Chapter 6 Breaking Point
The hours between the phone call and two p.m. felt like drowning in slow motion.
Ariella tried to work. She measured flour three times and got three different amounts. She forgot to set the timer on a batch of scones and they burned…actually burned, black around the edges, smoke curling up from the oven. She hadn’t burned anything in five years.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Sit down,” her mother said finally, taking the oven mitts from her. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I can’t sit. If I sit, I’ll think, and if I think…” Ariella’s voice cracked.
“Then think. Maybe thinking is exactly what you need to do.”
But thinking meant facing the impossible choice, admitting that a stranger had offered to save them and the price was her. Three months of her life. Three months of pretending, performing, being someone she wasn’t.
Three months of being owned.
She sat down anyway, because her legs felt like water.
“Tell me about him,” her mother said quietly, sitting across from her at the flour-dusted prep table. “This boy. Aiden.”
Ariella thought about his stormy gray eyes, about the 3 a.m. texts that felt like someone reaching across an impossible distance.
“I don’t know him,” she said.
“But you’ve met him.”
“Twice. For like five minutes total.”
“And?”
“And he seems…” Ariella searched for the right word. “Trapped. Like he’s been drowning even longer than we have.”
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “You feel sorry for him.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Is that stupid?”
“No, baby. That’s who you are. You see people hurting and you want to fix them.” Claire reached across the table, took Ariella’s flour-covered hands in hers. “But you can’t fix everything. And you can’t save everyone by destroying yourself.”
“What if I’m not destroying myself? What if I’m just… choosing?”
“Choosing what? To marry a stranger? To lie to everyone? To spend three months pretending to be someone you’re not?” Her mother’s voice was gentle but firm. “That’s not a choice, honey. That’s a sacrifice. And I don’t want you to sacrifice anything else.”
“But you sacrificed everything for us. You and Grandma, built this place. You raised us here. Every good memory I have is in this building.” Ariella’s throat was so tight that it began to hurt. “And I’m supposed to just let it go?
“If walking away means keeping you safe, then yes.”
“But I’m not safe anyway!” The words burst out. “We’re not safe. We’re drowning, Mom. We’ve been drowning for six months and pretending we’re not. And now someone’s throwing us a rope and you want me to just… refuse it?”
“ what if the rope is made of thorns?.”
“Maybe thorns are better than drowning.”
They stared at each other across the table. Two women who’d lost too much, trying to figure out how much more they could afford to lose.
Finally, Claire said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.
Ariella took a shaky breath. “I’m thinking that Ethan would hate this. He’d be so angry at me for even considering it.”
“Yes. He would.”
“But Ethan’s not here. And I am. And I have to make choices he doesn’t get to make anymore.” The tears came then, hot and desperate. “I have to live in a world where he’s gone and you’re falling apart and everything’s wrong and I don’t know how to fix it except this one thing. This one impossible, awful thing that might save us.”
Her mother started crying too.
“I keep thinking, what if this is my chance? What if this is how I make his death mean something? If I save the bakery, if I save you, then maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. Maybe I’m not just the sister who lived while he died.”
“That’s not…baby, that’s not how it works.”
“Then how does it work?” Ariella’s voice broke completely. “Because I don’t know. I don’t know how to live in a world where he’s dead and I’m alive and I can’t even save the one thing that matters.”
Her mother stood up, came around the table, and pulled Ariella into her arms. They stood there in the bakery kitchen the place where three generations of Hayes women had made bread and memories and cried for everything they’d lost.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Claire said finally, still holding Ariella tight. “And I need you to really hear me.”
“Okay.”
“You are not responsible for Ethan’s death. You didn’t kill him. A drunk driver killed him. A random, senseless accident killed him. Not you. Never you.”
“But I called him…”
“And he chose to come. Because he loves you. Because that’s what family does.” Her mother pulled back, holding Ariella’s face in both hands. “And if he could see you right now, destroying yourself because you think you owe him something, he would be furious. He would tell you to stop. He would tell you that you’re allowed to be alive. You’re allowed to choose yourself.”
“But what if choosing myself means losing you too?”
The question hung between them, heavy and terrible.
“Then we’ll figure it out,” Claire said. “Together. We’ll get second jobs. We’ll downsize. We’ll move somewhere cheaper. We’ll survive, Ari. We’ve survived worse.”
“Have we?”
Her mother’s face crumpled. “I know I haven’t been strong enough. I know I left you alone when you needed me most. But I’m trying now. I’m trying to be the mother you need. And what you need is someone who tells you that you’re worth more than a contract marriage to a billionaire’s son.”