Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions novel Chapter 50

Chapter 50

There’s suddenly a weird tension in the air. It’s as if the world is holding its breath, and somebody out there has forgotten to send me the circular explaining why that might be.

The bell above the bookstore door chimes as a teenager hastily rushes out, and half–apologizes for bumping the corner display on her way. I don’t even react. Usually, I’d make a quip about knocking over a stack of poetry being punishable by death, but my mind’s…fuzzy.

It’s distracted and restless.

I’m halfway through reorganizing the front table–again–when I pause with my one hand on a book I’ve already moved twice in the last hour. I frown, glancing toward the windows at the front of the store. I don’t know what I expect to see. A storm cloud, maybe? A flaming meteor from the heavens? A great cosmic sign that whatever is off will reveal itself?

Instead, there’s just sunlight, cutting golden rays across the wooden floors, and the soft hum of our in–store playlist. Outside, a few cars idle at the stoplight, a dog trots by with its owner, and someone drops change into the tip jar at the outdoor café across the street.

Totally normal. Totally fine.

But something still it

itches between my shoulder blades, like someone’s eyes were on me. Like something or someone was here, and I missed it.

“Gemma,” I say without looking away from the window, “do you feel that?”

From behind the front counter, she hums. “Feel what? My joints acting up? Because yes. It’s going to rain by Thursday.”

I shake my head slowly, before distractedly saying, “No, it’s… Never mind, it’s probably nothing.”

But it isn’t nothing.

It’s this deep thrum under my skin, as if someone walked over where my name is buried and paused just long enough for my soul to stir. I cross my arms and stare harder at the street, searching for…what? I honestly don’t even know. A figure in a black coat? A shadow I imagined?

But there’s nothing–just sunlight and ordinary life passing the shop windows by as usual,

I try to shake it off by going back to alphabetizing and back to pretending I’m not unraveling from the inside out over someone who’s probably already forgotten about me.

But when I glance at the door again–just once more, just in case–I swear Lhear something whisper ‘walt‘

And I don’t know what I’m waiting for, only that something in me already is.

By late afternoon, the sky outside the bookstore shifts from pale blue to sullen gray, which looks like it’s contemplating crying but hasn’t quite committed to the act yet.

Same, sky. Fucking same..

The store is quiet, Gemma’s already left for the day, and I’m pretending not to notice how dead–it feels in here without her humming along to whatever playlist she deemed emotionally relevant today. It’s just me and the books now–the silent, judging, and far–too–relatable books that I stubbornly avoid making eye contact with. I swear one of the poetry collections just whispered, “You miss him, don’t you?”

I tell the poetry section to shut the fuck up.

I pace behind the counter, rearrange bookmarks that were already perfectly lined up, and stare at the clock like I can will it to move faster. Or slower. Honestly, I don’t know what I went right now, except maybe to crawl inside a hoodie three sizes too big and scream into the vald like a woman who hasn’t slept in days and most definitely hasn’t Googled someone just to hear their valce in a re–recorded TED Talk. Shut up, you don’t

get to judge me.

At some point, I find myself in the back room staring blankly at my wall calendar, as if one of the dates might jump out and say, “This is the day he calls. Circle me in red marker, girl. You got this.”

Spoiler alert: It

1/2

What if he changed his mind? What if the kiss was just something that happened in the moment? What if a built the whole thing up in my head, and he’s sitting in some ridiculous marble fortress right now, drinking liquid gold from a crystal tumbler and brooding over stock portfolios? While, at the same time, classical music swells in the background and he’s laughling alund the cumtionally constipated bookstore owner he slummed it with for a weekend?

n exist.

I head home, tossing my keys in the dish by the door and immediately regret bring alone. The silence in my house is starting to take on sentient properties. I half expect it to ask me how my day was or, worse…Why I keep checking the curb in front of my house like an idiot?

I pour myself a glass of wine, then another, and then switch to whiskey that I find in the far back of my pantry cupboard, because I’m emotionally spiraling with a hint of class.

Dinner? A packet of microwave butter–lover’s pop and half a bag of peanut M&Ms. Again,

settle onto the couch, flick through every streaming service known to man, and settle on a crime documentary because if I can’t feel loved, at least I can feel rage on behalf of someone whose sketchy husband murdered her for the hefty life insurance.

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