Sisters: All Things Sweet [book three]

Chapter Two

Dedicated to @TimeyWimeyWriter because she's cool. Actually, she's not cool. She's freakin' awesome.

Chapter Two

There's a difference between planning something, and actually doing it. There's a difference between sitting at my desk, when I should've been working and dreaming about what could happen with boundless possibilities, and the moment just before you do it: when you realise that while you were dreaming and planning and pondering, you hadn't thought about whether you'd be brave enough to actually go through with it, whether you'd take that leap of faith, whether you'd set aside the risk and say yes.

Michele and I are almost at that point of no return. I sit back in my seat. My fingers inside the bandage clench together while my right hand sits open-palmed on the table, slick with sweat. There's still time left. There's nothing stopping me from opening my mouth and speaking up and everything will stop. Michele and I will go home right now and I'll crawl underneath my covers and forget about this endeavour, forget that I had ever thought about owning a cake shop. I could take a gap year and travel around the world, then settle into university and do what every young adult seems to do these days.

That would be the easy option. It would be all too easy for me to do that. And I know that if I were to do that, I would wake up the next morning and ask myself why I hadn't taken that leap of faith; why had I let myself cower away from something that would make me the happiest person in the world.

The realtor sits on the other side of the booth and her hand scrawls across the page in an extravagant signature. I glance at Michele and I catch her eye. Her expression is that of a thousand emotions, invoking the same questions that are whirring through my mind. I know she's thinking about stepping down; I know she's thinking that it would be easier to just call it a pipe dream and go home; and I know she's thinking about Dad.

The realtor twists the paper and hands Michele the pen. There's a moment where Michele's pauses, pen in hand, the nib not quite touching the paper. She looks at me. "Are we really going to do this?"

"Do you want to do this?" I say.

"More than anything."

I nod, and Michele outlines her signature.  She slides the papers in front of me. There's a second where our fingertips brush passed each other's as she hands over the pen. It's metal; cold to touch. My gaze falls over my surroundings and I think back to the hours I spent in the kitchen, serving customers and how many hours I spent out the back with Zac, baking cakes.

Do I want to do this too?

An adrenaline rushes through me and a red flush heats my cheeks. Of course I want to do this.

My hand shakes as I write my signature. The letters wobble; they don't quite flow. I compare it to Michele's, and I suddenly see the five year difference between us. I know I'm not a child but I still feel like one. I don't feel old enough to be making decisions like this. Yet I can. And I know I can because there's nothing stopping me from signing my name and becoming the co-owner of All Things Sweet.

And nothing does. I finish signing my name and rest the pen on the table.

This is it. And so it begins.

* *

In the following weeks, there's a cycle that follows.

It always begins with me staying up ridiculously late, not out of choice, but due to the lie-in that proceeded that morning. I stay up on my phone or on my laptop, then in the early hours of the morning I fall into a deep slumber which doesn't end until mid-afternoon to the sound of my cell phone ringing and Esmee parroting all the things we should be doing. Because it's summer. Because we're now graduated. Because the world's our oyster, apparently.