Page 124 of Bloom

A fleeting, soon-to-be-forgotten second.

With a flick of perfectly straight hair, the bitch is back.

“I suspected he met someone,” Cheryl muses in that tone that makes me feel two feet tall. “But I definitely did not picture you.”

I’m more than capable of reading between the lines of her thinly-veiled insult—I hear what shereallysays.

She pictured someone better. Someone prettier. Someone worthy of being left for. Which I, evidently, am not. I’m not a threat to her, is what she’s oh-so-discreetly making clear. I don’t compare.

And maybe that sentiment would sting, if I didn’t already think it.

I resist the urge to fidget. To fix the wisps of hair escaping two hastily-done French braids, to smooth out the wrinkled skirt of my dress, to fret over the evidence of a week’s worth of shitty sleep marring my undereyes. I try so freaking hard to keep the comparisons at bay—who cares if I look like an unkempt child next to a sleek, pristine supermodel?

And even though I know Cheryl isn’t here for a seasonal bouquet, I treat her like a customer anyways. “Can I help you with something?”

Cheryl laughs, but it’s not a joyous noise. “Oh, I bet helovesthat. The sweet, polite thing. He’s always been a stickler for manners. Although…” She leans across the counter, something sickeningly conspiratorial about the quirk of her mouth. “Cheating on your wife isn’t very mannerly, right?”

As I swallow down bile, I try to remember what Lux said—that it’s complicated. That Hunter didn’t cheat because they’re separated. That I didn’t do anything wrong. I try, and I can even hear my friend’s voice in my head, but I still sound guilty. “I didn’t know.”

Cheryl cocks her head. “That he was married? I figured, sweetie. Poor thing, you looked sick to your stomach.”

And God, doesn’t she sound delighted about that?

Everything about her screams she’s enjoying this, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s real. If that sneer is genuine or manufactured, if it’s hurt and embarrassment stapled together to create something more palatable. Or maybe she really is getting a kick out of making me sweat; honestly, I’m not sure I can blame her.

The diamond on her finger winks in the light, as mocking as her tone. “I’ll make this quick. I don’t have much time.”Her mouth curls, so wickedly self-satisfied. “I’m already late for dinner with my husband.”

She pauses, really making sure that admission hits home, before leaning in close enough for me to smell her minty-fresh breath. “You are nothing but a little payback. You’re his twenty-year-old bit of meaningless fun before he gets over himself and comes home tome. And even if you weren’t,” she laughs as though the concept is unfathomable to her, “he’s not capable of lovin’, honey. Not the way a sweet little thing like you wants to be loved. I spent years beggin’ for it, and I never got it. You think you’re better? You think he'd leave his wife for you?”

A haughty giggles confirms whatshethinks, and I hate it. The dismissal, and how much I let it rattle me, how much I rise to the taunt, how I mutter, “I think he already has,” before my brain can catch up to my mouth.

I surprise her, I can tell. For a second, that silver of humanity returns in the form of a flinch, and my gut roils as guilt-fuelled nausea slams into me, my tongue itching with the need to apologize.

I don’t get the chance, though. Cheryl recovers quickly, snickering and rolling her eyes and slicing that freaking ring-adorned hand through the air dismissively. I wonder if it’s a tactic, how she starts towards the door mid-sentence, if she’s reminding me that she’s late—and what she’s late for—or if she’s trying to convey how little this conversation means to her, that she can’t even be bothered to grant me her full attention.

Or if she’s trying to hide. If she’s trying to convince herself as much as me when she says, “He’s just tryna teach me a lesson. It took him six months to file. Does that sound like a man desperate to be single?”

Six months.Six months.A sickeningly short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, in the face of a five-year long relationship, yet twice as long as I’ve known Hunter.

That thought alone is enough to make me sick, it’senough, yet the sharp, biting words don’t stop. “He has a home. He has a life. And it’s not here.”

Wrenching open the door, Cheryl delivers one final blow before stepping out into the street and leaving me with her voice ringing in my ears. “He has a love, and it’s not you.”

Thigh chafe.

An inevitably sunburned forehead.

Yapping dogs I’m really starting to wish I left at the ranch, the ache in my shoulders as I haul a pack almost as heavy as me along a path definitely too advanced for me, and the sunset I’m trying to outrun.

All of the above are things I have the right to be mad about. It’s okay to be so freaking pissed I want to scream at the quickly fading sun. It’s perfectly reasonable that those minor irritations are making my skin itch and my eyes water and my brain vibrate inside my skull.

A wife telling me to stay away from her husband is not on that list.

Yet, out of everything, that’s what fuels my aggressive stomps through the wilderness the most. That’s what sent me to said wilderness in the first place. What prompted the need for a break, for a chance to be truly alone and to think clearly, and to… well, to run away, if I’m being honest.

Taking to a trail was a rash decision. And inevitably, an incredibly fruitless one—turning back before I even reached my ambitiously chosen campsite has only made me feel worse. And now, I’m at least a half hour from the parking lot and it’s getting dark—because did I mention this was incredibly spur of themoment so I didn’t start hiking until way later in the day than I should’ve?—and the summer heat is unbearable and…

And Cheryl is here. She’sstillhere. I don’t know why I assumed I wouldn’t see again, that this would be as easy as a one-off surprise appearance. Until she sashayed into my store, I didn’t realize how badly I hoped it would be. How much I need her to be gone. How much her not being in the picture, in my line of freaking sight, softens me. Makes me susceptible to flowers and sweet, sincere words that taste sour now when I mentally repeat them becauseCheryl is still here.

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