The Heartbroken - S01 E210

Story 2 years ago

The Heartbroken - S01 E210

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 210

“I’m all right, I guess. Been kind of busy for the past

week.”

Taking what’s left of the cream puffs and putting

them on my tray, I looked up at him. “Really? From

helping out here?”

He shook his head, placing his hands deep in his

pocket. “There’s this writing contest and—”

Surprised, I looked at him and almost dropped my

tray. His reflexes were quick. He swooped in to

steady it before the creams puffs rolled off over the

edge.

“Is it that surprising?” He smiled sheepishly as he

stepped away.

“No,” I quickly said, shaking my head. I was smiling

but I couldn’t help the crease in my eyebrows as I

looked at him. “It’s just, uh, I was also planning to

join that contest.”

“Really?” His eyes literally twinkled. “How’s your

piece? It literally took me a week to finish what I was

writing since schoolwork always got in the way. I’m

glad I was able to send it in this morning.”

I fought the urge to cringe. “I actually wasn’t able to

write anything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” I lifted a shoulder in an attempt to show

indifference, but it had actually been bugging me a

lots. “I couldn’t come up with anything decent so… I

gave up.”

He looked over his shoulder and I followed his gaze.

There was a plain clock hanging on the wall behind

the register. He looked back at me with a hesitant

smile before saying, “Well, you still have two hours if

you change your mind.”

“I, uh, I don’t have anything to write,” I said. “I tried

writing about my dad but… it just wasn’t working

well.”

“Have you tried writing about other things?”

I looked down at my tray. “Yeah. It’s just…”

“What about yourself?”

My eyes snapped to his. “What?”

“About yourself,” he repeated. “Have you tried

writing about yourself?”

“I…”

The smile on his face was enough to trigger

something in my head and it felt like a puzzle piece

had just clicked into place.

It was almost as if all I’d been waiting for was this. All

these two weeks when I struggled to think of

anything to write, I couldn’t, but now, with this half-

stranger giving me a faint smile as he recognized the

look on my face, the gears in my brain finally started

working.

“Two hours,” he said. “You still have two hours.”

—

“You were up late last night,” Mom noted as I stirred

the brownie batter.

She was busy chopping up garlic when she decided

to bring this up. Her eyes darted to mine for a

second before focusing back on mincing the garlic.

It was only just nine in the morning, but my mom

had already asked for my help to prepare dinner

(dinner, for Pete’s sake). I knew better than to

question her decision to start early though. She

always preferred making herself busy when she was

anxious, and that was when I realized she was

nervous about the whole dinner with Norman.

“I was writing,” I answered vaguely.

I didn’t know why, but for some reason, the thought

of telling her about the contest made me flush in

embarrassment so I hadn’t told her about it at all.

Only Seth knew about it.