Macy:It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.
Callie:Excuse me while I go puke.
Throwing my phone down, I fell back into bed and flung my arm over my forehead. He was too good to be true. The handsome, selfless, stranger who was interested in a roly-poly nobody like me. I wanted him to be different so desperately, and now he’d ended up being just like all the other douches out there. Worse, actually. He’d assaulted a woman.
Puke, puke, puke.
I was really regretting finding him in the first place. Why couldn’t I have listened to my gut instead of my heart? Why couldn’t I have just let it go? Now it was like the universe was playing some trick on me. My shop burns down, my rescuer turns out to be a domestic violence offender and… Bad shit always came in threes, so the trifecta was going to be a doozy. A real fucking doozy. Just you wait.
Later that night, my phone pinged with a notification. It was a message from Mark that read,We need to talk.
No, no we didn’t. He’d lied to me. Big time.
He didn’t get to talk to me at all. Ever again.
The insidesof my eyelids felt like sandpaper. Every time I blinked, I shaved a layer from the exterior of my eyeballs. I would probably be blind soon. Technically, I already was.
I’d ignored all the warning signs, even the ones Mark had given me himself, and just fell into bed with him the first chance I got. He’d saved my life, but that didn’t mean a single thing compared with what he’d done to that woman. One act of heroism didn’t negate violence against women. I’d been duped, and fuck, it stung like hell.
The front door to my shop was unlocked when I arrived. It was right on five p.m., so I’d caught one of the builders before they had gone home for the evening.
“Hi, Callie.” Seeing it was Ray, the head honcho, I smiled.
“I’ve just come to clear out the stock in the back,” I explained. “Some of it should be salvageable.”
“We’ve got a skip bin in the alley, so feel free to use it,” he went on. “They’re coming to collect it in the morning.” Glancing around the shop, I saw they had been hard at work with the demolition of the charred and burned-out sections of the building. “Demo is almost done, and tomorrow, we’re starting on the rewiring and plastering.” He looked pleased with the progress.
“They weren’t kidding when they said things would start moving,” I murmured, picking my way around the drop sheets and tools the tradies had left when they had knocked off for the day.
“Another week and we should be all patched up, painted, and ready for the final install.”
It looked like The Fitzroy Cake Company would be ready to open in about a month’s time. It should’ve excited me, finally opening the doors to the public, but I didn’t feel like celebrating. I didn’t feel like anything in particular. It was all prettymeh.
Smiling halfheartedly, I thanked Ray and let him go home to his family for the night, then turned my attention to the stock room. The scene of the crime. The place where I’d first met Mark.
Trying not to think of it, I began pulling down boxes and containers from the shelving. Most of the cardboard boxes had smoke damage, but a great deal of the contents were salvageable. Some of the containers of sprinkles and decorations were melted from the heat, so they had to be thrown out, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I first thought.
Opening the back door, I was in throwing distance to the skip bin and delighted in the bang the boxes made as they landed among the rubble. Imagining it was Mark’s head, I threw another box.Bang.
“Callie.”
I froze, my hands shoved in a box of paper patty pans. My heart twisted at the sound of Mark’s voice. A little birdie sat on my shoulder and tweeted, ‘What took him so long?’
“Get out,” I snapped, not even looking up.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this…” he went on.
“You said you’d made mistakes, but I never thought your fist ‘mistaked’ right into a woman’s face,” I retorted. “No wonder you didn’t want to talk about yourself.” I snorted.
“I’m so tired of trying to defend myself,” he said. “Nobody wants to listen. They just want to point fingers and blame.”
“Then explain it to me,” I replied, turning to face him.
He stood just outside in the alley, practically shaking, his jaw tense…and didn’t say a fucking thing. It was a metaphoric slap in the face.
“Can’t explain the truth, huh?” I rolled my eyes.
“I knew this was going to happen,” he said, his eyes darkening. “No one else heard you calling for help. What was I supposed to do? Keep on walking? I didn’t give my name because I knew this bullshit would come out and it would hurt you, but you just wouldn’t let it go.”