. It had killed him not to be able to provide for us. My mom was working as much as she could, but she could only make so much. Finally, we had to ask for help.

  “We had to accept aid from the state.”

  “There’s nothing embarrassing about needing food stamps or financial assistance,” Cordelia whispered. “Lots of people need help. That’s why those programs exist.”

  “Yeah,” I smiled. “That’s what you told me back then, too.”

  “You were the only person I ever told.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep. After I told you, I kept waiting for the rumors around the school to start. Larissa never said anything to me about it, and nobody else ever did. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t tell anyone, Cordelia. You never ran your mouth. You’re the kind of friend who can take a secret to the grave. You never even considered letting other people have a glimpse into my family’s pain. You didn’t feel the need to tell anyone my secret in order to make yourself feel bigger or stronger.”

  She shrugged.

  “That’s what makes you such a good friend, Cor. What makes me such a good principal is that no matter what people do, I can outwait them. Now I wait when students show up in my office. I wait, and I listen, and eventually, they all talk.”

  “You think I’m going to talk.”

  “I know you are,” I corrected her. “And I’m going to listen to you when you do.”

  “Cooper, I don’t want to talk.”

  I waited.

  I looked at Cordelia, and I watched the woman who had gotten away. I was filled with regret and pain as I watched her. We’d lost out on so many wonderful years together because we’d both been young and stupid, and neither one of us had known how to communicate.

  Maybe things would be different this time around.

  Cordelia started to look more and more uncomfortable with me watching her. Soon she started to fidget, and she started looking around the room. Finally, her head swung back around and she stared right at me.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll talk.”

  “Good.”

  “I hated you,” she said. “You hurt me. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t like me, or why you’d stopped wanting to be my friend. Now I’m older, and I know you were probably overwhelmed and busy. You were helping your parents out with James a lot, and that had to have been tough.”

  It had been. Taking care of my brother had been a full time job, and even with me and my parents all helping, it had been hard. My dad did his best, but sometimes it wasn’t enough. My mom tried, but sometimes, she just couldn’t do anything else.

  “When I heard the rumors that you’d started...well, that I thought you’d started...I felt hurt. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, though. I just couldn’t. Finally, I confessed to Larissa that you were driving me crazy. Apparently, she knew about my little crush before I even realized what I was feeling. You were the first guy I...”

  The first?

  “You were the first guy I ever wanted,” she whispered.

  “Cordelia...”

  “Let me finish,” she said. “Don’t interrupt or I won’t be able to do this, Coop.”

  She started crying, then, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to reach across the table and yank her into my arms. She didn’t need to cry. She didn’t need that. Cordelia was too sweet and too perfect and too wonderful. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved better.

  She deserved the entire damn world.

  “Larissa convinced me that I should ask you to prom,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t think that you’d be interested. Besides, there was the issue of the rumors...I kind of talked myself out of it and then back into it. Plus, I had Larissa there to help.”

  Good ol’ Larissa.

  “She said things like, maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t really start them. Maybe he’s changed. She said a lot of different things, and I was wildly confused. In the end, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop thinking...”

  She blushed, and I wanted to know what it was that she couldn’t stop thinking. What had sweet Cordelia gotten into her head back then? She’d been 16, and I’d been 17, and we’d had our entire lives ahead of us. We’d had so much to gain and everything to lose, and we’d screwed it all up.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing you,” she whispered. “I had this fantasy, you know, about asking you to prom and you saying yes. I thought about everything. I thought about the dress and the corsage and the ride to the dance. I thought about everything, and I totally worked myself up. I was so ready to ask you and then...”

  The tears kept flowing, and I couldn’t stop myself. I reached for her hand across the table and held it. I shouldn’t have. I knew that, but I had to. I had to touch her. It was selfish, and it was just for me, but I needed to. I needed to feel her hand and I needed her to know that what happened wasn’t okay.

  “And then you walked across that courtyard,” she whispered. “You were coming over, and I was going to ask you, and then...”

  “And then I put my arm around your best friend.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I was totally blind-sided.”

  “We’d talked the day before and agreed to go,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Her brother had asked me to take her as a favor to him. He’d been helping me with James, and I owed him a favor. I couldn’t always drive my brother to his doctor’s appointments, and Larissa’s brother had been helping me. He said it would mean a lot to him if I asked her to prom. Honestly, I figured it would be a good chance for me to hang out with you and to show you that I wasn’t a horrible guy.”

  “I just can’t quite get over it,” Cordelia shook her head. “She gave me so much shit for wanting to ask you. Why did she try to convince me to ask you?” She looked at me, eyes wide. “If she was just going to snake it away from me, then she shouldn’t have even tried to get my hopes up.”

  “She wanted to make you feel bad. People like Larissa...that’s what they do.”

  “It’s not very nice.”

  “It’s not very nice.”

  “But you dated,” Cordelia said then.

  “What?”

  “You dated. You and Larissa. You dated all of her senior year. She was always bragging about how even though you’d gone off to college, you kept in touch, and you were going to come back and take her to our senior prom.”

  “Did you see me at prom?”

  “I didn’t go,” she admitted.

  “You didn’t go to prom?”

  “No.”

  “Larissa and I never dated. I took her my senior year, but then that was it. The senior year where you two were still at school, I didn’t ever speak to her. I went off to college and never looked back.”

  “Well, you’re back now,” she pointed out.


  “I had no idea she’d kept up some weird lie that we were dating.”

  “You didn’t want to date her at all?”

  No way.

  Prom had sucked.

  The entire night, Larissa had talked about herself. Once she’d realized that Cordelia wasn’t coming, she’d gone off and talked to all of the guys she really liked, and I’d been left alone. When I’d slipped away, she hadn’t even noticed, and I hadn’t bothered speaking to her again. Besides, I’d graduated a week later and then I’d left for college.

  Now I was breaking down what happened for Cordelia, but it didn’t feel very good. She had missed prom both years because of me. Well, because of Larissa and me. I would accept the blame for it, though. I hated that such a special experience had been stolen from her because of fear and because of a bully. That was what Larissa really was.

  She was a bully.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t want to date her.” The idea had never held any semblance of appeal for me. There were a lot of things I wanted from life, but taking Larissa out wasn’t one of them.

  “Wow,” Cordelia leaned back in the chair. “Talk about a fuck load of information I didn’t know I was missing. Knowing all of this fifteen years ago would have made my life a lot simpler.”

  “How? What did you do after that night?”

  “You never looked me up? Hannah didn’t tell you?”

  “I may have peeked at your social media profiles,” I admitted. “But Hannah wouldn’t say much except that you were dating someone.”

  “Past tense,” she said. “Jake and I broke up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t.

  “I’m not sorry,” she said. “After college, I settled. I wanted to study bakery science, and it was just...hard. I was lonely and depressed. My mom died. I was alone in the universe. Nobody my age had lost a mom, so nobody understood what it was like. it was just hard. I was an orphan in the middle of what were supposed to be my best years,” she frowned. “It was isolating. I should have reached out to people, but I didn’t.”

  I wished we had stayed in touch. I lost my mom around the same time. It was unfair how easy it was for parents to die. James and I had both mourned our mom a lot. Talking to Hannah had helped me so much. I wished I had been there for Cordelia. There was a part of me that knew it wouldn’t have mattered, though. At that point, we were both still so broken.