Page 100 of Late Bloomer
“You aren’t the only one disappointed here!” Pepper yells, throwing up her hands. “I’m crushed too. So what’s the point of all this?” She looks around, as if our mess exists as splattered paint on the walls.
I’m backed into a corner, every insecurity oozing out of my pores, gripping me around the throat.
What’s the point.
Fair enough.
While my own pride is battered, under the blaze of Pepper’s hurt eyes, I realize how much worse the damage is that I’ve done to her. I crashed into Pepper’s life like a hurricane, disrupting her peace, pushing her limits, then failed her entirely.
I’m the reason for that frown on her face, responsible forthe lines of defeat around her eyes and mouth. I’ve let her down like everyone else in her life. If she couldn’t admit to liking me before, there’s no way she’ll ever like me now.
Any meaning, any purpose we had, just burned to ash in that dining room. What could either of us hope to rebuild from the soot?
“There is no point,” I say, meeting her eyes for half a second before losing my nerve and blinking away. “None at all.”
With my head still ducked and tears pricking my eyes, I shoulder past her, leaving yet another mess in my wake.
Chapter 35PEPPER
Opal and I haven’t talked in two days.
And I’m ever so slightly absolutely panicking about it.
Granted, I didn’t come close to saying anything even remotely helpful after we lost, but I’m a slow processor; swamped by emotions of my own and trying to understand the ones of others usually leaves me a tangled mess with my head up my ass. What I should have told Opal is that watching her talk about Sappho moved me to tears, that they’re wrong for not choosing our design, that I think she’s a winner no matter what.
But things derailed so quickly and viciously, I became defensive, Opal’s anger feeling personal. Like I hadn’t measured up to what she needed me for. Like I hadn’t played my role.
It took me back to every tongue-lashing from Trish, every screaming accusation that I’d messed up her plans, screwed upa con. Said the wrong thing, acted the wrong way, and caused her a headache of issues.
I know Opal is not Trish. I know she wasn’t using me, but Trish’s torture was so acutely personal over the years, it’s hard not to assume everyone has the same goal when their emotions run hot.
And I want to tell Opal this. I want to ask her what she was really feeling during our fight, if she’s mad at me. I want to apologize that my words hit below the belt, that I hurt her feelings as I navigated my own.
But the silence between us is so vast, growing and growing and, holy hell, growing some more. It’s become its own presence, a large blob of a being pressing into the room, squeezing through every crack and doorway and landing on my shoulders, wrapping around my throat so no words can come out.
Opal’s slept in her own bed ever since.
I’ve been trying to carry on with everything else like normal, back to my routine of rising with the sun, picking flowers and bundling them for others to use in amazing creations. But it feels so… empty. So hollow without Opal with me, her rosy cheeks and silly comments sharp little memories as I pluck and prune my garden.
I want so badly to make this right. I wish I knew where to start.
I’m not sure how she does it, but Opal always manages to be where I’m not, and I sigh as I watch her duck her head against the sharp, oppressive midday sun and trudge to theshed to work as I stand in the kitchen, washing my lunch dishes. She’s going to give herself heatstroke with how much time she’s spending in there, door shut tight.
I want to march across the grass and barge into that space. I want to grab her by the shoulders and hug her and shake her and beg her to tell me how to fix this, how to earn those belly laughs and gorgeous smiles of hers.
But I’m not a fighter. I’m not brave or bold or any of those things. I watch life happen around me, getting knocked around by its current, never planting myself firmly enough to push back. I pull the curtains closed against the window and hang my head in shame, tears streaking down my cheeks while my chest is sliced open.
The sensation is disorientingly familiar, and I realize it’s grief. Not the rough, calloused-over grief for Grandma Lou I’ve tucked deep in my chest, never looking at, growing around it until I’m, hopefully, one day big enough that I don’t notice its weight.
This grief is fresh and sharp and has teeth that rip me open with fresh wounds.
It’s a mourning for the bleak path ahead of me, this empty void where Opal so recently was. She’s right there, so close. But, somehow, I’ve never felt so alone.
Without giving my feet permission to move, I find myself wandering aimlessly through the bottom floor of the house. Stomach curdling, I stop in front of Grandma Lou’s bedroom door.
I haven’t been inside since she died. The suddenness of herdeath—passing peacefully in sleep—too painful, too real, to enter the space that was so entirely her. The preserved little bubble of her last day here. Her last day with me.
When she died and her body was taken away, Diksha went in for me. Made her bed. Opened the blinds like Lou loved in the morning. Grabbed her favorite outfit to be cremated in. Diksha looked for the will too, gathering any documents that seemed important for the management of the farm. There weren’t many. She wasn’t much of a record keeper, and her room was a designated haven free from work.
