Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
The last customer leaves at 2:53, a woman with two teenage sons and a hard question about fiddle-leaf figs. She doesn’t look at me when I hand her the change, just scoops up her bag and nudges the boys ahead. As the bell above the door falls silent, I realize I’m shaking.
I take inventory of myself: Dress code on point (khaki shorts, black tee), hair mostly under control, no visible mascara streaks. I am, on paper, perfectly normal.
I tell myself to get it together.
I walk to the back, past the orchid rack and the row of prayer plants, to where Angela is hunched over a flat of seedlings with her clipboard. She doesn’t look up when I stop a few feet away, just clicks her pen, notes something, and then lets the pen fall behind her ear.
“Everything okay, Kayleigh?” she says without looking. Her voice is all warm Minnesota, that distinct up-tilt at the end of each sentence, but it carries a little static now.
I open my mouth to answer and close it again. For a second, my mind is a blank screen, just the blue screen of death. Then, as if by remote control, I say, “Um actually, yes. I need to leave the Fig Leaf. I mean, leave as in quit. I’m really sorry for the short notice.”
Angela looks up fast, her face freezing for a second, eyebrows arched. “Today? Now?” she says.
I nod. “I know it’s not fair. I should have given notice. I’m sorry. I just—” I let the sentence dangle, like maybe the rest of it will show up in the next breath.
Angela looks at me for a long second, then sets the clipboard on the counter, careful not to squash the seedlings. “Are you okay, Kayleigh?” she asks, and this time the up-tilt is gone. Just flat, serious concern. “Something seems off. You know that it’s common courtesy to give two weeks notice.”
I have rehearsed this in my head: Next step. Not a botanist. Time for something different. I say, “Yes, but something came up unexpectedly, I’m so sorry. I have to take a different position,” and then realize I didn’t say it right. “A new job, I mean. A private job. Like, a personal assistant, sort of?”
Angela’s eyebrows do a thing, one up and one down, and I realize how stupid it sounds. “For whom, may I ask?”
“My family, kind of. It’s—” My mouth dries out. Trevor said not to tell anyone, and even if he hadn’t, what could I say? That I’d been bought at auction and now work for my stepbrother as his live-in sex slave? That he locked me in a room with a handcuff and a list of chores and made clear that my existence depends on him alone? Even worse, that the idea of it doesn’t even really scare me, not in the way it should?
“It’s a long story,” I say, blushing wildly. I look at the counter, at the little baby leaves cupping up to the light, and wish I could disappear into thin air.
Angela is silent. Then, in a motion so fast I barely see it, she pulls the pen from behind her ear and sets it on the table. She says, “Kayleigh, you don’t owe me or The Fig Leaf anything. But if something’s wrong, you should tell me.”
The urge to confess is so strong my knees almost buckle. I want to tell her everything, even the parts that make no sense—about the auction, the handcuffs, the way Trevor touched me, the fact that I don’t know if I’m in love or in the middle of a mental breakdown. I want to say that I’m scared, but that I’m also happier than I was last week, which must mean I’m insane.
Instead, I say: “It’s not what you think.” Then, because my brain is still trying to sabotage me, I add: “I’m not in any danger or anything like that.”
Angela nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. She glances at my sleeve, which I’ve let slide back just enough to show the red mark on my wrist. Her eyes linger there, not with the coldness of someone taking inventory, but with the sharp, immediate attention of someone who’s seen this before.
“You know,” she says, softer now, “my husband works at Hennepin. In the ER. If you ever need help, you should call. Even if it’s in the middle of the night. I don’t mind.”
“Um thanks,” I say lamely. “But I swear, this isn’t what you think it is.”
Angela sighs heavily, and then pulls a business card from her apron and slides it across the counter to me. It has her number, both the store and her personal cell, in neat block print. She covers it with her hand for a second, then lifts her eyes to mine. “I’m serious, Kayleigh. People care about you. If you need a place to go, or someone to call, don’t be a stranger.”