“What about a less intensive pet?” Helena offered. “I thought about getting a turtle for a while.”
“I don’t know what sort of a pet would be okay with me leaving for a week at a time,” I commented. “The only house plants I can keep are cactuses,” I pointed out. They were good plants to keep when traveling a lot. Not to mention that cactuses, in general, were pretty low maintenance.
There weren’t, as far as I was aware, any pets that would be okay for you to leave for a week with no water or attention. “I guess, maybe a pet rock?” I joked.
Helena laughed. It struck me how much easier this conversation was than the one we’d had at Pat’s engagement party. I felt like I was actually getting to know Helena as a grown-up. Before, she had almost frozen in time in my head.
“You can get cat bowls that dispense them food on a daily basis while you’re away,” she informed me seriously. “And I have definitely met some cats who wouldn’t mind the lack of company.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how you make sure you get one of those cats, and not one of the ones that sits on you all the time.”
“To be honest, I think I’d probably want one of those cats that sits on you all the time,” I admitted with a small shrug. It was what appealed to me about having a dog, too. Just having someone to come home to, having someone to cuddle with on a long evening. But those weren’t things I was going to talk to Helena about!
They were the sort of thoughts best kept to myself. I didn’t think I was lonely, but after Becca, things had felt harder. Emptier, in a way. A pet could have improved that; it just didn’t feel like an option right now.
The line had finally reached the bakery. gave Helena a smile. “Thanks for keeping me company,” I commented. “It’s been... nice to catch up.” And it honestly had been. Even if it hadn’t been a deep and meaningful conversation, it just felt so easy. Things with Helena had always felt easy. Until they didn’t.
“Yeah,” Helena agreed, sounding almost like she only realized it was true as she was saying it. “It’s good to see you again, Sam.” Her smile was sweet, with a wistful edge that I wasn’t sure was really there. Maybe it was just my imagination.
Did I want Helena to be wistful?
There was no time to consider that before Helena had carried on. “And let me know if you think the bread was worth it, won’t you?”
“I don’t think my mom will let me think anything else,” I joked just before we bid our goodbyes so Helena could go order her bread and I could stand in line after her. Even just watching her go on about her life, the way she gave me one last smile before leaving? It felt a little intoxicating.
I had to get a grip. It was just nostalgia, I told myself. Helena had been such a big part of my life and then she hadn’t been. There was nowhere this could go that wasn’t going to end in tears.
Thinking that made things a little easier. And then I had delicious bread to distract me! As it turned out, mom and whoever gave bread awards were right - it was delicious. It didn’t even taste like missed opportunities and exes that made your heart beat a little harder.
Chapter Six
Helena
Seeing Sam in the line for bread had felt so different from seeing him at the party. It had hit me suddenly, just how nice it was to see Sam around Lunengrove, doing normal day-to-day things. After we’d broken up, his absence in my life had been mostly personal. I’d missed calling him after my lectures, chatting to him about his training.
It wasn’t until I moved home that I started to miss Sam as just another resident of the town. For as long as I’d lived here, I’d looked forward to catching a glimpse of Sam going about his routine. Even after we got together, when we could see each other any time we wanted, it still gave me a thrill to happen upon him by accident.
Apparently, that hadn’t changed. I’d been so taken with how right it felt to bump into Sam that way, I’d completely forgotten to ask him about Ethan.
“Are you sure you still want me as your maid of honor?” I asked Charlotte, a few days later. I was watching as two shop assistants helped her into her wedding dress.
“I mean, what if my mind has gone completely to mush? I might forget your ‘something old’, or turn up with the wrong shoes or anything!”
Charlotte laughed, wincing when it led one of the shop assistants to pull the corset tighter. “That’s why you’re not in charge of my shoes,” she teased. It was true, my responsibilities didn’t actually include bringing anything. I was to be there for Charlotte. That didn’t sound like a hard thing to do. Or well, it did right now, but I was very much escalating things in my head.
Glancing over her shoulder, Charlotte gave me a wink. “You’re going to be fine,” she informed me. “And I’m assuring you now so you can reassure me when I need it,” she added. “What’s brought this on, anyway? Is it that Levesque boy? I hear they’re trouble!”
I laughed, relieved that nobody was lacing me into a corset which would make it uncomfortable. “It might be,” I admitted. “Kate wants me to ask him if he’ll do something for Ethan’s hockey team. You know, because asking my ex-fiancé for favors is totally how I want to spend my precious free time.”
Charlotte gave me a tiny shrug. We both knew that, no matter
