CHLOE BAKER'S LOST DATE

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Dark Night of the Soul

There's this thing in movies called the dark night of the soul. Once you know about it, you always recognize it. It's that moment when all seems lost in the protagonist's life. When they hit rock bottom and can't see a way out. Everything they've tried to do has failed. Every path they want to take is blocked. But in the morning, there's a glimmer of light. Something shifts, and they realize something that they haven't thought of before. They claw their way back and before you know it they're tackling that obstacle, or solving that crime, or finding that love that was elusive until then.

That's how life works in the movies.

But my life?

It's the morning now. I barely slept last night. I couldn't get the image of Ben's broken face out of my head. I couldn't help wondering if this was another one of the stupid decisions I was making in my life. The BookBox is just a job. I can get another. I can move to some other town or back to Cincinnati. I still have friends there. But if I do that, then I won't have Ben.

Ben.

I've only known his name for a couple of months, but it feels like it will be imprinted in my life forever.

Am I in love with him?

That's what Anne realized in Anne of the Island in her dark night of the soul after she learned that Gilbert was dying. That she loved him, that she'd loved him the whole time. But there I go again—looking to books to solve my very real problems.

Because it doesn't matter if I'm in love with him.

That doesn't change the reason I broke things off.

What I said was true. I can't trust myself around him. I can't trust that what I'm feeling is real or right or the best thing for me. And how are you supposed to build a relationship if you can't have that?

How are you supposed to build a life?

My phone beeps on the nightstand. I check it, half-hoping it's Ben even though I told him not to contact me. I'm surprised by the time. It's after ten. I haven't slept this late in a while, but I guess I have nowhere to go and I still feel exhausted.

It's a text from Jameela. Only we've never texted before so that's how her text starts. This is Jameela. Are you okay?

I'm okay, I write.

I can't believe they put you on suspension.

Before I can answer there's another text that appears and I realize it's a group thread. The other person is another number I don't recognize.

There are a couple of old ladies who work in fulfillment who nearly had a heart attack after they read your list.

Addison? I ask.

Of course.

So Jameela and Addison truly have made up. That's something. I picture them, sitting at their desks in the triangle with my empty one, messaging me on their phones. I guess they couldn't call me in case Tabitha heard.

I can't believe this is happening, I write, partly to them and partly to myself.

It'll blow over, Addison says.

No, I think I'm getting fired. Tabitha wants to fire me.

But sales have gone up month over month since you've been here, Jameela writes.

And that thing you did with that campaign made that book a New York Times Bestseller, Addison adds.

Yeah. Doesn't seem to matter.