09 | Precipice

JEN NEVER ENVISIONED that this was where she would be on her twenty-fifth birthday, but she was unexpectedly content to be at St. Catherine's. Now that she was plenty settled into the job, she found it not to be too taxing. It wasn't relaxing, per se, but it was rhythmic. Methodical. She barely had to see Nora and enjoyed Jude's company when they had long enough gaps in their schedules to go say hi to one another. And, of course, she had grown quite fond of Robert.

Maybe a little too fond, if she were being honest. She convinced herself that their kind-of-holding-hands-but-not-really-fiasco was slipping further towards the edges of her mind and out of her consciousness. The truth was that her heart still fluttered more than she'd like it to each time she saw him, but she was determined not to dwell on it. After all, it had been two and a half weeks now since their visit to the museum and he had yet to say a word about whatever had transpired between them.

She just prayed she could finally drop it and move on, too. He was right not to try to bring it up—if he did, what could he possibly say to her? They were colleagues. They could both end up in massive trouble if anything one of them said to the other was construed as inappropriate. Yet each time she read one of his letters, no matter how innocuous, Jen couldn't help but feel like they were inching dangerously close to a line that they shouldn't risk crossing.

Perhaps she would drown her confusing emotions in wine and sweets this weekend. If she just held out another three days until Saturday, Valentine's would be over and all the leftover chocolate would go on sale. If she really wanted to splurge, maybe she'd go to Judson's and find a new book to keep her company. Or stay in bed all day. Neither sounded like a terrible idea.

Her thoughts were scattered all over the place as she shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the back of her chair, but her face broke into a smile when she spotted a small pastry bag with an attached sticky note sitting on her desk. She recognized the bag as being from Spill the Beans and when she peeked inside, Jen saw that it was a lemon tart, one of her favorite treats. The note read:

Congrats on being old!

- Jude

Of course he wouldn't have forgotten about her. She grinned and made a mental reminder to make fun of him for this later—if she was old, then he was elderly. He was already thirty-one himself and Celie, being a year older than Jen, would be none too pleased to hear that he had indirectly insulted all three of them.

Teachers were constantly coming through the front doors to hurry to their classrooms before the students arrived, but she snuck a bite of the pastry when no one else seemed to be paying her any attention. It didn't disappoint—it was still perfectly chilled and the smooth lemon filling mingled flawlessly with the powdered sugar and soft crust. It was definitely worth the risk of messing up her lipstick, though she did pull her compact mirror out of her purse afterward to make sure she hadn't gotten any powdered sugar on her face.

The gift on her desk wasn't the only oddity of the morning. Robert still hadn't made an appearance, but she presumed he was simply running late. Considering that she was the one responsible for calling in substitute teachers, she would have heard from him by now if he was going to be out sick.

Sure enough, he came rushing through the doors at the very last second – only a minute before the students were due to arrive. He didn't have time to acknowledge her, which was a shame, but Jen took a bit of amusement in seeing how flustered he looked at his own tardiness. His overall appearance was a bit rumpled and made her wonder if he'd overslept.

Had he come over to talk, she might have been nice enough to give him a small piece of her lemon tart, but she was by no means upset about getting to have it all to herself. She did, however, giggle a little bit at the thought of sending him to class with powdered sugar on his lips.

Ah, well. Not all dreams could become a reality.

It was the first weekday in over a month that she wasn't going to get a letter from Robert. She hoped he hadn't written anything terribly important for her today—she was scheduled to meet Celie and Jude at Spill the Beans right after work, so she didn't have time to wait around for him.

It was a short walk from St. Catherine's to the coffee shop, but she noticed that the weather had turned out pleasant this afternoon. It was just warm enough that she was no longer shivering beneath her jacket and when she glanced up at the sky, she saw that it was patterned with fluffy cotton candy clouds. Jen enjoyed this rare type of day when it felt like one season was slowly melting into another, when you felt like you were standing on the edge of something new. Though true winter was very likely to return tomorrow, she was grateful that this random weather fluke happened to occur on her birthday.

