Melodies of the Heart

Chapter 22

Kassidy

The humidity that had been unbearable at the start of July was finally giving way to a dry heat as August approached. Kassidy pulled her long hair up on the top of her head to keep her neck cool during work and just as she secured it with a bobby pin, her phone blipped on the counter.

It was Levi, texting her again. He was in Seattle, and just wanted to check to see how she was doing.

Kassidy's fingers hovered over the touch screen of her phone, but she couldn't bring herself to reply. It wasn't often that she replied to his texts, and they had gone from five or six a day to only one, and even then she wasn't sure how long that would last. She rarely replied to him, it hurt too much to send much more than one word answers, and surely he'd give up on her soon enough.

A second text, the first time he'd texted her more than once in a day for nearly a month, came through while she was still debating her answer.

"I just want to make sure you're okay," the message read.

"I'm fine," Kassidy replied before she turned her phone off. She was fine, at least, she was usually fine. Her heart still ached every day, but it was getting easier to manage the pain as time went on.

There were things that always brought the hurt back to the surface, though. Things like how every time she looked at the corner post of her bed where the blue helmet rested made her remember how it felt to race down the highway on the back of Levi's bike.

She hadn't wanted the helmet anymore, but she couldn't bring herself to sell it or give it away. Levi had left it on the bench outside the bakery before he'd left town and she'd held on to it for reasons she wasn't even sure of herself.

The cupcakes hurt too. Her sweetheart cupcakes that had made the bakery profitable again. They still sold well, and the summer tourists lined up almost every day for a taste of the treats. They'd appeared on Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post – both of which she was sure Levi had called for her – and they'd released five flavors in total with more on the way. The next one Kassidy's father was working on was a new coconut cream flavor, but he couldn't quite get them to break apart properly.

But every time she sold or made one, it scratched at the still raw hurt of her heart. Levi had inspired the treat, and when she watched people pull the hearts apart, it hit too close to home. Her heart was being pulled apart with each silly cupcake.

As much as she wanted to never see one of those cupcakes again, she couldn't stop selling them. They'd saved the bakery and though ShopMart had almost instantly started imitating them, they never got the flavors right and their versions were more likely to crumble in a customer's hands than they were to pull apart nicely.

So instead she faked a smile every day, insisted to her parents that she felt fine, and mostly ignored Levi's texts.

Mostly.

Some days she was weak and she would reply to him. Not with more than a word or two, but at least it was something. Despite how much he'd hurt her, she still loved him as much as before the paparazzi had found out where he was.

There were times where she would type out, "Maybe I could come visit you," when he would tell her where he was, but then she'd delete it and shut her phone off before she could make a stupid mistake. It would only reopen the hurt all over again if she saw him, and he'd made it clear he wanted her to live her life without him.