Celie and Jude were already waiting for her when she arrived at Spill the Beans. She wasn't precisely sure how he managed to beat her there when they had the exact same work hours, but she was smiling as she fluttered over to their usual table to join them. Placed in front of the empty seat were a chocolate croissant and a latte made in the largest mug Celie had on hand.

"Thanks, guys," she said as Jude pulled something out from under the table.

She barely had time to process that what he had just grabbed was a paper birthday hat before he was shoving it on her head and carefully tucking the strap under her chin. She glared at him.

He innocently smiled back. "Be glad I didn't make you wear this at work."

Rather than come up with a retort, Jen cleared her throat and turned to Celie. "Your brother thinks we're old."

"I didn't say that!"

"Actually–" She reached into her purse to grab the sticky note that she had carefully tucked into one of the zipper pockets, smirking as she set it on the table for Celie to read. "–You did."

Jude made no further comment, pressing his lips together and keeping them there like they were glued shut.

Celie, meanwhile, rolled her eyes like she wasn't surprised with him. "For someone who reads a ton of books as part of their job, you're not very charming in writing," she observed.

Jen grinned, but the smile didn't last for long. She felt a little bit of the color drain from her face as Celie propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hands, and asked, "How is mystery co-worker man that you won't tell me anything else about?"

Now it was Jen's turn to keep her mouth zipped shut, but Jude butted in. "Mystery man? So it is Caruso, then."

She whirled on him. "What makes you say that?" she asked as nonchalantly as she could, but her defensiveness had most likely already given her away.

"You literally asked me about him, Jen," he pointed out. "It wasn't the most subtle. And don't get me started on whatever those letters are that I see you two sneaking to each other-"

"Letters?" Celie's voice jumped up an octave.

Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush. Tension crept up into Jen's shoulders—she didn't realize they'd been that conspicuous. She crossed her arms. "They're not letters. They're just...paperwork."

Oh, why did she have to be such a terrible liar?

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you smile at all your paperwork?"

"Have you always been this annoying?" she huffed. "I don't appreciate being attacked like this on my birthday."

Jude dismissed the matter with the wave of a hand. "Fine, fine-"

"But we're finishing this another time," Celie insisted.

"We are not."

Jen grabbed her mug and took a long sip of her latte to peel a little bit of their attention off of her, which seemed to work—it wasn't like they were just going to awkwardly stare at her in silence while her mouth was full of coffee. The siblings immediately started chattering about something else, but as she set the mug down and started to nibble at her croissant, her mind drifted back to Jude's warning to her.

You should go make friends if you want to, just be careful what you do in front of them outside of work.

Her fingers, imprinted with the memory of his delicately brushing against them, curled back around the handle of the mug.

Oops.

Nothing bad had happened yet – on the contrary, she was having a lovely birthday so far – but by the time Jen got home after their coffee rendezvous, a seed of dread had burrowed itself deep into her core.

Dad would call at some point. He would. He was just busy. She needed to be patient. But she couldn't stop herself from worrying. She had already accepted the fact that Mom would probably forget – she still wasn't great at remembering dates of any sort and Dad wouldn't be able to remind her while he was at work – but surely he would call at some point, right?

She tried to ignore the discomfort by busying herself with menial tasks. The first thing she did as soon as she came through the front door and tugged off her boots was go straight to her bedroom to throw on a more comfortable set of clothes. Then she put up the clean dishes and tidied up the living room, never straying too far from the phone.

She found herself simply staring at it.

Maybe he was just really, really busy. It was still early.

Jen shook her head in disapproval at her own anxiety—why get worked up over a fear before it could even come to fruition? All she was achieving was making her own birthday worse for herself. She trudged over to the bookshelf to pick out something to read, something that would hopefully make her forget about her woes. After some internal debate with herself, she grabbed The Fellowship of the Ring. Though it wasn't one of her absolute favorites, fantasy books were good at capturing all of her attention. She'd get very lost very quickly if she wasn't reading closely.

Unfortunately, once she plopped back onto the couch and opened up to the first page, she found that it was having quite the opposite effect than she intended. Because her brain didn't want to lock itself on the novel entirely, her eyes kept glazing over entire pages without processing any of it. After much frustration, she set the book aside and nervously walked over to the phone.

Her fingers hesitated on the cold plastic while her eyes darted over to the clock. It said it was 6:00. Surely he'd be wrapping up at work by now.

She dialed the hardware store's number.

Her father answered after two rings. "Hi, Jennifer."

That was all he had to say? A lump formed in the base of her throat.

"Hi..." she said quietly. "Is everything good there?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Even though she was alone in her apartment, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She shouldn't have called him. She was just making a fool of herself.

"No...no reason," she tripped over her words but tried to recover from it and speak up more clearly. "Are you having an okay day at work?"

"Yeah, just the usual," he said nonchalantly. Obliviously. Her heart sank further with each word that came out of his mouth. "How about you?"

He'd forgotten. He'd actually forgotten.

"Yeah," she echoed. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, but perhaps he wouldn't notice through the phone. "The usual."

"Are you okay?" he asked her, finally sounding concerned.

But how was a daughter supposed to point out to a father that he'd forgotten about his own child's birthday? It was his job to remember. For Mom's sake, if not for his own.

She couldn't cry. She hated crying to him. She'd done it so many times already, to the point where it exhausted both of them. To the point where he started getting impatient. It didn't take a computer science degree for her to figure out that he thought she was weak, so she wasn't going to keep failing in front of him.

Maybe he would eventually remember and they could laugh this off someday in the near future. But Jen could feel the tears welling up in the back of her eyes, on the verge of blurring her vision, and knew that she needed to get off the phone with him.

"Of course," she lied meekly. "I'm just tired. I, um, I should go. Love you."

Her mind didn't process that she'd hung up the phone and fled back to the sofa, but suddenly she was there, sinking down against the old cushions and curling against one of the throw pillows so that she could tuck her face into it and cry. Her body wanted to release its emotions in the form of sobs, but she resisted, and her muscles tensed as she tried to hold it all back. That she was trying so hard to hold back her tears made her feel even sillier than she already did—who was she hiding from? Herself? But even while alone, she couldn't break free from that piece of her mind that thought that it wasn't okay to cry.

It wasn't like she had been totally forgotten. Jude and Celie celebrated with her. But Dad had never forgotten before, not even the year of the accident. Not when their little corner of the universe was in total ruin. And it had only been a week and a half since she saw him—had she really drifted out of his thoughts so rapidly?

Jen felt each tear that carved its path down her cheek and she couldn't stop them, but she bit down hard on her lower lip to crush the sound that wanted to come out of her lungs. It resulted in a series of awkward squeaks and sniffles coming out of her instead, but anything was better than sobbing.

She couldn't break entirely. She didn't know how many times she could pick herself back up.

She was unsure of how long she stayed there, though she sensed that it likely felt longer than it truly was. Even once her eyes were bled dry, she didn't lift her face from the pillow. She stared numbly into the dark, wondering if a day would ever come when she felt fully at peace. She didn't remember what that felt like anymore.

It was a sudden knock on the door that finally jolted her out of that state. She started at the sound, darting up faster than she even realized was possible. Then frowned. Had Celie come? She hadn't mentioned wanting to go out tonight – after all, it wasn't the weekend yet – but it wouldn't be out of character for her to pull a surprise, either. Jen rubbed her eyes as she padded over to the door and then opened it enough to poke her head out.

Her heart came to an abrupt halt. It wasn't Celie. It was Robert. In his hands was a folded piece of paper.

"Robert?" she hiccuped.

His lips parted in surprise when he saw her. Oh no. A flash of heat flamed up in her already-pink cheeks as she realized that she probably somewhat resembled a dying animal. Even putting the present state of her face aside, she wouldn't have been a sight for sore eyes. Pieces of hair were falling out of the ponytail she'd thrown her hair up into when she got home. Her thrift store jeans didn't fit her quite right and the loose, short-sleeved button-down that she was fairly certain came from the men's section had an old coffee stain near the hem. It was less mortifying than answering the door in pajamas, but not by much.

He seemed to recover from the shock of seeing her in such a state, though his fingers were nervously fiddling with the paper. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head, attempting to shove down her humiliation. "It's nothing. I, um, I wasn't expecting you."

As if he already couldn't tell that much.

"I just-" She could see his Adam's apple move as he swallowed and tentatively held out the letter. "I didn't get the chance to give this to you this morning."

The paper was heavier in her hands than usual and as her fingers carefully glided along its surface, she could feel that it had a slightly different texture to it. He must have used some nicer cardstock or something. In other circumstances, the gesture would have made her blush again, but there were a million other thoughts running through her mind at the present moment.

The smile that she gave him as a weak one, but it was genuine. Her heart finally began to warm back up, the pressure in her chest easing. "It was sweet of you to bring this to me."

He smiled as if relieved that she wasn't angry with him for interrupting her crying session, but there was still something slightly shy about the way he looked at her. "I know I'm quite late, but it felt wrong not to properly wish you a happy birthday."

Her throat tightened. She had never expected him to remember—she'd barely mentioned it in passing in a conversation about Valentine's Day. But he did. He remembered her. And he cared enough to come tell her. She nearly rushed forward to hug him, but she caught herself.

He started again when she said nothing. "I didn't mean to intrude-"

"No, no," she blurted. "You're not intruding."

He was doing anything but that. She brushed a frizzy strand of hair back behind her ear, once again made hyper-aware of how she looked. "I'm sorry I'm a mess right now, this...isn't how I would have preferred for you to see me."

The corner of his mouth tugged upwards into the hint of a smile that was just as soft as his voice. "I don't mind."

She let out a gentle breath. "Thanks."

A peaceful silence lingered between them for a moment, and he ended it before it could breach the realm of awkwardness. "Any other birthday plans?"

She shook her head.

"Would you..." He faltered uncharacteristically for a second like he wasn't making sure he actually wanted to say whatever was about to come out of his mouth. "Do you want to go grab dinner or something? I find that food usually makes me feel better."

He said it lightly and it made her laugh, but as the sound dissipated back into silence, she realized that he was dressed even nicer than he would be at work. As if dinner wasn't an afterthought but rather something he came here with the intent of asking her to.

Jen's mouth was suddenly dry, her heartbeat marching faster than it had been a moment ago. She considered shooting him down in a panic. She could lie and say that she had errands to run early tomorrow morning or was too tired from all this crying that she had obviously done. It was a bad time—she couldn't just go out looking like this.

But why not go with him. She was looking at a man who made her happy, who understood her mind in ways that surprised her, in ways that no one else seemed able to. Someone who made her laugh and smile, who thought she was intelligent, who never belittled her, who placed her opinions as highly as his own. Conversation with him came easily, naturally. If she allowed him to take her to dinner, she would surely have a wonderful time.

And there was something else, too. She found his eyes, ever hopeful as he awaited her answer, and felt her breath catch in her throat. She'd noticed them before, of course, but that didn't stop her from appreciating them again. They were a particular shade of brown that she wasn't sure she'd seen before, one that gave them the appearance of always being dipped in the honeyed glow of golden hour. And she thought about his hair, how she liked that his curls could never be kept entirely tidy, how it made her want to reach up and run a hand through it. How it looked pure black until it hit the light and she realized that there were endless rich tones underneath. The colors were so lovely against his skin – not as fair as hers but sun-kissed from years spent outside on the Mediterranean coast. She had never paid attention to the exact curve of his lips or the smooth shape of his jaw, but now, for some inexplicable reason, she suddenly did. It all made her heart stumble in her chest.

For the first time, it occurred to her that she found him to be a bit beautiful.

And she couldn't help but remember the sensation of his hand touching hers, the way his finger had felt as hers hesitantly trailed along it. About her wrapped up in his arms, about that imaginary version of things in which she'd stood on tiptoe and wrapped his arms around his neck and they'd gotten to feel so alive–

Jen swallowed. "Dinner sounds great."

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A/N:

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